I would like to suggest creating hooks for "pre" analogues of the currently
existing 'ifdown-post' and 'ifup-post' scripts, and then for the
'ifup-local' and 'ifdown-local' scripts one can plug in.  I am a dialup
user, and use the dhs.org static hostname -> mutable IP address mapping
service because Kerberos (used on MIT/Athena) requires it.  Kerberos does
an "idiot-check" of the host identification by a
"gethostbyaddr(gethostbyname(host))" call.

I have my system do some acrobatics on both device up and down, but also
need hooks before the device state is changed in either direction.  For
example, before I shutdown my external networking, I must currently run a
script manually to disable my DNS entry at dhs.org.  This is not a problem
on startup, as I can just include that action in 'ifup-local' but
'ifdown-local' is executed after the device is disabled.

I could hack my scripts to rectify the problem, but it is certainly
non-standard and I cannot share my solution with others who have rapidly
changing network configuration without rolling my own 'initscripts' package
-- this is uncomfortable, give how critical this component is!

If you wish, I can implement the hack and submit a patch, but it would
require a change in the naming convention of the local plugin scripts.

Thank you.

Regards,

Sourav Mandal