[Commotion-dev] Freifunk watchdog

[Dan Staples]

I totally agree, that is a much cleaner solution. I'll work on 
implementing such a change to freifunk-watchdog.

On Thu 02 May 2013 03:17:02 PM EDT, Ben West wrote:
> Hi All,
>
> Unfortunately, the current developer for freifunk-watchdog stated
> there isn't any documentation for that tool, and probably will never
> be.  This means changes could be silently pushed into these tools,
> with end users not discover them until after their configuration
> breaks after OS upgrade.  Possibly, this problem applies for the other
> freifunk tools packaged into OpenWRT, too.
>
> Here is the source repo for the various freifunk tools presently
> packaged into AA, including the freifunk-watchdog package.
> http://svn.luci.subsignal.org/luci/tags/0.11.1/contrib/package/
> http://svn.luci.subsignal.org/luci/tags/0.11.1/contrib/package/freifunk-watchdog/src/
>
> From the source for freifunk-watching, it looks like modification to
> support additional UCI options in /etc/config/freifunk-watchdog that
> enables/disables whether the watchdog monitor's wireless interfaces
> should be straightforward.
>
> Kludging Commotion tools to accommodate ffwatchd's eccentricities
> isn't an appealing option in the long time, especially if the original
> dev decides later to silently push more changes that subsequently
> break Commotion's kludges, or that beget even uglier kludges.
>
> Could I recommend one of these alternatives?
>
>  1. Propose patches to the luci.subsignal to add UCI config options
>     allowing the user to enable/disable whether watchdog touches any
>     wireless interfaces.  Hopefully, the original developer would
>     welcome the increased attention.
>  2. If luci.subsignal.org <http://luci.subsignal.org> doesn't accept
>     patches, fork the freifunk tools into a git repo managed by OTI,
>     with the patches described in #1.
>  3. Don't use the Freifunk tools all.  This options is unappealing,
>     but it does at least avoid having to make possibly unsustainable
>     kludges.
>
>
> On Tue, Apr 30, 2013 at 11:18 AM, Dan Staples
> <danstaples at opentechinstitute.org
> <mailto:danstaples at opentechinstitute.org>> wrote:
>
>     Also, Freifunk-watchdog is really controlling when it comes to the
>     wireless interfaces. When commotiond is in the middle of setting
>     everything up, ffwatchd will intervene and shut down the wireless
>     interfaces because the BSSID or channel doesn't match what's in
>     /etc/config/wireless at that particular moment. And that's a pain
>     in the ass.
>
>     So while ffwatchd is good at keeping processes alive, we need to
>     figure out how to prevent it from messing up the networking. I
>     propose modifying /etc/init.d/network to include this start
>     function (changes in bold):
>
>     start() {
>             stop
>             [ -e /proc/sys/kernel/core_pattern ] && {
>                     ulimit -c unlimited
>                     echo '/tmp/%e.%p.%s.%t.core' >
>     /proc/sys/kernel/core_pattern
>             }
>             service_start /sbin/netifd
>
>             setup_switch() { return 0; }
>
>             include /lib/network
>             setup_switch
>
>             sleep 5
>
>             *cp /etc/crontabs/root**/etc/crontabs/root.backup**
>     **       sed -i -e '/ffwatchd running/d' /etc/crontabs/root**
>     **       /etc/init.d/freifunk-watchdog stop*
>
>             /sbin/wifi down
>             /sbin/wifi up
>
>             *mv /etc/crontabs/root.backup /etc/crontabs/root**
>     **       /etc/init.d/freifunk-watchdog start*
>     }
>
>     Would this be sufficient for keeping ffwatchd from meddling with
>     the wireless interfaces as commotiond configured everything and/or
>     when networking was (re)started?
>
>     -Dan
>
>
>     On 04/30/2013 09:44 AM, Dan Staples wrote:
>>     So although Freifunk-watchdog is installed on Commotion-openwrt, we
>>     don't really take advantage of it. It currently only watches dropbear
>>     and cron. Is there any reason we shouldn't add entries for the core
>>     Commotion components? Since we've been having problems with olsrd
>>     inexplicably shutting down, I think the watchdog could help. Here's a
>>     /etc/config/freifunk-watchdog I'd like to add by default to DR1:
>>
>>     config process
>>             option process 'dropbear'
>>             option initscript '/etc/init.d/dropbear'
>>
>>     config process
>>             option process 'crond'
>>             option initscript '/etc/init.d/cron'
>>
>>     config process
>>             option process 'commotiond'
>>             option initscript '/etc/init.d/commotiond'
>>
>>     config process
>>             option process 'servald'
>>             option initscript '/etc/init.d/serval-dna'
>>
>>     config process
>>             option process 'avahi-daemon'
>>             option initscript '/etc/init.d/avahi-daemon'
>>
>>     config process
>>             option process 'olsrd'
>>             option initscript '/etc/init.d/olsrd'
>>
>>     config process
>>             option process 'dnsmasq'
>>             option initscript '/etc/init.d/dnsmasq'
>>
>>     I didn't add firewall, in case folks want to turn that off. Is there
>>     anything I'm missing? Any reason not to do this?
>>
>>     -Dan
>>
>
>     --
>     Dan Staples
>
>     Open Technology Institute
>     https://commotionwireless.net
>
>
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>
>
>
> --
> Ben West
> http://gowasabi.net
> ben at gowasabi.net <mailto:ben at gowasabi.net>
> 314-246-9434

--
Dan Staples

Open Technology Institute
https://commotionwireless.net