> On Sun, May 16, 1999 at 10:15:48PM +0200, Massimo Dal Zotto wrote: > > > > Hi, > > > > The /etc/init.d/network script created by the debian installation is very > > simple and not flexible enough if you need to manage complex networks with > > many interfaces. > > > > I have written a generic network interface management command, net, which > > can be used to start/stop/show/configure network interfaces, and a smarter > > replacement for the /etc/init.d/network script. > > ... > > So what is the big difference between your tool and ifconfig? Seems you > get the same results and you don't save a lot of work... Please provide > more details on benifits of your tool. >
Obviously you can do the same things with ifconfig. The difference is that now you don't need to put all the ifconfig and route commands for your network in one big network startup script, but instead you store only the configuration parameters in separate config files which are used by the new net script. The big advantage is that you can now start, stop, and configure (that is creating the configuration file, not running ifconfig) each interface separately. This doesn't save a lot of work but provides much more flexibility to network management. The current network script can't do that, unless you create a different script for each interface and all the needed links in rc*.d, and can only start the network, not stopping it or a part of it. So if you want to stop or restart your network or change the status of just one interface you must type all the ifconfig and route commands by hand and remember all the numbers each time. With my solution you store the parameters for each interface and then just type 'net stop' or 'net restart' or 'net start eth1' without needing to remember all the arguments. If you need to add or remove an interface you just create or delete its config file and the job is done because you don't need to change the /etc/init.d/network, which just does a 'net start' or 'net stop'. Simple and easy. This is not very useful if you have a simple network with one interface and one ip, but is really handy if you have to manage complex networks with many interfaces or ip aliases and complex routing tables, as is my case. In general I believe it is better to separate the configurations from the programs which do the work, which should be kept as general as possible. My script does just that: it separates programs from configurations. Note also that currently there isn't a network configuration program in debian. The network script is created by dinstall and must be edited by hand. My net script provides also a very simple configuration function. Think of a novice user which can now just type 'net config eth0' and answer a few simple questions. -- Massimo Dal Zotto +----------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Massimo Dal Zotto email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] | | Via Marconi, 141 phone: ++39-0461534251 | | 38057 Pergine Valsugana (TN) www: http://www.cs.unitn.it/~dz/ | | Italy pgp: finger [EMAIL PROTECTED] | +----------------------------------------------------------------------+
