[Dibbler] Dibbler under Windows and WPA2 Wireless

[Stefan Winter]

Hi again,

> 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.

please find attached the client log file, to illustrate the problem. I cannot 
say anything about server and relay, I don't use that functionality.

> 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.

These are very good questions, IMHO. People tend to keep wireless off to 
preserve power, and only turn it on when they need it. That's a very common 
use case, and I think Dibbler should handle it.

> 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. ;)

Though being a newbie in this list and my word probably doesn't count a lot: I 
think this is a very sensible approach, and seems like the (at least "a") way 
to go!
Especially since a service running in the background isn't supposed to 
interact with the user at all - it should try to do its best, and if it 
doesn't work out, too bad.

Greetings,

Stefan Winter

-- 
Stefan WINTER

Stiftung RESTENA - Réseau Téléinformatique de l'Education Nationale et de 
la Recherche
Ingenieur Forschung & Entwicklung

6, rue Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi
L-1359 Luxembourg
E-Mail: stefan.winter at restena.lu     Tel.:     +352 424409-1
http://www.restena.lu                Fax:      +352 422473
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08:01:10 Critical  | Dibbler - a portable DHCPv6, version 0.4.1(CLIENT, WinXP/2003 port)
08:01:10 Notice    Detected iface Wireless Network Connection/6, MAC=00:13:ce:c2:b1:86.
08:01:10 Notice    Detected iface Teredo Tunneling Pseudo-Interface/5, MAC=ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff.
08:01:10 Notice    Detected iface Local Area Connection/4, MAC=00:0b:5d:c7:6b:07.
08:01:10 Notice    Detected iface 6to4 Pseudo-Interface/3, MAC=00:0b:5d:c7.
08:01:10 Notice    Detected iface Automatic Tunneling Pseudo-Interface/2, MAC=00:00:00:00.
08:01:10 Notice    Detected iface Loopback Pseudo-Interface/1, MAC=.
08:01:10 Notice    Parsing C:\dibbler\client.conf config file...
08:01:10 Debug     Parsing C:\dibbler\client.conf done.
08:01:10 Debug     1 interface(s) specified in client.conf
08:01:10 Info      Interface Wireless Network Connection/6 configuation has been loaded.
08:01:10 Info      Bind reuse enabled.
08:01:10 Error     Interface Wireless Network Connection/6 is down. Unable to open socket.
08:01:10 Critical  Fatal error during TransMgr initialization.
08:01:10 Debug     ClntTransMgr cleanup.
08:01:10 Debug     ClntCfgMgr cleanup.
08:01:10 Debug     ClntAddrMgr cleanup.
08:01:10 Debug     ClntIfaceMgr cleanup.