Re: [netcf-devel] Gentoo integration / basic questions

[elias]

> netcf is expected to read existing interfaces. For example, Fedora's
> installer will set up interface config files in
> /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts, and netcf knows how to parse these and
> exposes the interface list through its API (and ncftool). If the user
> creates a config for a bridge interface and drops it in /etc/..., netcf
> will see that as well.
I was referring to reading existing interfaces directly from the system, as an 
interface might even be changed/created by another 3rd party tool like 
OpenVPN.
OpenVPN might be one of the more harmless scenarios here as it usually just 
adds/removes an TUN/TAP interface, but there are a plenty of 3rd party tools 
out there in the wild which do way more changes.
I think it would be really important to be able to rely not only on the static 
interface configuration, as this would limit the usage scope of netcf IMHO 
quite too much.
 
> Unless Gentoo is using the same initscripts as Fedora, netcf will need
> to be taught how to understand Gentoo network configuration.
Ok, this part was already clear to me. Due to Gentoo's modularity, there are 
multiple ways for the network configuration, but I think the most future proof 
and widespread would be OpenRC which was faced with a lot of discussions 
because of some radical changes to the network configuration layer.

As far as I understood netcf now, it doesn't replace a distribution's 
configuration mechanism, but builds another layer on top of it.

Wouldn't it be possible to use netcf as a complete replacement?

My idea was to get optional support for netcf directly into OpenRC (and later 
probably other initsystems).

So the initsystem would directly control networking interfaces through netcf 
without another layer of configuration files - the configuration would be done 
directly through netcf/XML files.

This would:
- simplify network configuration
- provide optional support in OpenRC as replacement for the basic 'ifconfig'-
style cross-platform support which was recently introduced and caused a lot of 
discussions as a lot of people liked the previous config style way more
- create a de-facto standard for network configurations in initsystems

Is netcf's architecture ready for using it like this? Can it be decoupled from 
parsing config files through Augeas and using it just directly?


So all this narrows done to this basic questions:
- Is netcf able to read the current live configuration of devices outside of 
the configuration files (through /sys or other mechanisms)?
- Can netcf be decoupled from Augeas and work just on its own?
- Are there any interests in getting netcf into this direction + do you think 
it would make sense?

Regards, Elias P.

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