Hi,
On 7/9/24 17:57, Matthias Urlichs wrote:
Agreed: either it's drop-in compatible or we may as well switch the
default to NM and/or systemd-networkd.
Well, here's a heretical thought: why don't we do that anyway, at least
for new installations?
Both are overly complex for a static-IP-only server installation, where
there is no requirement for an unprivileged user to modify the network
configuration, or any background process at all, really. At least in
expert mode I would expect a way to generate a static,
unmanaged-by-anything configuration.
What would be needed for new installations is d-i support, mainly, and
the difficulty there is saving the configuration.
I believe NM does not have a fixed configuration format, but only a dbus
API. Our best bet there would be a firstboot unit, but I have no idea
whether accessing NM from a unit attached to firstboot is safe or leads
to a dependency loop[1].
I'm not sure if systemd-networkd is much happier long-term if we write
its configuration from a shell script, we'd need to get some commitment
from upstream that this is an interface, not an implementation detail,
at least.
Or we accept the UX regression of having to configure the network again
on the first graphical login, when per-user credential stores are
available through the appropriate services.
Simon
[1] there should really be documentation in Policy what dependencies are
allowed.
