| Application programming interface |
| ********************************* |
| |
| |
| Service basics |
| ============== |
| |
| Inside Connection Manager there exists one advanced interface to allow the |
| user interface an easy access to networking details and user chosen |
| preferences. This is the service list and interface. |
| |
| The basic idea is that Connection Manager maintains a single flat and sorted |
| list of all available, preferred or previously used services. A service here |
| can be either a Ethernet device, a WiFi network or a remote Bluetooth device |
| (for example a mobile phone). |
| |
| This list of service is sorted by Connection Manager and there is no need |
| for the user interface to implement its own sorting. User decisions will |
| need to be done via Connection Manager and it is then responsible to update |
| the order of services in this list. |
| |
| +---------------------------------------+ |
| | Ethernet | |
| +---------------------------------------+ |
| | Bluetooth phone | |
| +---------------------------------------+ |
| | Guest (strength 90, none) | |
| +---------------------------------------+ |
| | My WiFi AP (strength 80, rsn) | |
| +---------------------------------------+ |
| | Other AP (strength 70, rsn) | |
| +---------------------------------------+ |
| | Friends AP (strength 70, wep) | |
| +---------------------------------------+ |
| |
| If none of the services has been used before the sorting order will be done |
| with these priorities: |
| |
| 1. Ethernet (lower index numbers first) |
| 2. Bluetooth (last used devices first) |
| 3. GSM/UTMS/3G (if SIM card is present, activated and not roaming) |
| 3. WiFi (signal strength first, then more secure network |
| first) |
| |
| The Ethernet devices are always sorted first since they are physically built |
| into the system and will be always present. In cases they are switched off |
| manually they will not be showing in this list. |
| |
| Since every Bluetooth device has to be configured/paired first, the user |
| already made a choice here that these are important. Connection Manager will |
| only show devices with PAN or DUN profile support. While Bluetooth devices |
| do have a signal strength, it is mostly unknown since background scanning |
| in Bluetooth is too expensive. The choice here is to sort the last used |
| Bluetooth device before the others. |
| |
| WiFi networks closer in the proximity should be shown first since it is more |
| likely they are selected. The signal strength value is normalized to 0-100 |
| (effectively a percentage) and allows an easy sorting. |
| |
| WiFi networks with the same signal strength are then sorted by their security |
| setting. WPA2 encrypted networks should be preferred over WPA/WEP and also |
| unencrypted ones. After that they will be sorted by the SSID in alphabetical |
| order. |
| |
| In the case the WiFi network uses WPS for setup and it is clearly detectable |
| that a network waits for Connection Manager to connect to it (for example via |
| a push-to-connect button press on the AP), then this network should be shown |
| first before any other WiFi networks. The reason here is that the user already |
| made a choice via the access point. However this depends on technical details |
| if it is possible to detect these situations. |
| |
| |
| Service order |
| ============= |
| |
| All unused services will have the internal order number of 0 and then will |
| be sorted according to the rules above. For Bluetooth the user already made |
| the decision to setup their device and by that means select it. However |
| until the first connection attempt it might have been setup for total |
| different reason (like audio usage) and thus it still counts as unused from |
| a networking point of view. |
| |
| Selecting the "My WiFi AP" and successfully connecting to it makes it a |
| favorite device and it will become an order number bigger than 0. All |
| order numbers are internally. They are given only to service that are marked |
| as favorite. For WiFi and Bluetooth a successful connection attempt makes |
| these services automatically a favorite. For Ethernet the plugging of a cable |
| makes it a favorite. Disconnecting from a network doesn't remove the favorite |
| setting. It is a manual operation and is equal to users pressing |
| delete/remove button. |
| |
| +---------------------------------------+ |
| | My WiFi AP (strength 80, rsn) | order=1 - favorite=yes |
| +---------------------------------------+ |
| | Ethernet | order=0 |
| +---------------------------------------+ |
| | Guest (strength 90, none) | order=0 |
| +---------------------------------------+ |
| | | |
| |
| Ethernet is special here since the unplugging of the network cable will |
| remove the favorite selection. |
| |
| +---------------------------------------+ |
| | Ethernet with cable | order=1 - favorite=yes |
| +---------------------------------------+ |
| | Ethernet without cable | order=0 - favorite=no |
| +---------------------------------------+ |
| | Guest (strength 90, none) | order=0 |
| +---------------------------------------+ |
| | | |
| |
| This means that all services with an order > 0 have favorite=yes and all |
| others have favorite=no setting. The favorite setting is exposed via a |
| property over the service interface. As mentioned above, the order number |
| is only used internally. |
| |
| Within Connection Manager many services can be connected at the same time and |
| also have an IP assignment. However only one can have the default route. The |
| service with the default route will always be sorted at the top of the |
