[Kde-hardware-devel] Network Manager interfaces

[Christopher Blauvelt]

While designing the network manager I defined a network as any type of
computer-to-computer communication.  This includes TCP/IP and IrDA,
and later Bluetooth, X10, and One-wire.  I have designed the API to
have a network manager class with the following functions:

NetworkList allNetworks();
bool networkExists( const QString &net );
Network findNetwork( const QString &net );
Network networkType<class Solid::Capability>();

signals
void networkDeviceAdded( const QString &net );
void networkDeviceRemoved( const QString &net );

The network class will have the following methods:
virtual QString networkAddress() const = 0;
virtual bool isDefaultGateway() const = 0; //if this network is the
default gateway for the device
virtual MediumType mediumType() const = 0; //wired or wireless
virtual CommunicationslType protocolType() const = 0;//ethernet, wifi, ppp
virtual bool isVirtualNetwork() const = 0;//is this a VPN?
virtual QList<QString> statistics() const = 0;//this list will change
for different network types
virtual NetworkIface* networkDevice() const = 0;//the associated network device
virtual QString net() const = 0;//similar to udi

For each network type there is a class that inherits from Network.
Classes such as tcpipnetwork, IrDA, and X10 will inherit from the
network class.  tcpipnetwork covers all network types such as
ethernet, wifi, ppp, nullmodem, etc.

It is unreasonable to expect one backend to handle all of these
network types.  To rectify this I designed network manager to use
multiple backends.  If some functionality is not desired the "null"
backend can be used which serves as a placeholder.  I expect this to
cause some controversy however I don't see any other way to implement
this functionality.