Announcing ConnMan.net [LWN.net]

Announcing ConnMan.net

Posted Jun 24, 2009 13:46 UTC (Wed) by fray (subscriber, #5577)
Parent article: Announcing ConnMan.net

Network Manager is appropriate for Desktop/Workstations. There it works very well.

However, in an embedded Linux context (this cell phone, MID device, automotive applications, etc.) things that control networking need to be much more automated and policy based then Network Manager allows.

Also remember in many embedded devices user control/display of network settings is simply not done, or not allowed by policy.

If ConnMan can meet the requirements of the embedded linux area's it is targeting _AND_ replace Network Manager, I think this would be a huge win for all Linux users.

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Announcing ConnMan.net

Posted Jun 24, 2009 14:40 UTC (Wed) by dcbw (guest, #50562) [Link] (2 responses)

What does "automated and policy-based" mean, and why can NetworkManager not fill this role? NetworkManager is completely controllable by the D-Bus interface and by the network settings. You can manually control it by setting all connections to 'autoconnect=no' and telling NM explicitly which ones to activate via D-Bus.

"Also remember in many embedded devices user control/display of network settings is simply not done, or not allowed by policy."

Why is this relevant? NetworkManager does *NOT* require a UI to operate. It is completely controllable via D-Bus, like ConnMan.

There's nothing stopping NetworkManager from being used on netbooks and MIDs. It's already being used there. There's nothing to stop it from being used on embedded devices too, except FUD.

Announcing ConnMan.net

Posted Jun 25, 2009 16:30 UTC (Thu) by nlucas (subscriber, #33793) [Link] (1 responses)

I still don't know what are the advantages of ConMan over NM in the embedded space. And Moblin is a very bad example, because it's everything but an embedded system.

But, as soon as you depend on d-bus/glib you are already out of the embedded space.

Announcing ConnMan.net

Posted Jun 25, 2009 17:43 UTC (Thu) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link]

For very specific definitions of "embedded", perhaps. But once you're at that level, you don't generally want something like connman anyway. There's plenty of use of glib in spaces that have traditionally been considered embedded (GPS systems, phones, data analysis systems) and connman and network-manager seem to fit there pretty well.