python-ifupdown2

This package is a replacement for the debian ifupdown package. It is ifupdown re-written in python. It maintains the original ifupdown pluggable architecture and extends it further.

The python-ifupdown2 package provides the infrastructure for parsing /etc/network/interfaces file, loading, scheduling and state management of interfaces.

It dynamically loads python modules from /usr/share/ifupdownmodules (provided

by the python-ifupdown2-addons package). To remain compatible with other

packages that depend on ifupdown, it also executes scripts under /etc/network/. To make the transition smoother, a python module under /usr/share/ifupdownmodules will override a script by the same name under /etc/network/.

It publishes an interface object which is passed to all loadble python modules. For more details on adding a addon module, see the section on adding python modules.

pluggable python modules:

Unlike original ifupdown, all interface configuration is moved to external python modules. That includes inet, inet6 and dhcp configurations.

A set of default modules are provided by the python-ifupdown2-addons deb.

python-ifupdown2 expects a few things from the pluggable modules: - the module should implement a class by the same name - the interface object (class iface) and the operation to be performed is

passed to the modules

• the python addon class should provide a few methods:

  • run() : method to configure the interface.

  • get_ops() : must return a list of operations it supports.

    eg: 'pre-up', 'post-down'

  • get_dependent_ifacenames() : must return a list of interfaces the interface is dependent on. This is used to build the dependency list for sorting and executing interfaces in dependency order.
  • if the module supports -r option to ifquery, ie ability to construct the

  ifaceobj from running state, it can optionally implement the get_dependent_ifacenames_running() method, to return the list of dependent interfaces derived from running state of the interface. This is different from get_dependent_ifacenames() where the dependent interfaces are derived from the interfaces config file (provided by the user).

Example: Address handling module /usr/share/ifupdownaddons/address.py

build

• get source

• install build dependencies:

  apt-get install python-stdeb apt-get install python-docutils

• cd <python-ifupdown2 sourcedir> && ./build.sh

  (generates python-ifupdown2-<ver>.deb)

install

• remove existing ifupdown package dpkg -r ifupdown
• install python-ifupdown2 using dpkg -i

• or install from deb

  dpkg -i python-ifupdown2-<ver>.deb

• note that python-ifupdown2 requires python-ifupdown2-addons package to function. And python-ifupdown2-addons deb has an install dependency on python-ifupdown2