Re: [PATCH] removal of libdhcp

[David Cantrell <dcantrell redhat com>]

On May 21, 2008, at 5:50 AM, Elliot Peele wrote:

> On Wed, May 21, 2008 at 09:35:30AM -0400, Jeremy Katz wrote:
> > On Tue, 2008-05-20 at 18:40 -1000, David Cantrell wrote:
> > > This patch removes anaconda's use of libdhcp, which also means
> > > removing libdhcp4client and libdhcp6client.  For static network
> > > configuration, I am using libnl.  To gather current network  
> > > interface
> > > information, I am using libnl.  To control IPv6 autoconf, I read/
> > > write /proc since that's all we can do right now.  For DHCP and
> > > DHCPv6, I run dhclient and dhcp6c, respectively.
> > >
> > > I'd like everyone to have a look at iface.h and the patch file. It's
> > > not complete yet, so I probably know about the obvious things (the
> > > FIXMEs and the useless debugging printfs and the incomplete isys.py
> > > code and so on). The goal with iface.patch is to get us closer to
> > > using NetworkManager in stage 1 and stage 2. I envision the NM
> > > changeover to be just as large, but hopefully by then we will have
> > > decided to nuke certain parts of loader entirely. Completely
> > > eliminating libdhcp and friends will be a nice step.
> >
> > So, I'm going to ask the obvious question which ends up staring us in
> > the face at this point.  Why not use NetworkManager like the rest  
> > of the
> > OS *now* instead of making another wheel for ourselves that in all
> > likelihood, will end up having to be maintained for on the order of
> > years.
>
> What about distros that don't use NetworkManager? Will there be a fall
> back? If we are using NetworkManager with Anaconda will it still able
> able to generate "classic" network configuration?


Personally, I'd rather not allow users the option to create a classic  
set of ifcfg-* files if we are doing NM by default.  As long as it's  
an option, people will still use it, which means we'll still have to  
support multiple ways of configuring network devices on the target  
system.  If we're going NM for everything, it should be NM for  
everything.

--
David Cantrell <dcantrell redhat com>
Red Hat / Honolulu, HI