On 04.09.24 17:26, Marco d'Itri wrote:
With Netplan we could provide coherent network configuration across all
variants of Debian (server, cloud, laptop, ...), while choosing the best
underlying stack for the usecase (i.e. systemd-networkd on server/cloud
and NetworkManager on desktop/laptop).
Of course we could. But who would actually care?
That's exactly the problem!
The network stack discussion has been going on since at least 2021 when
Maximilian presented ifupdown-ng at DebConf 2021 [debconf21]. DDs and other
people close to Debian know exactly what they are doing and just start
configuring their machines with one of the modern stacks they like
(e.g. NetworkManager or systemd-networkd), see the experienced shared above
in this thread.
But we ought to look at the bigger picture! People looking from the outside
in will get very confused by the scattered Debian networking landscape.
Yes, it's an additional abstraction layer, but it brings the big benefit
of coherence across Debian. Not confusing our users by having 4 different
ways to do network configuration.
XKCD 927
Right, I've heard/red that so many times ... :-/
But in the end we don't want to bloat our base-installation with
NetworkManager and systemd-networkd is not fit to cover the desktop/laptop
usecase. So why not put some glue around it, to make it all feel coherent,
without limiting anybody in their decision to choose whatever stack they
like?
In our documentation we could reference a single Netplan configuration,
that would get applied to both of the underlying stacks. As stated
previously, advanced users can easily configure the underlying stack
natively and Netplan will get out of their way.
Do we even have general documentation about configuring networking?
Yes, there is a "NetworkConfiguration" page on the wiki and the Debian ref:
* https://wiki.debian.org/NetworkConfiguration
* https://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/debian-reference/ch05.en.html
Together, they show something like 5+ ways of how to do things:
* /etc/network/interfaces
* iproute2
* Netplan
* NetworkManager
* systemd-networkd
Which one to choose? Well it all depends on the underlying stack, which
the average user might not necessarily know. So it's very confusing.
-- Lukas
[debconf21]
https://debconf21.debconf.org/talks/52-contemporary-networking-configuration-with-ifupdown-ng/
