hotplug & PCMCIA schemes

DISCUSSION [email protected] 2 participants 2 messages Oct 29, 2001

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2001-10-29 21:34 UTC #0 lore raw

Please excuse me if this message is not addressed the proper mailing list.

I have just upgraded from RedHat 6.2 to RedHat 7.2, which introduces the hotplug service. Unfortunately, the architecture of the system doesn't seem to accomodate my useage patterns. I think my useage patterns are typical for a common and growing class of users. I'd like to describe how I use PCMCIA cards to this list, and see if there is some natural way to accomplish it using the hotplug system, or if the hotplug system has problems.

I have a notebook computer. I use it in one of about five places:
1. My condo in Harvard Square
Here I connect to the net using an old, pre-802.11 netwave card & DHCP. This requires non-standard flags to the driver for encryption.

2. A little compay where I work
Here I connect to the net using an 802.11 card, with a particular encryption key & network id, via DHCP.

3. My office at MIT.
Static IP, 802.11 card, different encryption key.

3. My home in Atlanta
DHCP, 802.11 card, different encryption key.

4. My office at Georgia Tech.
DHCP, 802.11 card, different encryption key.

(Clearly, I am a little more mobile than is really good for me. But I have insane frequent-flyer miles.)

Additionally, I sometimes use a 100Mb 3Com card when I back my hard drive up to a sessile server; static IP.

This all works fine under Hinds' standard pcmcia system -- I just use different "schemes" -- "home," "GT," "boston," "GT-static," etc. -- to determine DHCP or the static IP address, the proper encryption key, any funky-nonstandard options and so forth. But I see no way to do this under the hotplug system. The /etc/hotplug/net.agent script will invoke /etc/pcmcia/wireless if I use a wireless card, but it *won't* invoke /etc/pcmcia/network with a wireline network card. So it's scheme-insensitive in the wireline case.

The short summary here is that notebook users hook up to lots of different networks, depending (among other things) on location, as they cart their machines around. All the hotplug agent sees is "eth0". That's not enough.

Hind's system handles this by providing an extra user-configurable key in the form of the "scheme." How does one do this in hotplug?
-Olin

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David Brownell

2001-10-29 22:01 UTC #1 lore raw

From: <[email protected]>

Quoted 5 lines

This all works fine under Hinds' standard pcmcia system -- I just use different "schemes" -- "home," "GT," "boston," "GT-static," etc. -- to determine DHCP or the static IP address, the proper encryption key, any funky-nonstandard options and so forth. But I see no way to do this under the hotplug system.

Not the standard distro, but I believe all the necessary ingredients are there.

Quoted 8 lines

The /etc/hotplug/net.agent script will invoke
/etc/pcmcia/wireless if I use a wireless card, but it *won't* invoke /etc/pcmcia/network with a wireline network card. So it's scheme-insensitive in the wireline case.
The short summary here is that notebook users hook up to lots of different networks, depending (among other things) on location, as they cart their machines around. All the hotplug agent sees is "eth0". That's not enough.

The hotplug agent sees the whole filesystem, too. Whatever tells PCMCIA that the current "scheme" is "GT", for example, should be accessible to hotplug agents too.

Quoted 2 lines

Hind's system handles this by providing an extra user-configurable key in the form of the "scheme." How does one do this in hotplug?

Well, one could always submit a patch to teach hotplug that such different schemes exist. That facility isn't restricted to networking, is it? Seems to me that different kinds of docking setup would need it for more than just network devices.

Alternatively, I think the RedHat scripts used by "ifup" are also places that such behaviors can be hooked.

- Dave