network-autoconfig: Find a connected eth interface and create an ifcfg for it

Use case: I want to create an appliance image for a build farm worker machine. I don't know its hardware configuration beforehand; in particular, it may have multiple network interfaces and I don't want to bother figuring out which is which. I will simply include network-autoconfig.rpm and plug the cable into any socket before booting.

network-autoconfig helps setting up machines with multiple network interfaces. At the first boot, all available Ethernet interfaces are cycled until one is successfully configured with DHCP.

I have submitted it to openSUSE:Factory now. Enjoy it in the upcoming openSUSE 11.4!

It is referenced as Feature#311012. You are welcome to improve it on Gitorious.

dbus-dump

dbus-dump is a tool to capture D-Bus messages in a libpcap capture file.

It takes an idea from dbus-scrape, which processes a strace output of dbus-monitor, and takes it further by stracing dbus-daemon, thus not relying on any eavesdropping (mis)configuration.

The intended purpose is to establish the libpcap capture format as a base for debugging tools like

• dbus-monitor
• DBusMessageBox
• Bustle
• dbus-spy

Thanks to Will Thompson for mentioning the pcap idea.

Usage

$ sudo strace -p `pgrep -f 'dbus-daemon --system'` \
    -s 3000 -ttt -xx -o foo.strace
$ ./dbus-dump foo.strace foo.pcap
$ ./dbus-pcap-parse foo.pcap
Tue Nov 16 12:56:47 +0100 2010 #<DBus::Message:0xb741f340
 @body_length=0,
 @destination="fi.epitest.hostap.WPASupplicant",
 @error_name=nil,
 @flags=0,
 @interface="fi.epitest.hostap.WPASupplicant.Interface",
 @member="scan",
 @message_type=1,
 @params=[],
 @path="/fi/epitest/hostap/WPASupplicant/Interfaces/180",
 @protocol=1,
 @reply_serial=nil,
 @sender=":1.7132",
 @serial=88639,
 @signature="">
Tue Nov 16 12:56:47 +0100 2010 #<DBus::Message:0xb741b060
 @body_length=4,
 @destination=":1.7132",
[...]>

Dependencies

It is written in Ruby. The pcap format is handled by a small bundled module. dbus-dump has no other dependencies. dbus-pcap-parse uses ruby-dbus.

Bugs

This is an early proof-of-concept release, serving to introduce the libpcap format.

The main problem of dbus-dump is duplicating the messages, seeing them both when the daemon receives them and when it sends them (multiple times, for the signals).

The other tools haven't caught up yet:

$ /usr/sbin/tcpdump -r foo.pcap
reading from file foo.pcap, link-type 231
tcpdump: unknown data link type 231

n2n package improved

Root.cz recently ran an article (in Czech) about the n2n virtual private network sofware, an open alternative to Hamachi. I intend to use it to cross the NAT in my mom's DSL modem so that I can connect to her computer with ssh and VNC.
Thanks to happyman_eric and Grief, openSUSE Build Service already contained a package. I have made an improved version, adding an init script and a sysconfig file. Get the sources in my home project, or the binaries.

Helping Newcomers

Since the discussion (do check out the linked paper, BTW) and the opensuse-women announcement, I've been thinking about how to make the openSUSE community more friendly to women.

I think one good way is to make sure that new people feel welcome when they join a conversation, be it on the forums, on IRC or on the mailing lists. Now this would be easier if we all had infinite time to read and answer all questions, but as we don't, I decided to focus somehow.

The forums provide a handy shortcut for the focus, labeling a user who made few posts as a "Puzzled Penguin". So I've made a simple service, a feed of http://forums.opensuse.org showing only the posts by newcomer users: http://vidner.net/martin/software/rss-creator-blacklist

(Actually right now it does not show Puzzled Penguins only but instead excludes the 100 most-posting users until I learn how to optimize the PHP code.)

kiwi2puppet

I have started working on kiwi2puppet, a tool to convert KIWI image descriptions to Puppet manifests.

The goal is to recycle the data that went into the building of an image and use it for managing a deployed appliance.

So far it is a prototype that can write these resources

• package
• yumrepo
• user
• group

It is written in Ruby, like Puppet.

Source at GitHub: http://github.com/mvidner/kiwi2puppet
RPMs: http://software.opensuse.org/search?q=kiwi2puppet&baseproject=ALL (currently it is a single Ruby script, so at the moment RPMs are not worth any trouble)
Novell Reference: FATE#309497

Get in touch if you're interested.

In case you didn't know:

"The openSUSE KIWI Image System provides a complete operating system image solution for Linux supported hardware platforms as well as for virtualisation systems like Xen Qemu or VMware."

"Puppet is an open source data center automation and configuration management framework. Puppet provides system administrators with a simplified platform that allows for consistent, transparent, and flexible systems management."

WebYaST Beta 1

We have released Beta 1 of WebYaST. Just to prevent misunderstandings, it is intended for appliances (and Beta 1 is an appliance, a VMX for VirtualBox or VMWare), not for replacing YaST on the desktop.

