Arch Linux

ilembitov

Member

Registered: 2008-10-07

Posts: 124

Implementing an ifconfig tray icon frontend?

Hi, all. Maybe the subject line sounds obscure, but I'll try to explain.

In the nearest time I'd like to give OpenBSD a try. Basically, I already did, but couldn't arrange a VPN connection to my ISP, so I'm waiting till I buy a router.

OpenBSD doesn't have any kind of GUI network connection manager (like nm, wicd or connman). So I thought - why not use the fact, that all the network connections routines are performed through ifconfig (even WPA/WPA2 management)? So I figured out that probably writing some kind of wrapper in shell could be possible even for a shell newbie like me. The question is, what would be a good way to do a dropdown menu (nm-like) for a WM? The one, that would show all the wifi networks (and all the actual interfaces), their signal strength, and allow the click&connect thing?

Probably, awesome has that kind of possibilities (with its immerse libraries with widgets, buttons, etc). However, OpenBSD doesn't have Awesome 3.x & co (only 2.x - maybe it's because the config syntax started bitching at that point) and I would like to use scrotwm. Is there any kind of toolbar that would make such a thing possible?

kowalski

Member

Registered: 2009-05-07

Posts: 82

Re: Implementing an ifconfig tray icon frontend?

As far as I get the issue the system tray icon is not a matter of window manager.
For example gtk provides the functionality you need. PyGTK would be a convenient way to write such a programm and I think it would be more "straight-forward" than a shell-script with some wrapper or whatever for a system tray icon.

See http://www.pygtk.org/docs/pygtk/class-g … sicon.html for documentation about the aforementioned tray icon.

Furthermore a quick google query turned up http://code.google.com/p/python-ifconfig/

How does ifconfig handle WPA/WPA2? I thought that's wpa-supplicant's job.

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He who says A doesn't have to say B. He can also recognize that A was false.

tomk

Forum Fellow

From: Ireland

Registered: 2004-07-21

Posts: 9,839

Re: Implementing an ifconfig tray icon frontend?

He's talking about OpenBSD's ifconfig - a different animal altogether.

ilembitov - I'm sure you'll get some answers here, but do you not think it would be quicker/more direct to ask actual OpenBSD users? I imagine they have their own forum/ML/IRC/whatever.

kowalski

Member

Registered: 2009-05-07

Posts: 82

Re: Implementing an ifconfig tray icon frontend?

Oh, my bad then. I don't know squat about OpenBSD. Sorry for the unrelated post.

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He who says A doesn't have to say B. He can also recognize that A was false.

ilembitov

Member

Registered: 2008-10-07

Posts: 124

Re: Implementing an ifconfig tray icon frontend?

He's talking about OpenBSD's ifconfig - a different animal altogether.

ilembitov - I'm sure you'll get some answers here, but do you not think it would be quicker/more direct to ask actual OpenBSD users? I imagine they have their own forum/ML/IRC/whatever.

I tried that, too. Basically, it's not really about ifconfig, it's about wrapping an existing tool in a script instead of writing something else (hello, nm), which is, to my mind, pretty KISS. Which is why I posted it here as well.

Infinity717

Member

Registered: 2010-02-13

Posts: 12

Re: Implementing an ifconfig tray icon frontend?

You could start from here
http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/ports.cgi?qu … ektion=all

tomk

Forum Fellow

From: Ireland

Registered: 2004-07-21

Posts: 9,839

Re: Implementing an ifconfig tray icon frontend?

Or you could port netcfg to *BSD.