mirror of
https://github.com/gryf/wicd.git
synced 2025-12-18 12:00:24 +01:00
64 lines
3.5 KiB
Plaintext
64 lines
3.5 KiB
Plaintext
THEORY OF OPERATION:
|
|
|
|
Wicd is designed to give the user as much control over behavior of network
|
|
connections as possible. Every network, both wired and wireless, has its
|
|
own profile with its own configuration options and connection behavior.
|
|
Wicd will try to automatically connect only to networks the user specifies
|
|
it should try, with a preference first to a wired network, then to wireless.
|
|
|
|
For wired connections, users have many options for determining what network
|
|
settings to use. Wicd allows creation of an unlimited number of wired
|
|
profiles, each of which has its own unique settings. The user can choose to
|
|
automatically connect to a selected default profile, choose a profile from a
|
|
pop-up window every time wicd connects, or have wicd automatically choose the
|
|
last profile used to manually connect.
|
|
|
|
For wireless connections, users can select any number of wireless networks
|
|
to automatically connect; wicd will choose the one with the highest signal
|
|
strength to try to connect.
|
|
|
|
If the user chooses, wicd will try to automatically reconnect when it detects
|
|
that a connection is lost. If the last known connection state is wired, wicd
|
|
will first try to reconnect to the wired network, and if it is not available,
|
|
wicd will try any available wireless networks which have automatic connection
|
|
enabled. If the last known connection state is wireless, wicd will first try
|
|
to reconnect to the previously connected network (even if that network does
|
|
not have automatic connection enabled), and should that fail, it will try both
|
|
a wired connection and any available wireless networks which have automatic
|
|
connection enabled.
|
|
|
|
Wicd uses built-in linux wireless-tools, such as ifconfig and iwconfig, to
|
|
get and configure network info. There is some flexibility in its use of DHCP,
|
|
providing support for dhclient, dhcpcd, and pump. Wicd uses wpa_supplicant
|
|
to handle all wireless encryption settings, and uses a template-based system
|
|
to create the configuration files used by wpa_supplicant. These templates
|
|
can be edited, and new templates can be created by the user and imported into
|
|
wicd, allowing connection to networks with uncommon encryption settings.
|
|
|
|
|
|
STRUCTURE:
|
|
|
|
Wicd has two major parts: the daemon, which runs with root privileges; and the
|
|
user interface, which runs with normal user privileges. The two parts run as
|
|
separate processes and make use of D-Bus to communicate.
|
|
|
|
The daemon is responsible for making and configuring connections, reading and
|
|
writing configuration files and logs, and monitoring the connection status.
|
|
The daemon's job is split between two processes: daemon.py and monitor.py.
|
|
All the connection status monitoring, as well as the auto-reconnection logic,
|
|
takes place in monitor.py. Everthing else is done by wicd-daemon.py.
|
|
|
|
The user interface (stored in wicd-client.py), which is made up of a tray
|
|
icon, a main GUI window, and its child dialogs, gets configuration and network
|
|
info from the daemon either by querying it using the methods in the daemon's
|
|
dbus interface or by receiving signals emitted from the daemon over D-Bus.
|
|
Any configuration changes made in the user interface are passed back to the
|
|
daemon, which actually applies the changes and writes them to configuration
|
|
files.
|
|
|
|
Since the user interface just queries for connection and configuration info
|
|
from the daemon, it is possible to run wicd without the GUI at all. Also,
|
|
the daemon is started by wicd's init script during system startup (before any
|
|
user logs in), making it possible to use wicd with "headless" machines.
|
|
|