[approach-discuss] first draft of Network Auto-Magic architecture

[John Beck]

> http://www.opensolaris.org/os/community/approachability/nwam/architecture/

There are other points in your message which bear following up, some of
which has already been done by others, more of which I may do later.  But
one of your comments, combined with some off-line feedback I've had from
others, has made it clear that profiles are not widely understood as we
mean them to be.  This is clearly a deficiency in our write-ups, which we
will be addressing shortly.  To wit, the current text says that profiles

	... are a way to simplify network configuration management, by
	allowing users to specify various properties which determine
	how things work in different circumstances.

then goes on to say

	At any given time, exactly one profile is "active".

and the text which you cited follows shortly thereafter:

	At boot, the profile daemon consults the repository for the
	current active profile and configures the network(s) accordingly.
	It is not yet clear whether:
	* the active profile is always persistent across reboots
	or
	* there may be support for a temporarily active profile which
	  does not persist across reboots

to which you replied:

Nico> Mobile systems definitely need the latter as you cannot rely on any
Nico> network being available at boot time.

There is further discussion of how profiles are activated, etc.  But one
key point is missing:

	There will be meta-preferences to specify which profile
	should be activated automatically under which circumstances.

I.e., users will still be able to select a profile manually at any time,
but what makes this more powerful is the ability to specify automatic
profile selection based on network characteristics.

For example, there will likely be an out-of-the box profile for "no network"
which specifies files for everything in /etc/nsswitch.conf, disables
services which make no sense in a stand-alone environment, etc.  Then at
boot, the profile daemon would consult the meta-preferences, note that there
was no networking, then automatically select that profile.

As another example, a user like you or I might specify meta-preferences of
the form "when a wired network with IP addresses in the range 129.144.0.0/12
is detected, I must be on the SWAN, so activate the SWAN profile", then
separately create a SWAN profile which specifies "use name server X, use
files/dns/nis or files/nis in /etc/nsswitch.conf, use this NIS server,
enable the SMF service nis/client, etc."

Thus I think your comment above will become irrelevant, as meta-preferences
will be able to select the appropriate profile, and that situation can be
handled.  Given the current text, however, your suggestion was perfectly
reasonable.  :-)  We will make all this clearer in draft 0.2, coming soon.

-- John