FreeLists / openbeosnetteam / [openbeosnetteam] Re: DHCP Status

["David Enderson" <DEnderson@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> > I noticed that Michael Phipps mentioned in his post commemorating 3 
> > years that the Networking team still needed DHCP and that 
> reminded me 
> > to tell you all about my status.  I've been coding, but 
> haven't done 
> > my first test yet.
> 
> May be we can help you doing test(s)?
> 
Yes, my plan is to code strictly to the spec.  However, I am guessing
that with most other things open-standard and computer related, almost
every manufacturer will have been lazy and crappy in one way or another,
so many DHCP devices will probably have weird inconsistencies.  I think
the best way to do it is to have DHCP packet timings, content, and such
be abstracted so that people can tweak the settings to work on their
system and send feedback with model numbers and tweaked settings.

I'd like some input on this.  I was thinking a config file would
suffice.  First, DHCP would try its default standards approved
connection sequence.  If that didn't work then it would cycle through
every entry in the config file and try each of those connection methods.
Then if it found one that worked it would remember it and use that
sequence first the next time it booted.

I'm not sure which settings will need tweaking, but if I put as many of
them as possible in a config file, then after everyone on this team
tests it with their DHCP servers we'll have a little better idea which
ones will be most important.

I hope I will find more compatibility, but I'm not being very
optimistic.  I'm a back-end web programmer in my current job.  Email is
an open standard.  You would think it would be a simple task to generate
emails that anyone could read.  It is anything but simple.  Weird
incompatibilities between email clients make it quite annoying sometimes
and email is simpler in many ways than DHCP.

Also, does the Haiku source tree contain any library or object for
parsing config files?  I think it would be best if one config parsing
object or library were used throughout the OS rather than each team or
person writing their own.

Obviously I'll follow good design rules and get the thing working first,
and then abstract to a config file or other mechanism, so we've got time
to discuss this.  I just wanted to get the discussing going.

> > Work was hampered severely over the last month because
> > my wife and I moved into our new house and I had a three week fight
> > with
> > my ISP to get my DSL working again.  :-(  (I had been working on my 
> > DHCP
> > code on another server and I didn't have access to it.)
> 
> Is that mean you don't have access to your code now?
> Because, if you can, you can always share with us. 
> A zipfile is always welcomed here :-)
> 
> If you can't, that's a bummer.
>  
I do have access to my code now that I have a DSL connection again.  :-)

I'll share it in a bit when it is more complete.  I also wanted feedback
on that too.  I've been constructing an object representation of a DHCP
packet.  A DHCP packet has a lot of fields, but not all are used on
every piece of the conversation.  3 fields may be used in one packet,
then the response may use 7 fields, and the reply to that may use 6
fields.  Each time the same fields may or may not be used and if the
same ones are used, they may have different meanings.

I wanted the server conversation code to be clean, so I created a DHCP
packet object so setting the required fields would be clean and easy to
read.  This is what one piece of the conversation would look like in
pseudo-code:

char response_str[500];
DHCPPacket *response = new DHCPPacket();
response->SetSomeField("02FF");
response->SetSomeOtherField("12");
response->ToString(&response_str, 500);
// Send UDP packet with response_str as content

Writing this pseudo-code reminds me of something else.  I figure I
should convert my functions to using BString sometime.  It would make
coding easier, but should I?  Where this code will be integrated, will
it be able to use the BString object?  For my own coding, can I link to
a library containing the BString object without having to go through all
the trouble of downloading and compiling lots of Haiku?

> > I am taking two weeks and two days of unpaid vacation from my job
> > from
> > September 30 through October 17 in order to work on my hobbies and 
> > this
> > project has #1 priority during that time.  
> 
> Taking unpaid vacation to... coding on OpenB^Haiku!?
> What a dedicated member! 
> :-)
> 
Yes, that is the primary reason I am taking the vacation.  I really
believe in this project and want to see it succeed.  Plus, this is more
fun than my job has ever been.  It will be nice to get away from work
for a while--no matter what I'm doing.

> > I plan by the end of that to
> > have a working command-line app that adheres carefully to the DHCP
> > spec.
> > So if I don't, you all can happily fire me.  :-)
> 
> Can't wait... to see your DHCP working ;-)
> 
lol.

--David

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David Enderson