opentechinstitute / commotion-mesh-applet Goto Github PK

After we complete the first phase of the GUI redesign, we'll need to update the interface based on the outcomes. Hopefully with the desktop Linux client, this should be relatively minor.

This applet automatically kills olsrd when it's not needed, but the logic needs to be refined a bit to handle edge cases.

(Was issue 539 on code.commotionwireless.net)

Commotion-mesh-applet could provide more detailed information about connection state.

For example:
Scrape jsoninfo to get info about the state of the connection, then change the applet icon accordingly. This should probably tap into the existing JsonInfo scrape that's happening, rather than having another json scrape.

There should probably something like 4 states. More might be confusing, but it can't just be on or off since mesh is cmore complicated than that. Perhaps something like:

no connection at all
small mesh
large mesh
mesh with internet

(Was issue 537 on code.commotionwireless.net)

PythonArgs: ['/usr/lib/gnome-applets/commotion-mesh-applet']
Traceback:
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/usr/lib/gnome-applets/commotion-mesh-applet", line 30, in
cma.create_menu()
File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/commotion_applet_support.py", line 374, in create_menu
strengths[profile[0]])
File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/commotion_applet_support.py", line 306, in add_visible_profile_menu_item
os.path.join(self.nm_icon_dir, 'nm-signal-50.png'))
TypeError: add_menu_item() takes at most 4 arguments (5 given)

One of the included interfaces with the Commotion Linux client (and all desktop clients) should be a "control panel" applet for the native system control panel that allows for the advanced management of configuration profiles available on the system.

Got an error when trying to "Show mesh status" on an established mesh connection under Ubuntu 13.04, running Unity. No window shows and the following is outputed in the terminal window I started commotion-mesh-applet from:

Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/commotion_applet_support.py", line 390, in show_mesh_status
self.meshstatus.show()
File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/commotion_applet_support.py", line 114, in show
self.update()
File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/commotion_applet_support.py", line 102, in update
if link:
UnboundLocalError: local variable 'link' referenced before assignment

Update:
Apparently olsrd haven't found any neighbors (despite there being a couple of nodes around that are actively meshing) when checking 'echo all | nc localhost 2006'. And I also occasionally get the following error output - I think it's when I start establishing a connection (it comes before NetworkManager lets me know that the connection has been established).

ERROR:dbus.connection:Exception in handler for D-Bus signal:
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/dbus/connection.py", line 230, in maybe_handle_message
self._handler(_args, *_kwargs)
File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/NetworkManager.py", line 108, in helper
handler(_args, *_kwargs)
File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/commotion_applet_support.py", line 374, in create_menu
strengths[profile[0]])
File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/commotion_applet_support.py", line 300, in add_visible_profile_menu_item
os.path.join(self.nm_icon_dir, 'nm-signal-100.png'))
TypeError: add_menu_item() takes at most 4 arguments (5 given)

I'll dig some more...

In the details view that shows all a list of all the mesh nodes, there is a GTK InfoBar. set infobar to MESSAGE_ERROR state when there is no connection.

(Was issue 538 on code.commotionwireless.net)

This is a nice-to-have for R1, but would obviously be great to have a native rather than web-based service browser for Linux.

Granted, this isn't our issue per se, but there is currently an incompatibility with Ubuntu 13.04 (Raring Ringtail). The Broadcom drivers don't allow for ad-hoc mode at all, and there is currently no patch. Affected devices include various Asus and Acer netbooks (including Asus Eee PC 1225B).

We'll need a step-through wizard for creating new network profiles, analagous to the Quickstart interface on OpenWRT. This would accomplish many of the same functions but could presumably be somewhat similar, given the smaller range of possible interface configurations for desktop Linux (no access points, no multiple interface configuration).

PythonArgs: ['/etc/NetworkManager/dispatcher.d/nm-dispatcher-olsrd', 'wlan0', 'up']
Traceback:
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/etc/NetworkManager/dispatcher.d/nm-dispatcher-olsrd", line 276, in
m = MeshConnection(interface, status)
File "/etc/NetworkManager/dispatcher.d/nm-dispatcher-olsrd", line 127, in init
meshconnection = self.getMeshConnection(interface)
File "/etc/NetworkManager/dispatcher.d/nm-dispatcher-olsrd", line 190, in getMeshConnection
c = self.getAdhocConnection(interface)
File "/etc/NetworkManager/dispatcher.d/nm-dispatcher-olsrd", line 222, in getAdhocConnection
if ac == None:
UnboundLocalError: local variable 'ac' referenced before assignment

The applet currently requires a restart to parse new network config files. Ideally, a restart should not be required. If nothing else, there should be a menu entry that allows the user to "search" for new networks, or to define a new network (via a text editor that will pop up, perhaps).

(Was Bug 571 on code.commotionwireless.net)

I got the following error when selecting a profile in the applet menu.

Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/commotion_applet_support.py", line 314, in choose_profile
connections = dict([(x.GetSettings()['connection']['id'], x) for x in connections])
File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/NetworkManager.py", line 102, in proxy_call
return self.unwrap(ret)
File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/NetworkManager.py", line 65, in unwrap
d[k] = self.unwrap(v)
File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/NetworkManager.py", line 65, in unwrap
d[k] = self.unwrap(v)
File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/NetworkManager.py", line 76, in unwrap
return str(val)
UnicodeEncodeError: 'ascii' codec can't encode character u'\xe5' in position 2: ordinal not in range(128)

This was due to a profile in NM with an 'å' (00E5, http://www.ltg.ed.ac.uk/~richard/utf-8.cgi?input=00E5&mode=hex ) in the name.

Is this related to NetworkManager.py not handling utf8 properly when returning str(val) or is it the interpretation of the string in commotion_applet_support.py ?

Either way, this is until it's fixed worked around by removing any profiles with non-ascii characters in their name.

Log location should be moved from /tmp to linux standard /var/log

Since the linux wireless driver table gives us a good idea what drivers are most and least likely to be be able to connect to a mesh network, it might be nice to give users of our Desktop app a quick, up-front indication of how mesh-ready their hardware is..

The check is fairly trivial; we'd just need to decide how we'd like to display the information about a given machine's mesh capabilities (or lack thereof).

Prerequisite task: version 1.0 UI review