| list. |
| |
| +---------------------------------------+ |
| | Ethernet | order=2 - connected=yes |
| +---------------------------------------+ |
| | My WiFi AP (strength 80, rsn) | order=1 - connected=yes |
| +---------------------------------------+ |
| | Guest (strength 90, none) | order=0 |
| +---------------------------------------+ |
| | | |
| |
| To change the default connection to your access point, the user needs to |
| manually drag the access point service to the top of the list. Connection |
| Manager will not take down default routes if there is no reason to do so. |
| A working connection is considered top priority. |
| |
| +---------------------------------------+ |
| | My WiFi AP (strength 80, rsn) | order=2 - connected=yes |
| +---------------------------------------+ |
| | Ethernet | order=1 - connected=yes |
| +---------------------------------------+ |
| | Guest (strength 90, none) | order=0 |
| +---------------------------------------+ |
| | | |
| |
| Another possible user interaction would be to unplug the Ethernet cable and |
| in this case the favorite setting will be removed and the service falls back |
| down in the list. |
| |
| +---------------------------------------+ |
| | My WiFi AP (strength 80, rsn) | order=1 - connected=yes |
| +---------------------------------------+ |
| | Ethernet | order=0 |
| +---------------------------------------+ |
| | Guest (strength 90, none) | order=0 |
| +---------------------------------------+ |
| | | |
| |
| If the service on the top of the list changes the default route will be |
| automatically adjusted as needed. The user can trigger this by disconnecting |
| from a network, if the network becomes unavailable (out of range) or if the |
| cable gets unplugged. |
| |
| As described above, the pure case of disconnecting from a network will not |
| remove the favorite setting. So previously selected networks are still present |
| and are sorted above all others. |
| |
| +---------------------------------------+ |
| | Ethernet | order=2 - connected=yes |
| +---------------------------------------+ |
| | My WiFi AP (strength 80, rsn) | order=1 - connected=no |
| +---------------------------------------+ |
| | Guest (strength 90, none) | order=0 |
| +---------------------------------------+ |
| | | |
| |
| Unplugging the Ethernet cable will remove the favorite setting, but due to |
| the basic ordering of services it will be at the top of the services with an |
| order number of 0 (directly after all favorite services). |
| |
| +---------------------------------------+ |
| | My WiFi AP (strength 80, rsn) | order=1 - connected=no |
| +---------------------------------------+ |
| | Ethernet | order=0 - connected=no |
| +---------------------------------------+ |
| | Guest (strength 90, none) | order=0 |
| +---------------------------------------+ |
| | | |
| |
| |
| Service tweaks |
| ============== |
| |
| The interfaces of Connection Manager will always export all services that are |
| currently known. The Ethernet devices with no cable plugged are actually not |
| included in this list. They will only show up once a carrier is detected. |
| |
| The service interface is not meant for basic device configuration task. So |
| switching a device on and off (via RFKILL for example) should be done via |
| the device interface. |
| |
| Due to limited screen size of small devices and the big amount of WiFi |
| access points that are deployed right now it might be sensible to not show |
| certain WiFi networks in the user interface. |
| |
| The choice to hide a WiFi network from the user interface should be purely |
| done by the signal strength. The optimal cut-off value here still has to be |
| determined, but in the end that is a user interface policy. |
| |
| |
| Service naming |
| ============== |
| |
| Every service will have a name property that allows the user interface to |
| display them directly. All names will be already converted into UTF-8. It |
| derives from the netork details. |
| |
| In case of WiFi this will be the SSID value. The SSID is a binary array and |
| will be converted into printable form. Unprintable characters are replaced |
| with spaces. |
| |
| For Bluetooth the device alias is used. The alias is different since it |
| can be overwritten by the user via the Bluetooth service. The identification |
| is still done based on its address, but the display name might change. In |
| most cases the alias is equal to the Bluetooth remote friendly name. |
| |
| For Ethernet device no name will be provided. The type property will indicate |
| that this service is Ethernet and then it is up to the user interface to |
| provide a proper localized name for it. |
| |
| |
| Service states |
| ============== |
| |
| Every service can have multiple states that indicate what is currently |
| going on with it. The choice to have multiple states instead of a simple |
| connected yes/no value comes from the fact that it is important to let the |
| user interface name if a service is in process of connecting/disconnecting. |
| |
| The basic state of every service is "idle". This means that this service |
| is not in use at all at the moment. It also is not attempting to connect |
| or do anything else. |
| |
| The "association" state indicates that this service tries to establish a |
| low-level connection to the network. For example associating/connecting |
| with a WiFi access point. |
| |
| With the "configuration" state the service indicates that it is trying |
| to retrieve/configure IP settings. |
| |
| The "ready" state signals a successful connected device. This doesn't mean |
