From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: whit@transpect.com Received: from krantz.zx2c4.com (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by krantz.zx2c4.com (ZX2C4 Mail Server) with ESMTP id af27e272 for ; Mon, 4 Dec 2017 19:21:13 +0000 (UTC) Received: from black.transpect.com (vt.electrainfo.com [207.136.236.70]) by krantz.zx2c4.com (ZX2C4 Mail Server) with ESMTP id 6cdd1ffd for ; Mon, 4 Dec 2017 19:21:13 +0000 (UTC) Date: Mon, 4 Dec 2017 14:27:52 -0500 From: Whit Blauvelt To: "Jason A. Donenfeld" Subject: Re: What are the options for stopping and starting? Message-ID: <20171204192752.GB5311@black.transpect.com> References: <20171204160159.GA27666@black.transpect.com> <20171204172937.GA11936@black.transpect.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii In-Reply-To: Cc: WireGuard mailing list List-Id: Development discussion of WireGuard List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , On Mon, Dec 04, 2017 at 07:06:27PM +0100, Jason A. Donenfeld wrote: > Sort of but not quite. You're thinking about this all wrong though and > you're going to get into trouble. There aren't services or daemons. Hi Jason, Thanks for the quick, detailed answers. While it's obvious wg-quick is a special purpose script, the precise niche it's good for is underspecified; as is the incompatibility of the resulting extra lines in the conf files. So if you were going to expand the docs to avoid confusing average sysadmins like me, those would be nice things to add. I hope I was clear that I understand this is not about services or daemons in userspace (although wg-quick has some daemonic properties). Yet in a way it's normal to think of a VPN as a service, even if with WireGuard the service is provided by the kernal rather than a user-space daemon. Yeah, it's not the technical use of "service," but it's regular English, like "telephone service" or "postal service." It's natural in that metaphor of "service" to ask how to "turn it on" and "turn it off." Okay, so "ip link set wg0 down" is the off switch; and "wg setconf wg0 wg0.conf" is the on switch? If so, it's just a bit unusual to have the off switch be outside of the product (wg), while the on switch is inside it. Each command makes sense; having them be so far apart is an unusual placement. I respect you're adherence to KISS here. Yet an additional option like "wg setconf wg0 standby" (to set the link down while perserving the options if possible), or "wg setconf wg0 off" (to turn it off and lose option settings) would fulfil the user's expectation of the on switch and the off switch being found in the same place. In a way it simplifies the interface to have features where people most naturally look for them. Now that I understand it, I've got no problem with it. I'm just pointing out that for the next new user, unless the docs further explain this, the same confusion could occur. Best, Whit