[arch-projects] [netcfg] [PATCH 0/4] Connecting to wireless speedups

Jouke Witteveen j.witteveen at gmail.com
Tue Jul 3 07:44:58 EDT 2012


On Tue, Jul 3, 2012 at 11:04 AM, Thomas Bächler <thomas at archlinux.org> wrote:
> Am 02.07.2012 23:07, schrieb Henrik Hallberg:
>> Hi,
>>
>> A couple of patches that speeds up connecting to wireless networks.
>> Connecting to my home WPA DHCP, I went from ~12s to ~8s, the meat of
>> which in patch 0004.
>>
>> Henrik Hallberg (4):
>>   Include timestamp in DEBUG message
>>   Remove extra start_wpa/stop_wpa when not scanning
>>   Lower latency in timeout_wait
>>   Wait actively in {start,stop}_wpa
>>
>>  src/8021x                | 17 +++++++++++------
>>  src/connections/wireless | 17 +++++++++--------
>>  src/globals              |  5 +++--
>>  3 files changed, 23 insertions(+), 16 deletions(-)
>
> I found that whole method confusing all the time. You first scan for the
> network's existence, then connect to it or fail.
>
> Instead, why not remodel this to use the same logic as
> net-auto-wireless? Create the right wpa_supplicant configuration, start
> wpa_s and let wpa_actiond bring up the interface? This seems much better
> than hardcoded timeouts and wait loops inside shell scripts. And you do
> not have to write much new code, everything's there.
>

In that case, we should depend on and maintain wpa_actiond, which is
not a bash script.
I think it is possible to rewrite connections/wireless in a more
netcfg way, that is: using plain scripting. Ideally, I see netcfg as
just that: a collection of scripts to automate networking routines
based on simple profile definitions. If you need speed, power,
interfaces or what not, you should consider one of the many
alternatives (ConnMan, Wicd, NetworkManager, ...). If you need
simplicity in an "I know what I'm doing" fashion ("The Arch Way"?), go
with netcfg.

The current code might not be all that bad, just cluttered and with
the wrong decisions or logic here and there.

- Jouke


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