[Babel-users] babeld and systemd [was: babeld wishlist]

[Toke Høiland-Jørgensen]

Baptiste Jonglez <baptiste at bitsofnetworks.org> writes:

>> Awesome! Any chance of also including a 'babeld at .service' file to easily
>> run babeld on a single interface without editing the configuration file? :)
>
> You mean, in the Arch package, in addition to the regular service
> file?

Yeah, that was my thought.

> By the way, the service file you posted earlier *does* require editing
> a configuration file, /etc/babeld-%I.conf :)
>
>   ExecStart=/usr/bin/babeld -D -I /run/babeld-%I.pid -S /var/lib/babel-state-%I -c /etc/babeld-%I.conf %I

Right, good point. Actually thought babeld would start fine if the file
doesn't exist. Seems not.

> Should we just tell babeld not to use any configuration file in this
> case?

Hmm, might be better. What I'd ideally like is something like 'use this
config file if it exists, otherwise nothing'. Not sure if that is easily
expressible in a service file.

> Otherwise, we could just use /etc/babeld.conf, but we might end up with
> babeld running on multiple interfaces even though the user only started
> e.g. babeld at eth0...  It would feel weird.  Also, I don't know what would
> happen if multiple instances of babeld run on the same interface.  For
> instance, what if somebody puts this in /etc/babeld.conf:
>
>   interface eth0
>   interface eth1
>
> and starts both babeld at eth0 and babeld at eth1? Both babeld instances
> would run on both interfaces.

Yeah, that would probably be bad. I do believe my service file predates
the ability to specify interfaces in the configuration file.

Hmm, another thought would be to make the part after the @ specify a
config file and not an interface. I.e.

ExecStart=/usr/bin/babeld -S /var/lib/babel-state-%I -c /etc/babeld-%I.conf


That would retain the ability to have separate independent instances of
babeld, but not tie it to interface names. My use case for this is
having a separate instance of babeld that is started along with my VPN
connection (on the VPN interface, tied to the VPN service file). I need
a config file for that anyway, so sticking the interface name in there
is no problem :)

-Toke
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