RE: [PATCH 00/13] drivers: hv: kvp

[KY Srinivasan]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Olaf Hering [mailto:olaf@xxxxxxxxx]
> Sent: Thursday, June 28, 2012 10:24 AM
> To: KY Srinivasan
> Cc: Greg KH; apw@xxxxxxxxxxxxx; devel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx;
> virtualization@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx; linux-kernel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: Re: [PATCH 00/13] drivers: hv: kvp
> 
> On Tue, Jun 26, KY Srinivasan wrote:
> 
> > > From: Greg KH [mailto:gregkh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]
> > > The fact that it was Red Hat specific was the main part, this should be
> > > done in a standard way, with standard tools, right?
> >
> > The reason I asked this question was to make sure I address these
> > issues in addition to whatever I am debugging now. I use the standard
> > tools and calls to retrieve all the IP configuration. As I look at
> > each distribution the files they keep persistent IP configuration
> > Information is different and that is the reason I chose to start with
> > RedHat. If there is a standard way to store the configuration, I will
> > do that.
> 
> 
> KY,
> 
> instead of using system() in kvp_get_ipconfig_info and kvp_set_ip_info,
> wouldnt it be easier to call an external helper script which does all
> the distribution specific work? Just define some API to pass values to
> the script, and something to read values collected by the script back
> into the daemon.

On the "Get" side I mostly use standard commands/APIs to get all the information:

1) IP address information and subnet mask: getifaddrs()
2) DNS information:  Parsing /etc/resolv.conf
3) /sbin/ip command for all the routing information
4)  Parse /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-ethx for boot protocol

As you can see, all but the boot protocol is gathered using the "standard distro
independent mechanisms. I was looking at NetworkManager cli and it looks
like I could gather all the information except the boot protocol information. I am 
not sure how to gather the boot protocol information in a distro independent fashion.

On the SET side, I need to persistently store the settings in an appropriate configuration
file and flush these settings down so that the interface is appropriately configured. It is here
that I am struggling to find a distro independent way of doing things. It would be great if I can
use NetworkManager cli (nmcli) to accomplish this. Any help here would be greatly appreciated.

While I toyed with your proposal, I feel it just pushes the problem out of the daemon code -
we would still need to write distro specific scripts. If this approach is something that everybody
is comfortable with, I can take a stab at implementing that. 

> 
> If the work is done in a script it will be much easier for an admin to
> debug and adjust it.
> 
> I think there is no standard way to configure all relevant distros in
> the same way. Maybe one day NetworkManager can finally handle all
> possible ways to configure network related things. But until that
> happens the config files need to be adjusted manually.
> 
> 
> 
> Some of the functions have deep indention levels due to 'while() {
> switch() }' usage. Perhaps such code could be moved into its own
> function so that lines dont need to be wrapped that much due to the odd
> 80 column limit.

I will take care of this. As suggested by Greg, I am adding netdev developers here to
seek their input. 

Regards,

K. Y
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