Download links are in the 0.0.13 status mail, see also the module status and the replies.

Perl DBus Library

If you want camels in your D-Bus, use perl-Net-DBus by Daniel Berrange. I have just fixed the original packaging done by Illuusio. Enjoy.

Reducing Unprioritized Bugs

This Greasemonkey script, Check Priority, will check whether you are modifying a bug assigned to you and leaving its priority at "P5 - None". It will pop up a confirmation box to remind you to set a real priority.
Thanks to Milan Vančura for showing us how b.n.c can be improved (check out also the local time script) and for even implementing this one as I stood behind his back!

D-Bus Spy

Like dbus-monitor, it monitors the system or session bus. Additionally, it can write the traffic to a file and read it later (-w, -r). It can dump all the gory details (-d) or pretty print all the gory details (-p). Like DBusMessageBox which inspired it, it can make message sequence charts (-c). It has some simple filtering abilities (-f, -F).

Try 0.1 if that sounds interesting.

try cnetworkmanager 0.3

cnetworkmanager is a command line interface for Network Manager. It is still lacking many features but I decided to announce it now, when it can:

1. connect to WiFi networks
2. read the configuration file of KNetworkManager

It is working for me on RC1 of openSUSE-11.0, which has NetworkManager-0.7.0.r3685-3. It is my first project in Python, so the code is somewhat cumbersome. Thanks to Mišo for getting me started (idea.o.o, abclinuxu.cz), and Bille for the API docs.

Regarding related projects, I have seen network-manager-cli, but it is for 0.6 only and the developers were only active last August, so I decided that I should first write some working code for 0.7.

I am interested in comments, bugs, feature requests, patches, any feedback.

Here are some screenshots ;-)

$ cnetworkmanager -h
cnetworkmanager 0.3 - Command Line Interface for NetworkManager
Options:
  -d, --dev     list devices
  -c, --actcon  list active connections
  -s, --syscon  list system connection settings
  -u, --usrcon  list user connection settings (can CRASH nm-applet)
  -a, --ap      list found access points
  -n, --nets    list found wireless networks
  -C<net>, --connect=<net> connect to a wireless network (using knetworkmanagerrc)
  -m, --monitor loop to show dbus signals

Listing the networks:

$ cnetworkmanager -n
cnetworkmanager 0.3 - Command Line Interface for NetworkManager
Wifi Networks:
 49: onenet (54Mb, protected)
 46: IT (54Mb, protected)
 48: TiborBrunclik (11Mb, protected)
 46: linksys (54Mb)
 46: IT (54Mb, protected)
 46: 23 (54Mb)

cnetworkmanager 0.1

Thanks to Mišo for getting me started on this...

$ cnetworkmanager -d -c
cnetworkmanager 0.1 - Command Line Interface for NetworkManager
state: CONNECTED
wifi: 1
wifi hw: 1
/org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/net_00_02_3f_0d_7d_93
Udi: /org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/net_00_02_3f_0d_7d_93
Interface: eth0
Driver: 8139too
Ip4Address: 268702730
Capabilities: NM_SUPPORTED,CARRIER_DETECT
Dev State: FAILED
Dev Type: 802_3_ETHERNET
HwAddress: 00:02:3F:0D:7D:93
Speed: 100
Carrier: 1
/org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/net_00_11_d8_70_00_2f
Udi: /org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/net_00_11_d8_70_00_2f
Interface: wlan0
Driver: rt2500pci
Ip4Address: 1476989962
Capabilities: NM_SUPPORTED
Dev State: FAILED
Dev Type: 802_11_WIRELESS
Dev Mode: INFRA
Wifi Capabilities: RSN,CIPHER_WEP40,CIPHER_WEP104,CIPHER_TKIP,CIPHER_CCMP,WPA
HwAddress: 00:11:D8:70:00:2F
Bitrate: 1000
ActiveAccessPoint: /org/freedesktop/NetworkManager/AccessPoint/4
Active Connections
/org/freedesktop/NetworkManager/ActiveConnection/8
ServiceName: org.freedesktop.NetworkManagerSystemSettings
Connection: /org/freedesktop/NetworkManagerSettings/0
SpecificObject: /
SharedServiceName:
SharedConnection: /
Devices: dbus.Array([dbus.ObjectPath('/org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/net_00_02_3f_0d_7d_93')], signature=dbus.Signature('o'), variant_level=1)
/org/freedesktop/NetworkManager/ActiveConnection/9
ServiceName: org.freedesktop.NetworkManagerUserSettings
Connection: /org/freedesktop/NetworkManagerSettings/Connection/0
SpecificObject: /org/freedesktop/NetworkManager/AccessPoint/4
SharedServiceName:
SharedConnection: /
Devices: dbus.Array([dbus.ObjectPath('/org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/net_00_11_d8_70_00_2f')], signature=dbus.Signature('o'), variant_level=1)