Probably stupid question, but

[Patrick Asselman]

On Sep 3, 2013, at 11:10 PM, Paul Smith wrote:

> On Tue, 2013-09-03 at 20:43 +0100, Colin Law wrote:
>>> And it should definately be intelligent enough to understand that if someone
>>> has defined a static ip address for their machine, it should not just
>>> blindly ignore it and go for DHCP. Maybe it could check first to see if DHCP
>>> is available. Maybe it can still do its thing but in such a way that the
>>> static IP address is kept as it was. I don't care what it does, as long as
>>> it does not break network connectivity. And currently, (or at least last
>>> time I checked), it does.
> 
>> I can't understand what is the problem that others seem to have with
>> fixed ip addresses in network manager.  I use fixed IP addresses
>> simply by setting the Method to Manual in IPv4 Settings in NM and
>> entering the address etc.  I have no problems at all with this.
> 
> I agree with you Colin.  I've done this many times and it works
> perfectly fine.  You can set IP address, netmask, broadcast, DNS server,
> etc. using the NetworkManager configuration.  If there is a situation
> where this fails, please describe it.
> 
> NetworkManager absolutely supports static IP addressing.  What it
> _doesn't_ support is "Joe's Linux Distro Network Interface Configuration
> File Format".  If you want static IP addresses then you need to use
> NetworkManager to configure them, you can't go behind its back and muck
> around with underlying files such as /etc/network/interfaces
> or /etc/sysconfig/networking or whatever magical file format your distro
> of choice invented, and expect it to work.  NetworkManager is not an
> Ubuntu-only tool, it's a generic package used by most distros.
> 
> If you want to manage your network interfaces by hand and edit
> underlying files directly, then don't use Network Manager; that's fine.
> But don't blame Network Manager for being broken when you're
> purposefully breaking it.
> 

I would have fully agreed with you, if it wasn't for the way it was pushed through my throat.

A few years back I had a working Ubuntu server v11, static ip addresses, no NM (as far as i know), that I needed to remote upgrade via ssh to v12 using the alternate install cd image. I knew nothing about NM. After the upgrade, the system didnt come online anymore. Turned out the static ip addresses had been overwritten by NM making the machine not have any network. 

Now please give me one valid excuse why a perfectly good working server should be without network after an upgrade? That is not Managing a Network, that is Breaking it. 

Surely NM could be made so that it can see what the current configuration is, and install itself in such a way that the situation essentially remains the same, except that NM is used? That way I would have been happy with the new NM taking care of things. The way things went, I didnt trust it and didnt use it (until Ubu v13, where i had a chance to install it on a server that i had physical access to, so i could just see what happens). 

I don't mind improvements on Linux, causing me to have to alter my normal way of working a little. I'm not someone who sticks to their old methods no matter what. But I would really like a heads up on important changes like NM, and really really like for them to work properly before being incorporated into a LTS version.

Best regards,
Patrick