IIAB installer should make hotspot & networking choices far more understandable

[holta]

Excellent design ideas from @georgejhunt & @jvonau during our weekly call this morning!

Apologies if I did not capture it all, but this is a start — see meeting minutes item 1. b. under Feb 28, 2019 here: http://minutes.iiab.io

Refs:

• Enable simultaneous Hotspot/AP & client-WiFi on RPi's internal WiFi? #430
• Wifi3 - simultaneous AP & WiFi-as-client on RPi (using dnsmasq) #697
• rpi-test: wpa_supplicant AP mode simultaneous with WiFi as client #748
• Opening up ports [needs better documentation!] + DNS/dnsmasq failure when installing IIAB over WiFi #1519
• Admin Console should offer iiab-hotspot-on|off functionality [and explain command-line alternatives, which are often necessary!] #1520
• RPi installs w/ Ethernet AND WiFi very flaky: (1) disconnects all ssh sessions (2) forces auto-creation of unwanted hotspot #1527

[holta]

#1582 & #1583 are big steps forward in making http://d.iiab.io tangible to newcomers.

Now things like #1575 (more automated reporting of networking & similar issues) are needed to keep grassroots communities' trials/tribulations circulating, so this kind of "fieldback" keeps organically growing...

[jvonau]

Given this was tagged for 8.0 in 2020 why the sudden interest in networking a year later when this is a 8.0 objective?

[jvonau]

there years later, is it good enough?

[holta]

there years later, is it good enough?

It's a lot better!

Things like these below also stand to greatly help community onboarding — as almost everyone finds networking overwhelming — educators especially, whose core focus is learning/content/usability:

• PR Detect, record if wifi can be AP and suppress installing supporting files #3070
  • PR Check hardware for AP and if so record 'can_be_ap = True' to /etc/iiab/iiab.ini #3222
• PR Allow for network role to be fully optional #3173
• PR set 'host_country_code' to value found in wpa_supplicant.conf [on Raspberry Pi OS only, deferring Ubuntu/Debian upstream issues] #3179 for Should host_country_code in local_vars.yml update wpa_supplicant.conf not just hostapd.conf ? #3097

Ref:

• Admin Console should offer iiab-hotspot-on|off functionality [and explain command-line alternatives, which are often necessary!] #1520

[holta]

FYI latest progress is here:

• PR Remove named dhcpd + roles/firmware refinements + clean networkd-dispatcher for Mint #3314
  • cf2b5a4 "iiab-check-firmware: Emphasize './runrole --reinstall firmware'"
• PR Net warn #3313