RFC: new modes in network-manager 0.7 + ifupdown

[Daniel Pittman]

Alexander Sack <asac at ubuntu.com> writes:

> one main NetworkManager 0.7 blocker identified for intrepid was bug
> #256054: "new 0.7 branch ignores /etc/network/interfaces".

[...]

> To address this I currently see two approaches for "Managed mode".
>
>  1. disable ifup/ifdown for NM managed devices completely: this
>  probably would be the clean solution and would reflect the fact that
>  NM managed network devices cannot/must not be managed through
>  ifup/ifdown.
>
>  2. the other option is to only prevent ifup/ifdown from automatically
>  interfering with NetworkManager and leave the decision whether a user
>  wants to manually mess with his NetworkManager managed devices through
>  ifup/ifdown to the user: To achieve this we could a) disable the "-a"
>  option in ifup or b) add special code to the networking init.d script.
>
> For now, my personal preference is solution 2a). It does not disable
> ifup/ifdown completely, while it would prevent issues due to devices
> being accidentially/automatically managed my ifup/ifdown at startup.
>
> If you more ideas or any reasons why we should rather go for 1), 2b) or
> even 3), I would love to hear about them.

Wouldn't the nicest "option 3" be:

Install in if{up,down} set of commands (or hooks) that act via
NetworkManager, rather than directly, so that the command line tools
continue to work as expected?

Those wrappers could execute the original versions if the system was in
"unmanaged" mode, so that their operation was transparent to the admin.

Regards,
        Daniel