opensuse/cockpit-wicked

Cockpit module to configure the network using Wicked.

Cockpit Wicked

Cockpit user interface for wicked.

Current Status

Although it is in a very early stage of development, it already supports a set of basic uses cases:

• Browse interfaces and configurations.
• Configure basic IPv4/IPv6 settings.
• Set up wireless devices (only WEP and WPA-PSK are supported by now).
• Set up bridges, bonding and VLAN devices (experimental).
• Manage routes (work in progress).
• Set basic DNS settings (policy, static name servers and search list).

However, many features are still missing:

• Complete support for wireless devices.
• Support for advanced devices, like TUN/TAP or Infiniband.
• Handle IP forwarding configuration.
• Devices renaming.
• Other goodies like displaying Wicked's logs or device statistics, as the NetworkManager module already does.

Installing

make install compiles and installs the package in /usr/share/cockpit/. The convenience targets srpm and rpm build the source and binary rpms, respectively. Both of these make use of the dist-gzip target, which is used to generate the distribution tarball. In production mode, source files are automatically minified and compressed. Set NODE_ENV=production if you want to duplicate this behavior.

For development, you usually want to run your module straight out of the git tree. To do that, link that to the location were cockpit-bridge looks for packages:

make devel-install

After changing the code and running make again, reload the Cockpit page in your browser.

You can also use watch mode to automatically update the webpack on every code change with

npm run watch

or

make watch

Development

If you are interested in contributing to the development, you might be interested in checking the DEVELOPMENT.md file. It contains some interesting information about the module is organized.

Acknowledgments

• This module is based on the awesome Cockpit Starter Kit.

cockpit-wicked's Issues

Read/write routing information

Routes are being ignored by the WickedAdapter at this point. We need to make them work by:

• Getting routing information from Wicked (and /etc/sysconfig/network/routes file if needed).
• Writing routes to /etc/sysconfig/network/ifcfg-* files.

Add support for WiFi connections

Enable/Disable IP forwarding

Wicked exports the current value of this setting for IPv4 and IPv6. However, we should modify sysctl configuration to enable/disable such a feature.

Routing is empty after network is up

After networking is setup and working, routes are empty

Return Promises from context helpers

There are a few context helpers (see below) which work with Promises but return undefined. That's not wrong, but while working in #53 I realize that it would be better to return these promises in order to be able to perform additional actions when they are resolved.

https://github.com/dgdavid/cockpit-wicked/blob/19c9f50740138873bf5332373f978b3d82a46a12/src/context/network.js#L253-L279

Write a nice README file

The README file was OK for a PoC. But now that the module is able to do some stuff, we should update the README with some information about the current status, screenshots, how to contribute, etc.

Add STP support to bridge connections

Crash when adding a route

Adding/editing a route causes the module to crash. The route is indeed created, but the interface just crashes.

Add helpers function for async actions

At this point, there are four different places where NetworkClient gets instantiated. Instead of doing this all over the place, the NetworkContext might provide some helper functions, especially for the updateConnection call. See https://kentcdodds.com/blog/how-to-use-react-context-effectively#what-about-async-actions for further details about this pattern.

Do not render not seleted tabs

In the current UI, we have two tabs: Interfaces and Routing. The Interfaces is the one loaded by default.

The problem is that everything is being rendered (although not displayed) at the time to mount the Tabs, which is something that we might, at least, discuss.

Do we want to load/render routes before the user click on the Routing tab?

Change forms layout

Change the forms layout to be more like the rest of Cockpit plugins (with the label at the left of the fields).

Do not allow to change interfaces that are not handled by Wicked

Currently, all interfaces are shown in the list. However, the module should not allow to modify those interfaces that are not managed by Wicked.

Interfaces list does not collapse items properly

The interfaces list provides the ability to expand/collapse each interface to show/hide their details. It is also able to keep the state of expanded/collapsed items after performing any action that changes the list, such as adding a new interface.

However, it is collapsing all other items except the requested by the user, which is clearly a misbehavior.

Improve Master/Slaves interface handling

When a interface is a bridge port or bonding slave it is still listed in the main table and is error prone. We should hide enslaved interfaces and we probably should show them only in the master details.

Write connections configuration

Now that we are able to get the information from Wicked, it is time to write the changes and reload the configuration.

Additionally, we should apply the changes as soon as possible, dropping the Save Changes button.

Document React components

Perhaps is too early to know if it worth it, but an additional tool is needed for documenting the React components.

A quick search pointed me out to https://react-styleguidist.js.org/ and https://github.com/SoftwareBrothers/better-docs#component-plugin-beta

But for sure there area many more.

IP configuration improvements

We have merged the support to specify IP settings (see #22). However, we might introduce a few improvements:

• Filter out 'DHCPv6' and 'DHCPv4' from the protocol selector.
• Improve how the configuration is displayed in the interface summary. For instance, replace dhcp by DHCP (or Automatic (DHCP). If the configuration is static, show the configured IP address.
• Selecting static in the Boot Protocol should force the user to introduce, at least, an IP address.

Additionally, now we need to write IP settings to the ifcfg files (see #19).

Removes routes without an associated interfaces

While testing version 2, I found that the last route without an associated interface is not being removed. It is happened only with the last one because the fact that routes can be removed in bulk, but the real problem is that the /etc/sysconfig/network/routes files is not being updated when there are no more routes linked to an interface.

Quite related to 855b80d

ifcfg-* files are completely rewritten

When you change an interface configuration, the ifcfg-* gets completely overwritten. The problem is that only the values that the module know about are written. So comments and any other unknown key is just removed from the file.

Add support for VLAN connections

Rethink/Improve how to deal with routes

Follow up of #18

Although the Routing tab is working now following the apply changes immediately Cockpit's approach (i.e., no Save Changes button/action), we consider changes introduced in #41 as a workaround or even starting point for a discussion.

Thus, we must rethink how to deal with routes from both sides: the user interface and the code organization to make it possible.

Fix initial state

Initially, the state managed Array collections

https://github.com/dgdavid/cockpit-wicked/blob/19c9f50740138873bf5332373f978b3d82a46a12/src/context/network.js#L153

which is not longer. Instead, Object collections are being used, as it can be seen in the reducer

https://github.com/dgdavid/cockpit-wicked/blob/19c9f50740138873bf5332373f978b3d82a46a12/src/context/network.js#L53-L59

So, although everything is working as expected, the initial state should be fixed.

Change interface status in background

Setting up an interface, especially if the configuration is wrong, may take a while. For that reason, when the configuration of an interface is changed, the operation should take place in background.

Wicked's D-Bus interface notifies status changes. The idea is to listen for those changes and notify them to the React application to change the current status.

Include action progress in the state

While working in #53, I realize that maybe the state should keep the information about if any main action is being performed or not. I mean, something like

{
  checkingService: false,
  loadingInterfaces: true,
  loadingRoutes: false,
  ...
}

and update them accordingly in the reducer. This would allow, for example, to easily display more information about what is going on.

@lslezak, @imobachgs, @teclator, what do you think guys?