[tahoe-dev] [tahoe-lafs-trac-stream] [tahoe-lafs] #1988: don't stop the process if you can't execute "ifconfig" or "route.exe"

[Zooko O'Whielacronx]

Folks:

I'm not very satisfied with the current state of the
IP-address-auto-discovery stuff.

Yet another new user just mentioned on IRC that they were blocked by
some kind of problem with the subprocess invocation of ifconfig. It
turned out that in their case ifconfig wasn't on the PATH for non-root
users. They are apparently using Debian, so that shows how this kind
of problem is now hitting more widely-used operating systems like
Debian, and not just those systems where our new user is the first
person to try Tahoe-LAFS on that operating system.

Here is the list of tickets about iputil:

https://tahoe-lafs.org/trac/tahoe-lafs/query?status=!closed&keywords=~iputil

I think this is the number one problem for first-time users of
Tahoe-LAFS nowadays. (And we're getting more and more of those
nowadays!)

This probably indicates progress! A year or two ago there were more
common problems involving compilation and setup, but I think those
problems hit people less often nowadays, and so this
ifconfig-subprocess thing has risen to the top.

Also, I think Debian and other systems are more and more likely to
restrict access to ifconfig, to not have ifconfig installed, etc.

I don't know what to do about it, though! I still feel like adding
1471 lines of C code (from netifaces) is a cure worse than the
disease, possibly adding bugs and certainly adding
build/deploy/package/compatibility headaches.

Any ideas? I'm kind of interested in the radical approach of removing
all auto-detection of your IP address, and saying that Tahoe-LAFS
v1.11 nodes will not be reachable from remote nodes unless you
manually configure your correct IP address (including setting up
firewall-rules/port-forwarding if necessary). :-/

(That suggestion falls into the category of "Is Tahoe-LAFS
client-server or peer-to-peer?" --
https://tahoe-lafs.org/trac/tahoe-lafs/query?status=!closed&keywords=~p2p&order=priority
)

Oh, and let's not forget that MK_FG has contributed a patch that would
help with some of these problems!

https://github.com/tahoe-lafs/tahoe-lafs/pull/14

Regards,

Zooko