| | Cook you network with NetProf!!!-Last Updated-March 9,2006 |
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| What is NetProf?
The question should be why NetProf rather than what, let me try to explain both. NetProf is a personal atempt to overcome problem I had after getting a mobile computer. Most of the places I visit with my Laptop were using networks of their own with static IP addresses .... different people use it for different purposes.
At my working place we use static IPs as a policy (thoughout the group)... I use static IPs at home.....since it is convieneint, Suchetha (TLC) using static IPs.....must be for one of his own reasons. SO this become a bother to me.
As a long time Debianer I could not find any help from debian unless I change my computer settings each time go somewhere...which was not a very user (me) friendly approach.
Finally (on newyears eve) I got the idea of why not profile network settings, so I tried it and you are reading it. NetProf is a shell script which will run with many shells (bash and ksh I have tried and most probably it will work with ash as well). If somebody go through this script would realize that it is a old fashion UNIX scripting style (pardon me for that...unix life).
How does it work?
Hmmm....good question...I dunno have to go in to the code and see. basically it will create a folder structure (by default) under /etc/netprof which act as the base for netprof. NetProf mainly consist of two portions.
- netprof user utility, for profile creation,modification and loading.
- netprof.sh which is a init script to load network settings.
netprof utility is based on dialog or Xdialog (can be easily migrated to non dialog application) and user functions are developped similar to wizards, netprof is a menu driven application.
Profiles
Profile is a set of network settings, at the moment netprof supports IP address, Net Mask, Gateway, DNS and proxy settings. Whenever you add a new proifile it will create a folder under the netprof base. And settings will be stored on individual file for each device, though it is possible to create these files manually it is always recommended to use the utility.
Under the root of the netprof bases there is a file name default which will load the default profile.
What distributions are supported?
Debian is obviously supported, I have tried with Mango....therefore Vector should also work...if you need to use it with your system, please write to me (kosala at linux dot lk) I will happily assist..you to get it installed.
Would this work with gentoo?
Ooops...I do not think so...if you try to use this, the beautiful feature of dependant loading in gentoo will be broken. But I hope somebody will complete that part as well (I am not gentoo user).
What is comming in the future?
I think I will need to add multiple routes support...where users can route to different networks from different routers. And multiple IP support will also be useful.
Where to downlod?
Simple, go to Download page of this site... |
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