How do I get the default Network Manager plus dnsmasq-base setup back again?

[Chris Green]

On Sun, Jan 13, 2013 at 11:34:41AM -0500, Gene Heskett wrote:
> On Sunday 13 January 2013 11:17:56 Chris Green did opine:
> Message additions Copyright Sunday 13 January 2013 by Gene Heskett
> 
> > On Sat, Jan 12, 2013 at 05:55:41PM -0500, Tom H wrote:
> > > On Thu, Jan 10, 2013 at 8:33 AM, Chris Green <cl at isbd.net> wrote:
> > > > On Wed, Jan 09, 2013 at 05:31:59PM -0500, Tom H wrote:
> > > >> On Wed, Jan 9, 2013 at 9:54 AM, Chris Green <cl at isbd.net> wrote:
> > > >>> All I get to see in /var/log/syslog (about dnsmasq) is:-
> > > >>> 
> > > >>>     Jan  9 14:51:03 test NetworkManager[872]: <info> DNS: loaded
> > > >>>     plugin dnsmasq
> > > >>> 
> > > >>> Network Manager continues to report all sorts of other things
> > > >>> happening but not a thing about dnsmasq. It's like dnsmasq simply
> > > >>> hangs when it's loaded.
> > 
> > I finally found out what the problem was.  You have to remove
> > *everything* from /etc/network/interfaces except the loopback
> > interface, otherwise Network Manager assumes a manual configuration and
> > does nothing.
> > 
> > So now my /etc/network/interfaces is:-
> > 
> >     # this file describes the network interfaces available on your
> > system # and how to activate them. For more information, see
> > interfaces(5).
> > 
> >     # The loopback network interface
> >     auto lo
> >     iface lo inet loopback
> > 
> > ... and everything is working as it should!  :-)
> 
> This is only valid if you have a working dhcp server on your local network.  

Which is nearly always, for home LANs, the router.  If that dies you're
mostly dead anyway!


> That has always seemed to me to be a "single point of failure" for the 
> whole MaryAnn.
> 
> For me, using hosts files, all identical, that name and IP all the machines 
> on my network, has always been the preferred choice because one of them can 
> be down without taking the rest of the network down.
> 
That's true with a DHCP/DNS server, it's only the server being down
that will prevent things working.  It's actually not to difficult to get
things set up so that even if the local DNS server fails things can
continue to work.


> So /etc/hosts looks something like this:
> -------------------------
> 127.0.0.1	localhost
> 192.168.xx.yy	coyote.coyote.den	coyote
> 192.168.xx.yy	router.coyote.den	router
> 192.168.xx.yy	shop.coyote.den		shop
> 192.168.xx.yy	lathe.coyote.den	lathe
> 192.168.xx.yy	lappy.coyote.den	lappy
> 
The trouble with this is that every time something on the LAN changes
you have to edit all those files.  With one or two machines it's easy,
with five or six it starts getting tiresome, any more and it's not
really practical.  Here's my current LAN:-

    192.168.1.1      vigor.zbmc.eu             
    192.168.1.2      revo.zbmc.eu              
    192.168.1.4      chris.zbmc.eu             
    192.168.1.6      ben.zbmc.eu               
    192.168.1.18              
    192.168.1.81     C475IP.zbmc.eu            
    192.168.1.83     SqueezeboxRadio.zbmc.eu   
    192.168.1.90     backup.zbmc.eu            
    192.168.1.110    test.zbmc.eu              
    192.168.1.122    HP6390D4.zbmc.eu 
    192.168.1.125    acer-aspire.zbmc.eu       
    192.168.1.147    raspberrypi.zbmc.eu       
    192.168.1.148             

That's 13 systems, I don't want to have to reconfigure all of them every
time I add or change one.

-- 
Chris Green