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+<?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8895-15"?> <!-- -*-html-helper-*- -->
+<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
+<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
+
+<head>
+<title>ifplugd @PACKAGE_VERSION@</title>
+<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="style.css" />
+</head>
+
+<body>
+<h1><a name="top">ifplugd @PACKAGE_VERSION@</a></h1>
+
+<p><i>Copyright 2002,2003 Lennart Poettering &lt;mzvscyhtq [at] itaparica.org&gt;</i></p>
+
+<ul class="toc">
+ <li><a href="#license">License</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#news">News</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#overview">Overview</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#status">Status</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#documentation">Documentation</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#requirements">Requirements</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#installation">Installation</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#acks">Acknowledgements</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#download">Download</a></li>
+</ul>
+
+<h2><a name="license">License</a></h2>
+
+<p>This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
+modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as
+published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the
+License, or (at your option) any later version.</p>
+
+<p>This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but
+WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
+MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU
+General Public License for more details.</p>
+
+<p>You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
+along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
+Foundation, Inc., 675 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.</p>
+
+<h2><a name="news">News</a></h2>
+
+<div class="news-date">Thu July 10 2003: </div> <p class="news-text"><a
+href="http://www.stud.uni-hamburg.de/~lennart/projects/ifplugd/ifplugd-0.16.tar.gz">Version
+0.16</a> released, changes include: RPM spec file added, build fixes</p>
+
+<div class="news-date">Thu July 10 2003: </div> <p class="news-text"><a
+href="http://www.stud.uni-hamburg.de/~lennart/projects/ifplugd/ifplugd-0.15.tar.gz">Version
+0.15</a> released, changes include: bad umask fix, documentation update</p>
+
+<div class="news-date">Mon July 7 2003: </div> <p class="news-text"><a
+href="http://www.stud.uni-hamburg.de/~lennart/projects/ifplugd/ifplugd-0.14.tar.gz">Version
+0.14</a> released, changes include: autoconf usage, new dependency <a
+href="http://www.stud.uni-hamburg.de/~lennart/projects/libdaemon/"><tt>libdaemon</tt></a>, wireless LAN support, support for
+suspending/resuming, many fixes</p>
+
+<h2><a name="overview">Overview</a></h2>
+
+<p><tt>ifplugd</tt> is a Linux daemon which will automatically
+configure your ethernet device when a cable is plugged in and
+automatically unconfigure it if the cable is pulled. This is useful on
+laptops with onboard network adapters, since it will only configure
+the interface when a cable is really connected.
+
+<p><tt>ifplugd</tt> is a rather simplistic approach to this target since it relies
+on your distribution's native interface configuration system.</p>
+
+<p>Some features:</p>
+
+<ul>
+ <li>Uses your distribution's native <tt>ifup</tt>/<tt>ifdown</tt> programs.</li>
+
+ <li>May beep when the cable is unplugged, plugged, the interface
+ configuration succeeded or failed.</li>
+
+ <li>Supports the Linux <tt>SIOCETHTOOL</tt> (newer, aka <tt>ethtool</tt> API), <tt>SIOCGMIIREG</tt>
+ (older, aka <tt>mii-diag</tt>/<tt>mii-tool</tt> API) and SIOCDEVPRIVATE (oldest, aka
+ <tt>mii-tool</tt> API) <tt>ioctl()</tt>s for getting link status.</li>
+
+ <li>Syslog support</li>
+
+ <li>Simplistic C source code, just 19k binary (+11k for libdaemon)</li>
+
+ <li>Multiple ethernet interface support</li>
+
+ <li>May ignore short unplugged whiles (<tt>-d</tt> option) or plugged whiles (<tt>-u</tt>
+ option)</li>
+
+ <li>Support for wireless networking. Whenever an AP is detected the
+network is configured.</li>
+
+ <li>Compatibility mode for network devices which do not support cable detection (<tt>-F</tt> option)</li>
+</ul>
+
