Hello all, I have some good news regarding ppp-udeb and PPPoE. As the subject says, I have managed to conduct an installation over PPPoE using the patched ppp-udeb I have created and a customized image[1].
The good news: - the pppoe connection was configured and packages were downloaded from the internet over that connection - the ppp-udeb has appeared within the additional components list The bad news: - there seem to be some problems with pppoe modules not being loaded automatically (must I add „modprobe pppoe" in the postinst? if so, how do I keep the output from interfering with debconf?) - there are some weird side effects (probably due to messages being spitted out to stderr or stdout in the postinst); what should I do with the error messages? I would like to have errors logged in the syslog, but it looks to me that I should direct stdout messages to /dev/null so it does not interact with debconf - the postinst starts multiple connections if the step is run multiple times, so is not policy compliant and it should changed to detect running connections on the interface which will be used (a little bit tricky for multiple net card systems) - if the pppoe connection fails, then that is silent; no message is given which is bad - the dialog boxes for username and password are asymetric (entry fields way close to the left margin) and the title of the dialog is cut. There are some problems which are a little bit more complex and I am asking for advice: a) the pppoe connection detection should it fail silently on a normal install? b) when should the ppp-udeb postinst should be ran? after or before dhcp (fails)? c) what should be done for systems with multiple network cards? d) how can the pppoe software be added automatically to the target system (in case the pppoe configuration succeded during the installation it would make sense to have it configured in the target system, too) The way I am thinking the PPPoE configuration should be done/integrated in d-i: - if dhcp fails, try the detection of concentrators (implies running ifconfig ethX up) - if concentrator detection fails, drop to manual configuration - if a concentrator is found on a card, request user input regarding username and password for the PPPoE configuration - try the configuration with the given data - in case it fails, drop a fat error message (requesting the info to be reinserted?) - in case configuration succedes, then everything is fine Please comment (my explanation and more questions are below). The pppoe and dhcp protocols are orthogonal, so if one configuration succedes on a card, there is no way the other will. So the question is, when should the PPPoE configuration be attempted? It seems logical to be attempted after dhcp has failed because it will mean that less input will be necessary on default installs. But that, AFAIK, would lead to an unnecessary step in the configuration and the imposibility to run the PPPoE configuration directly from the d-i menu. Is this a real problem? The PPPoE protocol works with the so called concentrators which could be detected automatically which would mean that for Ethernet cards which are not supposed to connect to PPPoE servers for configuration the pppoe questions could be omitted and the installer should be directed to static configuration. I am not sure if there are cases in which the concentrator is not detected, but I fear that in the case in question the whole configuration will fail altogether. The detection of the concentrators and the actual configuration can't be made in deifferent postinst scripts, so would it make sense to return 0 as an exit code from the ppp-udeb postinst if no concentrators are found? Once the configuration is made for one card, should it be attempted for others, too? This is a little bit difficult and I fear there are not so many practical cases in which it will apply, if none. In systems with multiple cards, I don't think there is a way to know, after the configuration has been done, on which Ethernet card the ppp connection exists, so if the postinst is ran multiple times there are issues related to determining which pppd process corresponds to which etherenet card. I probably the concentrators detection could be ran again, but should the current ppp connection be dropped, if it exists? In case the PPPoE connection fails, should the user be given the chance to configure the card as static? Note that if the concentrator is found it shouldn't make sense and it might be possible that the configuration data was given incorrectly. There is small issue, if the concentrator is searched on a card, then the card in question must be "ifconfig CARD up" with no IP, should this be restored if the concentrator is not found? Would it affect the static configuration? How can the configuration information be copied to the target system after the system is installed? [1] using instructions at http://wiki.debian.org/DebianInstaller/Modify -- Regards, EddyP ============================================= "Imagination is more important than knowledge" A.Einstein
