Where am I? Do we need a Location Profiler?

[David Hollis]

On Fri, 2006-04-14 at 13:18 +0100, Cam wrote:
> Paul
> 
> > Being able to switch yum{, repo} configurations comes to mind as a
> > useful function along the same lines.  I have local mirrors available on
> > some networks, not on others.  These can be handled with dispatcher.d
> > scripts, but would a user helper be beneficial?
> 
> There must be lots of configurations that could be usefully set: I can 
> think of things like default printer, network proxy configuration, 
> outgoing mail server etc. For every app that uses these, there should be 
> a framework for the app to be notified of change. For example a weather 
> applet should notice if the http proxy changes after I suspend my 
> machine at home and resume it at work...
> 
> You might even want to run your security in a stricter mode when you are 
> eg. at a public hot-spot vs. at work or at home with trusted peers; or 
> have different screensaver / lock settings...

Some of these things are already just about in place, probably just need
a little bit of quick glue.  For example, Gnome already has a setting
for HTTP proxy, though it's hard to say how many apps actually make use
of it.  I would presume that if the app uses Gnome libraries for
accessing URLs it would apply but if they do their own network access,
you are on your own.  Then there is the case of the http_proxy
environment variable that most CLI apps make use of.  If the Gnome
preference could be dup'ed to the environment variable, we'd almost have
a winner.

Tracking on location can be a tougher nut than some folks might think
though.  It would most likely be a somewhat manual effort IMHO.  The
easiest method is to make the decision based on ESSID, but if you are
hard-wired, it's not so simple.  Basing it on the local network or
gateway address is a bit goofy and could easily lead to things not
working out how you expected.  As an example, suppose I use
192.168.1.0/24 at home, with .1 as my gateway - a rather common setup -
and I go to some hotel that doesn't have wireless yet, and they use the
same scheme.  Should my "I'm at home, provide unfettered access to all"
profile apply, probably not.

And please nobody suggest that you key of the MAC of the gateway or
something dumb like that.  You try and handle cases of people changing
their routers and now their profiles don't work or worse - changing an
L3 switch on the 7th floor makes all the users profiles behave
differently etc.

-- 
David Hollis <dhollis at davehollis.com>
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