+<h2><a name="status">Status</a></h2>
+
+<p>Version 0.14 is stable and has all the sensible features its users could think of.</p>
+
+<h2><a name="documentation">Documentation</a></h2>
+
+<h3>Configuration</h3>
+
+<p>Edit <tt>/etc/ifplugd/ifplugd.conf</tt> for configuration
+changes. This file is a bourne shell script sourced by the init script
+and used to generate a suiting command line. You may specify more than
+one ethernet interface in <tt>INTERFACES</tt>. For each interface a
+seperate instance of <tt>ifplugd</tt> is spawned. The arguments specified in
+<tt>ARGS</tt> are append to <tt>ifplugd</tt>'s command line. Have a look on
+<tt>ifplugd -h</tt> or <tt>man ifplugd</tt> for further information
+about the available options.</p>
+
+<p>The network interface which is controlled by <tt>ifplugd</tt>
+should not be configured automatically by your distribution's network
+subsystem, since <tt>ifplugd</tt> will do this for you if needed. On
+Debian remove interface names beginning with <tt>eth</tt> or
+<tt>wlan</tt> from the <tt>auto</tt> option line in
+<tt>/etc/network/interfaces</tt>.</p>
+
+<h3>Troubleshooting</h3>
+
+<p>When you are using the hotplug subsystem (Debian package
+<tt>hotplug</tt>) you may notice that the network device is configured
+even when it is not listed on an <tt>auto</tt> line in
+<tt>/etc/network/interface</tt>. This may be due to <tt>hotplug</tt>
+being configured to <tt>ifup</tt> the network interface when it
+becomes available. This was the default behavior in the Debian
+<tt>hotplug</tt> package prior to release <tt>0.0.20030117-1</tt>, for
+example. To prevent this you should either upgrade your
+<tt>hotplug</tt> package or comment out the <tt>ifup</tt> call in
+<tt>/etc/hotplug/net.agent</tt>.</p>
+
+<p>When using <tt>ifplugd</tt> together with APM (and probably ACPI)
+suspends, strange things may happen: some network devices fail to
+detect the network cable for a short period of time before and after
+the suspend. When using the <tt>-f</tt> switch, this will be treated
+as "no link beat", thus the network is shutdown after a
+timeout. During this timeout the machine changes to suspended
+state. When it is resumed again, the timeout will be run out, the
+network is deconfigured, however, as the next cable detection
+succeeds, the network is configured again immediately. To fix this
+problem, <tt>ifplugd</tt> should be disabled before the APM suspend
+and enabled back after the suspend. This may be done by using
+<tt>apmd</tt> and adding a script to
+<tt>/etc/apm/{suspend,resume}.d</tt> which simply calls
+<tt>/etc/init.d/ifplugd suspend</tt>, resp. <tt>/etc/init.d/ifplugd
+resume</tt>. It might even be a good idea to shut down the network
+completely during suspend, this may be achieved by calling
+<tt>/etc/init.d/ifplugd stop</tt> and <tt>/etc/init.d/ifplugd
+start</tt> in the appropriate places. I strongly urge the packagers of
+this software for the Linux distributions to add such scripts to their
+packages.</p>
+
+<h3>FAQ</h3>
+
+<ol>
+ <li><p><b>Q:</b> I want to use <tt>ifplugd</tt> with my PCMCIA device, but <tt>ifplugd</tt> quits
+ when it doesn't find <tt>eth0</tt>, when I have not inserted the
+ card. What can I do?</p>
+
+ <p><b>A:</b> Use the <tt>-f</tt> switch. This is not very clean however,
+ since modprobe is called on each cable detection query of <tt>ifplugd</tt> to
+ load a module for the network device. This is suboptimal. You should
+ probably run <tt>ifplugd</tt> only when the card is really inserted.</p>
+ </li>
+
+ <li><p><b>Q:</b> I am using the <tt>-f</tt> switch, but the kernel logs are getting filled
+ with messages like "<tt>modprobe: modprobe: Can't locate module
+ eth0</tt>". What can I do?</p>
+
+ <p><b>A:</b> Make sure you have a line like <tt>alias eth0 off</tt> in your <tt>/etc/modules.conf</tt></p>
+ </li>
+
+ <li><p><b>Q:</b> When the cable is unplugged and the interface shut down it is
+ still available with <tt>ifconfig</tt> and markes as UP. Why this?</p>
+
+ <p><b>A:</b> <tt>ifplugd</tt> cannot detect the link beat with a shut down interface on
+ certain (most as of kernel 2.4.19) network drivers. Thus <tt>ifplugd</tt>
+ enables the interface before querying the link status. This may
+ be switched off with -a flag. You might want to use it if you
+ have a sane network driver (e.g. <tt>eepro100</tt>). The subdirectory
