Update to net/gnome-netstatus to support new wlan system in -CURRENT

[Joe Marcus Clarke]

On Wed, 2008-04-23 at 14:04 -0400, Coleman Kane wrote:
> On Wed, 2008-04-23 at 10:46 -0700, Sam Leffler wrote:
> > Coleman Kane wrote:
> > > On Wed, 2008-04-23 at 10:35 -0700, Sam Leffler wrote:
> > >   
> > >> Coleman Kane wrote:
> > >>     
> > >>> On Wed, 2008-04-23 at 13:18 -0400, Coleman Kane wrote:
> > >>>   
> > >>>       
> > >>>> Hi,
> > >>>>
> > >>>> I put together some changes to the net/gnome-netstatus applet to allow
> > >>>> it to detect and work with the new wlan interface system that was just
> > >>>> introduced in CURRENT.
> > >>>>
> > >>>> This new code doesn't identify non-wlanN interfaces as wifi anymore.
> > >>>>
> > >>>> I think it may need some help in getting signal-strength detection
> > >>>> properly using the if_ndis driver. Mine keeps telling me that the signal
> > >>>> strength is always 100% no matter where I walk in my apt.
> > >>>>
> > >>>>     
> > >>>>         
> > >>> Yes, I do mean to actually attach the patch too.
> > >>>
> > >>>   
> > >>>       
> > >> As I told you previously keying off the ifnet name is a mistake.  What 
> > >> you can do is check the media status and for any 802.3 interface look 
> > >> for a backpointer in the MIB to a parent device that must be marked as 
> > >> an 802.11 device.  Right now this can be defeated if ifnet is renamed 
> > >> such that you cannot identify the wlanX unity # to find the MIB entry 
> > >> under net.wlan.X.%parent.
> > >>
> > >> Separately you appear to have added "an", "rum", and "ray".  I'm not 
> > >> sure what this code does but again using ifnet names is a mistake.  In 
> > >> 7.x you can do a similar search of the net.wlan.X MIB space using the 
> > >> %parent backpointer to identify an 802.11 device.  wlandebug.c has crude 
> > >> code you can crib (for 7.x).
> > >>
> > >> I don't recall if 6.x has the backpointer in the MIB namespace to use.
> > >>
> > >>     Sam
> > >>
> > >>     
> > >
> > > The original code was written this way, so I was just mimicking it. Your
> > > idea sounds a lot more stable. The addition of the "rum" and "ray"
> > > interfaces is done by the original patch, as the upstream GNOME code
> > > hadn't been written to expect either of those yet. The "an" device isn't
> > > added, it's part of the surrounding text of the patch. You're looking at
> > > a patch-of-a-patch...
> > >
> > > Anyhow, I'm not the original author but these changes probably make it
> > > better now than it was before (and my netstatus applet works now). I'll
> > > see if I can find some time to re-implement this properly over the
> > > weekend. We might be able to get more iface info in there as well.
> > >
> > >   
> > Ok, thanks.  FWIW there is a large body of 802.11-related code that 
> > should be lifted form various parts of the src tree into a lib80211 or 
> > similar.  For example there is now an XML database of regulatory domain 
> > information that ifconfig uses.  UI apps could easily want to use this 
> > info along w/ many other bits that are mostly used by ifconfig at the 
> > moment.
> > 
> > I am happy to work w/ anyone that's interested in this.
> > 
> >     Sam
> > 
> 
> Sam,
> 
> Maybe this would be a better application of my time...
> 
> I'll start looking into it this weekend...dump some info onto
> wiki.freebsd.org....etc...
> 
> Then port gnome-netstatus to that in some manner (while preserving prior
> compatibility).
> 
> I still recommend applying my changes to the port in the meantime, as it
> will ensure that current users aren't twiddling their thumbs on a
> now-broken applet.

Thanks for doing this.  g-n-s was on my TODO list after seeing the vap
changes in -CURRENT.  At the time the patch was originally created (back
in the 5.X days I believe), I only had an aironet device, and keying off
device name was easiest.  It would definitely be better to modernize
this code.

You have permission to commit this patch in the time being.

Joe

> 
-- 
Joe Marcus Clarke
FreeBSD GNOME Team      ::      gnome at FreeBSD.org
FreeNode / #freebsd-gnome
http://www.FreeBSD.org/gnome
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