non-busybox dhcp clients (was: PATCH: ifupdown.c, udhcpc, and standalone shell)

Gabriel L. Somlo somlo at cmu.edu
Mon Oct 2 20:05:27 UTC 2006


> >Sound like a very good idea. Use udhcp when compiled in busybox and 
> >use a list of clients when not. 
> >But please don't mark option b) as obsolete. Why not keep the option 
> >to choose a different client for people who don't like udhcp (like me).

Eric,

You should have been cc-ed on the latest patch I sent to Denis (the
one which implements 'manual'). Did you get that ?

Right now, ifupdown starts by attempting to execute udhcpc. If that
fails, it goes down the list, generating a warning for each
unsuccessful execute() attempt.

Attempts to execute other clients beyond udpcpc are marked deprecated
(but, as Denis indicated, it may take a *long* time before the calls
are actually removed). If the patch goes in, the recommended way to
start non-udhcpc dhcp clients will be via 'manual'. So, to use dhclient
as an example:

	iface eth0 inet dhcp

will become

	iface eth0 inet manual
	  up dhclient -pf /var/run/dhclient.$IFACE.pid $IFACE
	  down kill -9 `cat /var/run/dhclient.$IFACE.pid` 2>/dev/null

although the old form will keep working.

Now, my opinion that busybox's ifupdown should only care about udhcpc
is based on the whole bload-reduction principle on which busybox
itself is based. For all I know, udhcpc sucks really bad when compared
to, e.g. your favorite client. BTW, which client is your favorite, and
what don't you like about udhcpc ? :) Whatever it is, maybe it can be
fixed... :)

Cheers,
Gabriel



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