[WLANware] SNMP plugin for OSLR - GSoC 2011

[ambarisha b]

Hi,

On Thu, Mar 24, 2011 at 7:23 AM, Mitar <mmitar at gmail.com> wrote:
>> 3. We should make the implementation of the network stack more
>> robust.(Ofcourse I can see that this was just a mockup but I just want
>> to make note of the point).Is there a specific reason for going with
>> the uIP stack? I know its quite small, but can you please elaborate on
>> the choice ?
>
> Read above.

I am concerned whether the stack and the tcpdump library are
cross-platform because I read that uIP has been "ported" to
windows.That made me think what if we were running a platform it
wasn't ported to , then the flasher wouldn't work on it. Further , as
far as my knowledge goes ,we need to have Winpcap for windows like
libpcap.

>> 4. Coming to the GUI of the flasher, I agree the process should be
>> made as simple as possible.I listed down the main things that are to
>> be presented on the front end.
>>    --> Firmware image( A file chooser to select the image)
>>    --> Network interface information (This has to be easy to fill out)
>
> No, this should be automatically done. We do not want any technical
> data necessary (but of course for power users we might give them also
> this, if they want it).

So, how would this work?Do we try to find the firmware image or
download it from somewhere in the background?

>>    --> A progress bar that indicates the transfer of the image to the
>> router(I guess this is going to be pretty quick but may be we could
>> embed the gap that we give the router to install the image into this
>> so that user needn't consider it explicitly)
>> What else would the frontend involve ?
> Some routers have more complex flashing (like telneting to some port
> and issuing multiple commands which formats flash, transfers image,
> flashes the image). So some way of displaying to the user what is
> going on would be necessary. So some read-only terminal display.

Exactly.That was what I meant about the TODO.This point has been
commented out in the code"TODO:do something to handle telnet".If this
is the case we should take the process step by step with clear
directions.

>> 5. There are also some TODO's commented out in the code that are worth
>> some attention.
>
> ap-51 tool is a flash tool I would use as as example, not directly
> build on it. Probably rent some code, but refactor/redo it at the same
> time, do things more modular and so on.
Very true.Especially so, if we want the app to be as generic as
possible.I was just trying to draft the differences so that I get a
full picture of the task.

Further I have got the uIP stack source to familiarize myself with
it.I have some experience with libpcap , so that is going to help.I
have noted that point about the GUI and will drop the visual mockups,
this will help concentrate more on the internal working .Where do you
suggest my further studies should lie ? What would be my next step?
Thanks again for the quick and informative response.

Cheers
Ambarish