[Server-devel] Understanding the network scripts on F7-based XS

[Jerry Vonau]

Martin Langhoff wrote:
> Our current network migration scripts are reportedly build on
> interfaces that are F7 specific. To reimplement them on F9, we need to
> understand what they do.
> 
> Jerry is knowledgeable in F9's networking and has offered help with
> the port. The first step is to understand what the current scripts do
> - separated from the how. So I will try to outline the design and
> behaviour of the current scripts.
> 
> The first point of entry is reading the whole "Networking" section in
> this page. All of it :-)
> http://wiki.laptop.org/go/XS_Configuration_Management#Networking
> 
Nice overview.

> It introduces
> 
>  - network_config
>  - principal_config
>  - auxiliary_config
> 
> These scripts deal with
> 
>  - Configuring network interfaces
>    - 1 NIC scenarios have eth0 as WAN / 2 NIC scenarios add eth1 as LAN
>    - Can set preferential MAC address prefix for some interfaces. This
> can be used by the NOC team to get the right NIC setup as eth0.
>    - Sets up the pair of ethX/mshY interfaces that are attached to
> every Active Antenna.
>    - Sets up all the bridges between the interfaces considered LAN
>    - Picking non-conflicting IP addresses for auxiliary servers.
>    - Sets the router address for auxiliary servers
>  - Very rough service chkconfig configuration for the auxiliary vs
> primary servers
>  - Rough firewall config for primary/auxiliary servers
>
That I can help with that also, I'm very (too?) familiar with shorewall, 
http://www.shorewall.net

> The top of each script - after the GPL - has an extensive comment
> explaining what it does. And after that, you can scroll down to the
> 'main' block -- I find both very readable. The scripts are here if you
> don't have a checkout
> http://dev.laptop.org/git?p=projects/xs-config;a=tree;f=fsroot.olpc.img/etc/sysconfig/olpc-scripts;h=dada76a2869dc95c5f538adfa45a2e538dc1d998;hb=HEAD
> 
Yea, was reading on the weekend.

> The 3 scripts make sense to me - - I would attack it with a
> get-to-work-stable-on-f9 focus, roughly:
> 
>  - Can we make the networking configuration work in a stable manner on
> F9? 
Might just work, as is, with what you have now, just not with 
Network-Manager at the moment.

> Do we need to hook into the events infrastructure so when an
> ethernet cable gets plugged into an if we do the right thing? Could we
> make it so that we autodetect and configure an AA on usb connection?
> 
That would be a Dbus/Network-Manager thing, your talking usb event 
driven responses here, right?

>  - Can we allow additional MAC prefix preferences to be read from an
> optional config file so that a NOC team can override things easily?
>
How many different MAC prefixes are there? Shoot can't find my web-link 
to a site that had a db of them all.

>  - Can we consolidate the code / remove duplication? (trivial ;-) )
> 
Could move all the functions into a single file to be sourced.

>  - Can we remove the service mgmt from it? :-)
> 
Sorry, can't find part that at the moment, which file?

> Jerry, does that help? It is meant as a complement while reading the
> src... BTW, I am tracking this on https://dev.laptop.org/ticket/7672

Much clear thanks, reading src without context leaves you wondering...

Jerry