starting Fedora Server SIG

[Martin Langhoff]

On Fri, Nov 14, 2008 at 11:08 AM, Jeremy Katz <katzj at redhat.com> wrote:
> One of the things about progress and getting to a more mature *platform*
> that is suitable across a wide range of uses is change.  I'm not saying
> that NetworkManager is perfect yet for the server needs.  But having
> people that want to run a server say "pound sand, go the hell away, we
> don't want to run your new-fangled stuff" doesn't help us get to where
> it is.  Maintaining two systems in parallel is very much a long-run
> losing position.

I agree with the desire to maintain only one tool. However, NM is
extremely desktop oriented, and there seems to include no hint of an
intention to support the complex setups that are possible with the old
ifcfg infra.

Scripting is actually a great fit for network config policies. All the
NM goodies could be built into a much _much_ leaner program that can
orchestrate different network configurations dynamically (ifcfg
style). Right now it's a monolith -- I'm not tracking it closely, but
nm-tool is slowly getting some very basic functions, and there's no
scripting supported AFAICS.

So I suspect that the NM design is specifically for a '2 solutions'
world. Ignore the server role (with all its needs of automation and
odd configs), address only the mainstream desktop (with a pre-cooked
set of rules that can be baked into the binary). To have a single tool
that can handle both, it'd have to be a design goal.

cheers,



m
-- 
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