[Fwd: [Debian-net-admin] autonet design]

[martin f krafft]

also sprach Thomas Hood <jdthood at gmail.com> [2007.06.06.1115 +0200]:
> Chris Hanson gave me permission to forward this message that he
> originally posted to the debian-net-admin mailing list.  // Thomas

Thanks, Thomas.

Chris, your ideas sound very interesting and are well
formulated/organised. Thanks for your input!

I am a Debian developer and (one of) the father(s) of the netconf
idea, which is a revamp of Debian's ifupdown:
http://netconf.alioth.debian.org. I am starting to code on Saturday
at Debcamp. You can see some of the ideas related to netconf on the
wiki as well as the design document linked from there.

What is autonet? Is it vapourware or already in use?

From what you write, it seems like we have more or less the same
ideas. Would you be interested in cooperation? I think your
expertise and experience with the mit.edu domain would be a great
benefit to my efforts of writing netconf, which I do intend to
eventually make Debian's primary network configuration management
system. Thus, you would benefit from such a cooperation as well.

A couple of comments follow:

> What makes the binding layer different from other such programs is
> that it operates by deduction rather than by prescription.  The
> binding layer's inputs are almost entirely comprised of network/host
> descriptions.  The inputs from the link layer filter and augment the
> network descriptions in the configuration.  When a particular network
> description is identified as the one an interface is connected to, the
> actions needed to configure the interface's IP layer can be derived
> from the network description.

… and the current state of the interface. This is *exactly* what
I had in mind. You are one step ahead of me.

> For example, here's a fragment of a configuration:
> 
>     <interface id="wired-interface" mac="00:09:6b:bf:40:57" type="ethernet">
>       <metric>0</metric>
>       <driver>e1000</driver>
>     </interface>

This may be among the only points where we differ: I don't really
want to use XML because it's cumbersome for the poor admin. We'll
see though, since I am aware of the benefits of XML.

> The binding layer is not yet written.  But there is a working design
> for the configuration language, of which the above is a sample.

Hm, but this sounds tempting. Could I have a look at this language?
It seems that it covers a little more than what I want to achieve
with netconf, as such things as interface naming and driver
selection are handled by udev in Debian now.

It would be an honour if we combined efforts. May I invite you to
join our mailing list?

  http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/netconf-devel

Alternatively, you may find me and soon others on
#netconf/irc.debian.org. I have requested membership on
your list, debian-net-admin.

-- 
 .''`.   martin f. krafft <madduck at debian.org>
: :'  :  proud Debian developer, author, administrator, and user
`. `'`   http://people.debian.org/~madduck - http://debiansystem.info
  `-  Debian - when you have better things to do than fixing systems
 
"women, when they are not in love,
 have all the cold blood of an experienced attorney."
                                                   -- honoré de balzac
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