Re: Network configuration

[Jim Rees <rees@umich.edu>]

dhclient by itself is not sufficient.  It doesn't know how to kill previous
instances of itself, flush routes, and do all the other stuff needed to get
rid of the old network binding.  It doesn't know how to bring up a ppp link.
You can't easily override things like name server.

I envision a config file that has info about all the network bindings you
normally use, whether they use dhcp, static addresses, or ppp.  Then a
control program that flushes all old state and brings down all interfaces,
and brings up the new interface.  It should have command line options for
overriding anything in the config file, for example the phone number used by
the ppp link, or the name server used by dhcp.

The config file might look something like this:

name="office"
interface=ep0
use_dhcp

name="home"
interface=wi0
interface_options="-f 11 -p 3"
address=10.1.2.3
gateway=10.1.2.4

name="road"
interface=ppp
ppp_config=/etc/ppp/my_isp
phone_number=+17345551212

At this point theo will tell me to stop complaining and implement something,
so I'll shut up now.