[Dibbler] Dibbler under Windows and WPA2 Wireless

[Sob]

Hi,

I'd like to add some comments.

My testing showed that Dibbler does not care at all if the interface 
is up or down. Just to be sure we understand each other, "up" means 
connected and fully working and "down" is for example standard 
ethernet with cable pulled out, unassociated wireless card or 
unconnected OpenVPN's virtual network adapter.
Dibbler just starts and says it is sending SOLICIT messages. I'm not 
sure how it can send anything while the interface is down, but it 
says it does. :)
When the interface gets connected and Dibbler awakes, it gets the 
address and everything is fine.

So the problem is only this wireless-specific intermediate state. I 
don't have wireless network available here so I can't try it myself. 
But I think this is the way to go, make Dibbler survive this state 
and try again later.

Also I don't think the delayed start is the ultimate solution. It may 
help in this case, but still it would not be perfect. I mean, should 
a short delay be set with the risk of not being long enough, or 
should a long delay be used to be sure and delay the interface usability?
And there are further problems. What about interfaces not available 
when the system (and Dibbler) starts? PCMCIA network adapters for 
example. User may want to use DHCPv6 with such a card and having to 
manually start Dibbler after the card is inserted is not user friendly.

So I think, when Dibbler is started, it should try to bind to all 
interfaces defined in config and if some of them is not available, it 
should try later. The only problem with this approach is when user 
makes an error in interface name, he will not get an error message, 
but instead Dibbler will wait forever for non-existing interface. But 
I think if a warning is produced, desperate user reading logfiles 
will eventually find it, so it's ok. ;)

                                         Sob

At 21:30 11.5.2006, you wrote:
>On Thu, 11 May 2006 somebody known as Stefan Winter wrote:
>
> > problem (at least for the Windows XP port of 0.4.1): when Dibbler 
> is started
> > as a system service and the interface is a wireless WPA2 protected network,
> > Dibbler will try too early to bind to the interface (after the card
> > associated to the Access Point, but before WPA2 authentication 
> completed) and
> > will die a horrible death because the interface isn't up yet. How about:
> > don't die, instead try every few seconds to bind to the interface...
>Hmmm, that doesn't sound like good plan. In 99% cases failing to bind to
>the interface means a big and rather permament problem - wrong interface
>defined, not sufficient rights. So without user's interaction such
>problems won't go away by themself.
>
>But I suppose other possible approach is to introduce new feature, let's
>call it delayed start. There will be a global parameter in the config
>file. which defines (in seconds) how long should Dibbler wait before
>actually getting into action. Of course the default value of this would be
>0, so average user will never notice.
>
>What do you think? Will that do the trick? Is it necessary on relay,
>server and clients? Or on clients only?