+ <tt>patches/</tt> in the <tt>ifplugd</tt> distribution includes a patch for the
+ 8139too 0.9.26 driver, which makes the driver compatible with
+ -a. Don't ask me how to apply this patch. If you don't know, you
+ won't need it.</p></li>
+
+ <li><p><b>Q:</b> Does it work with anything else than plain ethernet or wireless LAN?</p>
+
+ <p><b>A:</b> Certainly not, since the <tt>MII</tt> and
+<tt>ETHTOOL</tt> <tt>ioctl()</tt>s and the wireless extension don't
+exist on
+ other network device types.</p></li>
+
+ <li><p><b>Q:</b> I have a Realtek 8139 based network card. Everytime <tt>ifplugd</tt>
+ starts on bootup my machine freezes. What can I do?</p>
+
+ <p><b>A:</b> This is a bug in the <tt>8139too</tt> driver 0.9.25 (at least) shipped
+ with Linux 2.4.19, please upgrade to <tt>8139too</tt> 0.9.26 (Linux 2.4.20
+ or seperately at <a href="http://www.sourceforge.net/projects/gkernel/">http://www.sourceforge.net/projects/gkernel/</a>).</p></li>
+
+
+ <li><p><b>Q:</b> There are already <tt>laptop-net</tt>'s <tt>ifd</tt> and <tt>miid</tt>, why did you write
+ your own daemon?</p>
+
+ <p><b>A:</b> <tt>laptop-net</tt> simply sucks and I didn't know of <tt>miid</tt> when I wrote
+ <tt>ifplugd</tt>. However, <tt>ifplugd</tt> is far better than <tt>miid</tt>. For a
+ comparison of <tt>miid</tt> and <tt>ifplugd</tt>, have a look on
+
+ <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=162763&amp;repeatmerged=yes">http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=162763&amp;repeatmerged=yes</a></p></li>
+</ol>
+
+
+<h2><a name="requirements">Requirements</a></h2>
+
+<p>A newer Linux Kernel (I think 2.2 is good enough, alltough I tested it
+only with 2.4) with a compatible device driver and
+ethernet card. Most modern cards and drivers are compatible, like mine
+which works with the <tt>8139too</tt> driver.</p>
+
+<p><tt>ifplugd</tt> was developed and tested on Debian GNU/Linux
+"testing" from July 2003, it should work on most other Linux
+distributions (and maybe Unix versions) since it uses GNU autoconf and
+GNU libtool for source code configuration and shared library
+management.</p>
+
+<p>The machine used was a Medion 9580-F laptop with a Realtek 8139
+network card and a PRISM1 PCMCIA wireless LAN card.</p>
+
+<p><tt>ifplugd</tt> needs <a
+href="http://www.stud.uni-hamburg.de/~lennart/projects/libdaemon/"><tt>libdaemon</tt></a>.</p>
+
+<h2><a name="installation">Installation</a></h2>
+
+<p>As this package is made with the GNU autotools you should run
+<tt>./configure</tt> inside the distribution directory for configuring
+the source tree. After that you should run <tt>make</tt> for
+compilation and <tt>make install</tt> (as root) for installation of
+<tt>ifplugd</tt>.</p>
+
+<p>The installation scripts create an init script in
+<tt>${sysconfdir}/init.d/ifplugd</tt>, however no <tt>/etc/rc?.d/</tt> links are created
+for it.</p>
+
+<h2><a name="acks">Acknowledgements</a></h2>
+
+<p>For the developers of <tt>mii-diag</tt>, <tt>ethtool</tt> and <tt>laptop-net</tt>, since I looked
+on their source codes for learning how to use the link beat ioctls.</p>
+
+<p>Oliver Kurth for packaging <tt>ifplugd</tt> for Debian and <tt>ifplugd</tt>'s
+manpage</p>
+
+<p>Asgeir Nilsen, Sean Reifschneider, R. Steve McKown, David Mitchell for patches</p>
+
+<p>Frederic Lepied for integrating <tt>ifplugd</tt> into Mandrake Linux</p>
+
+<h2><a name="download">Download</a></h2>
+
+<p>The newest release is always available from <a href="http://www.stud.uni-hamburg.de/~lennart/projects/ifplugd/">http://www.stud.uni-hamburg.de/~lennart/projects/ifplugd/</a></p>
+
+<p>The current release is <a href="http://www.stud.uni-hamburg.de/~lennart/projects/ifplugd/ifplugd-@PACKAGE_VERSION@.tar.gz">@PACKAGE_VERSION@</a></p>
+
+<p>You may find a mostly up to date Debian package of <tt>ifplugd</tt> on the <a href="http://packages.debian.org/cgi-bin/search_packages.pl?keywords=ifplugd&amp;searchon=names&amp;subword=1&amp;version=all&amp;release=all">Debian package repository</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Packages for Mandrake Linux may be found in the Cooker distribution; Gentoo packages are available as well</p>
+
+<hr/>
+<address>Lennart Poettering &lt;mzvscyhtq [at] itaparica.org&gt;, July 2003</address>
+<div><i>$Id: README.html.in 9 2003-07-05 17:59:40Z lennart $</i></div>
+
+</body>
+</html>