| it has the default route, but basic IP operations will succeed. |
| |
| With the "disconnect" state a service indicates that it is going to terminate |
| the current connection and will return to the "idle" state. |
| |
| In addition a "failure" state indicates a wrong behavior. It is similar to |
| the "idle" state since the service is not connected. |
| |
| +---------------+ |
| | idle |<-------------------------------+ |
| +---------------+ | |
| | | |
| | +-------------+ | |
| +----------------------| failure | | |
| | service.Connect() +-------------+ | |
| V A | |
| +---------------+ | | |
| | association |-----------------+ | |
| +---------------+ error | | |
| | | | |
| | success | | |
| V | | |
| +---------------+ | | |
| | configuration |-----------------+ | |
| +---------------+ error | |
| | | |
| | success | |
| V | |
| +---------------+ | |
| | ready | | |
| +---------------+ | |
| | | |
| | success | |
| | | |
| V | |
| +---------------+ | |
| | online |<----------------+ | |
| +---------------+ | | |
| | | | |
| | service.Disconnect() | | |
| V | | |
| +---------------+ | | |
| | disconnect |-----------------+ | |
| +---------------+ error | |
| | | |
| +------------------------------------------+ |
| |
| The different states should no be used by the user interface to trigger |
| advanced actions. The state transitions are provided for the sole purpose |
| to give the user feedback on what is currently going on. Especially in |
| cases where networks are flaky or DHCP servers take a long time these |
| information are helpful for the user. |
| |
| Some services might require special authentication procedure like a web |
| based confirmation. The LoginRequired property should be used to check |
| for this. |
| |
| |
| Application basics |
| ================== |
| |
| All applications should use D-Bus to communicate with Connection Manager. The |
| main entry point is the manager object. Currently the manager object is |
| located at "/", but this might change to allow full namespacing of the API |
| in the future. The manager interface is documented in manager-api.txt and |
| contains a set of global properties and methods. |
| |
| A simple way to retrieve all global properties looks like this: |
| |
| bus = dbus.SystemBus() |
| |
| manager = dbus.Interface(bus.get_object("net.connman", "/"), |
| "net.connman.Manager") |
| |
| properties = manager.GetProperties() |
| |
| Changing a global property is also pretty simple. For example enabling the |
| so called offline mode (aka flight mode) it is enough to just set that |
| property: |
| |
| manager.SetProperty("OfflineMode", dbus.Boolean(1)) |
| |
| The manager object contains references to profiles, devices, services and |
| connections. All these references represent other interfaces that allow |
| detailed control of Connection Manager. The profiles and devices interfaces |
| are more for advanced features and most applications don't need them at all. |
| |
| The services are represented as a list of object paths. Every of these object |
| paths contains a service interface. A service is a global collection for |
| Ethernet devices, WiFi networks, Bluetooth services etc. and all these |
| different types are treated equally. |
| |
| Every local Ethernet card will show up as exactly one service. WiFi networks |
| will be grouped by SSID, mode and security setting. Bluetooth PAN and DUN |
| service will show up per remote device. This creates a simple list that can |
| be directly displayed to the users since these are the exact details users |
| should care about. |
| |
| properties = manager.GetProperties() |
| |
| for path in properties["Services"]: |
| service = dbus.Interface(bus.get_object("net.connman", path), |
| "net.connman.Service") |
| |
| service_properties = service.GetProperties() |
| |
| The service interface is documented in service-api.txt and contains common |
| properties valid for all services. It also contains method to connect or |
| disconnect a specific service. This allows users to select a specific service. |
| Connection Manager can also auto-connect services based on his policies or |
| via external events (like plugging in an Ethernet cable). |
| |
| Connecting (or disconnecting) a specific service manually is as simple as |
| just telling it to actually connect: |
| |
| service.Connect() or service.Disconnect() |
| |
| It is possible to connect multiple services if the underlying technology |
| allows it. For example it would be possible to connect to a WiFi network |
| and a Bluetooth service at the same time. Trying to connect to a second WiFi |
| network with the same WiFi hardware would result in an automatic disconnect |
| of the currently connected network. Connection Manager handles all of this |
| for the applications in the background. Trying to connect an Ethernet service |
| will result in an error if no cable is plugged in. All connection attempts |
| can fail for one reason or another. Application should be able to handle |
| such errors and will also be notified of changes via signals. |
| |
| In future versions Connection Manager will interact with an agent to confirm |
| certain transactions with the user. This functionality is currently not |
| implemented. |
| |
| To monitor the current status of a service the state property can be used. It |
| gives detailed information about the current progress. |
| |
| properties = service.GetProperties() |
| |
| print properties["State"] |
| |
| All state changes are also sent via the PropertyChanged signal on the |
| service interface. This allows asynchronous monitoring without having to poll |
| Connection Manager for changes. |
