Moving towards NetworkManager

[Oliver Grawert]

hi,
On Fr, 2016-07-29 at 13:04 +0200, Josef Wolf wrote:
> 
> If I understand correctly, the installer would generate
> /etc/netplan/*.yaml
> and netplan would generate whatever is needed when the system is
> booted.
> 
> Is this correct?
looks more like an install time thing, i.e. a replacement for netcfg in
debian-installer, the network bit in ubiquity, the cloud-init network
configuration and snappys first boot network setup for embedded
systems. it seems to try to find a unified way for all the different
install variants currently used in ubuntu.

> 
> AFAICS, netplan seems to be in a VERY early stage, it doesn't even
> support
> routing/DNS yet? Is it even functional?
> 
> Is this an official plan?
not sure if pitti works on it in his spare time or on company time ...
it is an attempt to unification in the ubuntu ecosystem, if it works it
might become a an official plan :) 

> 
> IIUC, so far we have:
> 
> - ifupdown:       Legacy. Configuation is scattered all over /etc/*
> - NetworkManager: Closely tangled with desktops
> - networkd:       Umm, have not checked it yet
> - netplan:        An abstraction layer above the other three.
> 
well, we also have a gazillion if different installers of which each
maps to one or multiple of the above backends...

> Personally, I'd very much prefer YAML above INI. INI is ill-defined 
i dont see .ini mentioned anywhere, the aim is clearly to use yaml 

> Wouldn't it be a better plan to merge NM and networkd, give it a sane
> config
> file format, and use THAT to replace ifupdown?
about the former you need to convince redhat (who are upstream for
both, NM and networkd), this is nothing you could do with distro
patches :)
regarding replacing ifupdown you would have to convince debian to drop
it, but that takes time, debian is moving very slow if it comes to
essential technology changes (many packages drop scripts into
/etc/network/if-up.d and friends, and many (most) packages are synced
unmodified from debian into the ubuntu archive). just remember how long
the systemd discussions lasted before a decision was made...

> 
> Given that there's probably no chance that NM and networkd would be
> merged,
> introducing an abstraction layer seems to be a good plan B.
> 
> Somehow, I get the impression that everyone tries to roll his own
> system. Smells a bit like NIH.
not really, trying to fix fragmentation inside a specific ecosystem
isnt really NIH i think ... NIH would be to do your own uNetworkd or
some such to be better than upstreams networkd :)

> 
> BTW: Some years ago, network interfaces used to be called ethXX or
> wlanXX or
> ethXX.YY or something. Nowadays, they have really wired names. This
> complicates automatic configuration a lot. Why am I forced to go
> through loops
> to find out the names of the interfaces instead of simply using
> eth0/eth1/eth2?
> How am I (as a human) supposed to remember those wired names if I
> want to
> check and/or modify some settings on a network interface or want to
> run
> tcpdump on it?

thats an invention of the systemd upstream people IIRC ... 
https://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd/PredictableNetworkInt
erfaceNames/

cou can turn it off by putting net.ifnames=0 on the kernel command
line.

ciao
	oli

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