This is the README file for netplug, a Linux daemon that responds to network link events, such as a network interface losing or acquiring a carrier signal. You can use netplug to configure a network interface automatically when you plug in a live network cable, and unconfigure the interface when you unplug the cable. Netplug is licensed under the GNU General Public License, version 2. Copyright 2003 Pathscale, Inc. Copyright 2003, 2004, 2005 Bryan O'Sullivan What is netplug? ---------------- Linux already supports plugging in and configuring the likes of Cardbus network interfaces, in the form of the hotplug subsystem. Netplug provides the corresponding support for plugging and unplugging cables into network interfaces. When an Ethernet-style network interface on a host is plugged into a powered-up switch, hub, or other host, the two use a carrier signal to establish that the link is alive. The Linux kernel makes this information available through its netlink interface. The netplug daemon listens for carrier detection and loss messages from the kernel's netlink subsystem. When a carrier signal is detected on an interface, it runs a script to bring the interface up. When carrier is lost, netplug runs a script to bring the interface down. Why use netplug? ---------------- If you use static IP addresses, or your host is always plugged into the same port on the same network, there's not much benefit to using netplug. Netplug comes into its own in two situations: - If you're a laptop user who migrates from one network to another, you can use netplug to automate the management of your network interface as you unplug from one network and plug into another. Without netplug, you are forced to manually run commands such as "/sbin/ifup eth0" when you plug into a new network. - If you have a large computing cluster, you may periodically need to move hosts around to balance the loads among a collection of switches and file servers. If you only need to move network cabling, you can leave a host running, with its interfaces managed by netplug, and netplug will reconfigure its interfaces when you move the host from a busy switch to a less lightly loaded one. Who ships netplug? ------------------ Netplug is distributed as part of the standard net-tools package with the following Linux distributions: Fedora Core 2 and above Mandrake 10.1 and above Red Hat Enterprise 4 and above There are also packages available for Debian and Gentoo. Adapting netplug for different situations ----------------------------------------- The netplug daemon has no notion of policy or integration with a particular Linux distribution. Those are abstracted out into a script, /etc/netplug.d/netplug. This script is responsible for the distro-dependent mechanics of: - Probing for interfaces to manage - Bringing an interface up, in response to carrier acquisition - Bringing an interface down, in response to loss of carrier Helping out ----------- Patches to integrate with different Linux distributions, add features, fix bugs, add documentation, and so on, are all welcome, as are suggestions for improvements. Master Mercurial repository: hg clone http://hg.serpentine.com/netplug Contact ------- The author of netplug is Bryan O'Sullivan <bos@serpentine.com>. Thanks ------ Thanks to the following people for their excellent work in making netplug more robust: Jeremy Fitzhardinge Steve Grubb