Re: DHCP client with minimal functionality and size

[Roy Marples <roy%marples.name@localhost>]

On Saturday 12 April 2008 04:56:07 Steven M. Bellovin wrote:
> On Fri, 11 Apr 2008 15:04:20 -0400
>
> Thor Lancelot Simon <tls%rek.tjls.com@localhost> wrote:
> > For all the flaws of ISC dhclient the use of scripts for managing
> > configuration files after state changes, and the set of variables it
> > provides to them, are very well thought out.  Done properly --
> > dhclient does not do it properly! -- it should make a DHCP client
> > smaller, not larger, since all the work of writing ntp.conf etc. can
> > be deferred to the shell.
>
> Thanks; I was about to post the same thing.  There are a fair number of
> things I dislike about dhclient, but the scripts actually help the
> size, since I already have a shell, ifconfig, etc., lying around.

The argument for not using ifconfig, route and friends is that they vary too 
much between platforms. No so much on the BSD's, but it is on Linux.
I actually save code by writing it in C - one BSD implementation currently 
fits all, one Linux implementation currently fits all. And the BSD/Linux 
specific code isn't really that much.

For an idea, look how many scripts that dhclient ships with and how much code 
could be re-used.

Thanks

Roy