systemd & the tightly couple core band vs a world of many inits
systemd & the tightly couple core band vs a world of many inits
Posted Apr 24, 2012 21:00 UTC (Tue) by drag (guest, #31333)In reply to: systemd & the tightly couple core band vs a world of many inits by martin.langhoff
Parent article: Shuttleworth: Quality has a new name
Not really. All operating systems need to do a more-or-less the same job regardless of what you plan on doing with them. It doesn't really matter what you want to do with them.
On embedded systems or servers... what they want to accomplish and what they need is trivial compared to what it takes to support desktop and mobile devices properly. So if you are using something like SystemD or NetworkManager you end up with a overabundance of capabilities, which is almost never a bad thing. Once you learn to use them properly then you'll find that they are easier and better, even for embedded systems or sever systems. (and this is no joke)
Which ever Debian chooses to use (sysV, systemd, or upstart) the most important thing they need to do is make a decision. I am far less concerned about which they choose, just that they make a choice.
Posted Apr 24, 2012 21:05 UTC (Tue)
by dlang (guest, #313)
[Link] (1 responses)
This overabundance of capabilities brings a significant amount of additional complexity along with it, which is almost never a good thing.
Add to it the fact that a lot of these tools try _really_ hard to do what a desktop user would want them to do, and it can frequently be hard to get them to _not_ do that and instead do what you need them to do.
Posted Apr 25, 2012 15:35 UTC (Wed)
by drag (guest, #31333)
[Link]
But it is necessary complexity in many regards.
Either you have it done in systemd or you find some other mechanism to do it.
Posted Apr 26, 2012 2:59 UTC (Thu)
by salimma (subscriber, #34460)
[Link]
I think Martin meant something else by "universal" -- he meant that Debian, unlike say Fedora and Ubuntu, support multiple different ways of providing the same feature, even in the base OS -- different kernels (Linux, FreeBSD, GNU Hurd), different init systems, etc., and thus life gets harder for them when people push for tighter integration.
Posted Apr 26, 2012 10:07 UTC (Thu)
by cas (guest, #52554)
[Link] (21 responses)
I guess there must be leakage from some parallel universe where NM isn't a pile of worthless crap that makes it impossible to have anything but the most basic network configuration.
NM is OK (as in tolerable) on laptops and desktop machines where all you want is a dhcp assigned IP and a simple GUI to configure access to your wireless AP.
For anything else, it's a complete PITA that actively prevents you from getting your network working.
Posted Apr 26, 2012 10:31 UTC (Thu)
by ovitters (guest, #27950)
[Link] (5 responses)
Posted Apr 26, 2012 10:49 UTC (Thu)
by cas (guest, #52554)
[Link] (4 responses)
As for Network Manager, given that it is a steaming pile of worthless crap, I have no hesitation in describing it as such.
Posted Apr 26, 2012 11:58 UTC (Thu)
by ean5533 (guest, #69480)
[Link]
It's not just bkor's opinion you should care about -- it's the entire LWN community that will take you less seriously. Perhaps you don't care about anyone's opinion, but if that's the case, then why are you here?
Posted Apr 26, 2012 22:18 UTC (Thu)
by ovitters (guest, #27950)
[Link] (2 responses)
Some "communities" (as far as LWN is a community) are different; on e.g. GNOME you can disagree/agree as much as you want, but it is not a free for all.
Suggest saying the same as you do here in real life / conferences such as GUADEC/FOSDEM. You'll see that some communication methods just don't get you much further.
Posted Apr 27, 2012 2:36 UTC (Fri)
by cas (guest, #52554)
[Link] (1 responses)
If you don't like me saying that "software package X is crap, and here are some of the reasons why" then DON'T READ ANYTHING I POST, but don't insist that I conform to YOUR standards as if they are some universal objective standard of correct behaviour.
2. it is you who are turning things around. you said words to the effect of "be nice as i define it or i won't listen to you" - this is a repulsively passive-aggressive form of attempted censorship. I said "why should i care if you listen to me or not?". you still haven't provided any reason why i should care and seem to be going out of your way to provide reasons why i shouldn't.
3. Don't bother me again with this tedious garbage. i'm not interested.
some days i really wish forums like this had a killfile.
Posted Apr 27, 2012 2:43 UTC (Fri)
by sfeam (subscriber, #2841)
[Link]
Posted Apr 26, 2012 19:08 UTC (Thu)
by jimparis (guest, #38647)
[Link] (14 responses)
I suspect you're basing that on old versions of NM. When it started, it was how you describe, capable of only very basic network configuration. But many more features have been added since then. For example, I've recently used it on a remote data-capture system to:
I also occasionally plug my cell phone into my laptop, let NM connect to the Internet through it, and then tell NM to run a DHCP server on my wired connection and share the connection there.
Those cases might not be useful for you, but I think it's still far improved from "very basic network configuration". In general, I've found that if NM _does_ support a particular configuration, it goes one
Posted Apr 26, 2012 19:15 UTC (Thu)
by dlang (guest, #313)
[Link] (5 responses)
I think this sums up the issue almost completely.
_IF_ it supports the configuration, it makes it easy for a desktop user to use it.
but if it doesn't support that configuration, or if you aren't a desktop user (i.e. server, embedded), then it is a problem.
Posted Apr 26, 2012 20:05 UTC (Thu)
by jimparis (guest, #38647)
[Link]
> but if it doesn't support that configuration, or if you aren't a desktop user (i.e. server, embedded), then it is a problem.
I agree that you're basically out of luck if it doesn't support your configuration. But those situations are getting more and more rare in my experience.
Regarding "embedded", I disagree. The main example I gave was essentially an embedded system -- a laptop hooked up to data-capture equipment shoved in an inaccessible machine room somewhere. And in that case, I purposely installed and used network-manager because it supported what I needed (multiple interfaces, 3G modem, OpenVPN). Tweaking pppd and its config for just the 3G would have been quite a pain in comparison.
For "server", I'd still tend to agree -- having multiple bridged and bonded network interfaces in separate zones is, AFAIK, still not something NM would be helpful for.
Posted Apr 27, 2012 2:42 UTC (Fri)
by cas (guest, #52554)
[Link] (3 responses)
You can do what is pre-programmed into it very easily. the catch is that you can *ONLY* do what is pre-programmed into it, and you can not use a combination of NM for the simple stuff plus your own hand-crafted config for the more complex / non-preprogrammed stuff.
If you could convince NM to leave your hand-crafted stuff alone and not break your network configuration because it doesn't understand it, then it would merely be a somewhat useful but quite limited tool. But you can't do that. which makes it a pile of worthless crap.
(and, btw, the most recent version of NM i tested was whatever was in debian sid about a month ago. i used it for a few days until it interfered with stuff i needed to do to get kvm running on my new workstation)
Posted Apr 27, 2012 12:36 UTC (Fri)
by mpr22 (subscriber, #60784)
[Link] (2 responses)
A cursory examination of a nearby Ubuntu 10.04 system gives me the impression that NetworkManager can be configured to only touch the interfaces the administrator wants it to touch, which means that at least some cases satisfying your description are viable (obviously there are plenty that are not). I also note that the existence of network configurations which it is reasonable to desire and which NetworkManager cannot be coerced into understanding (or at least into not breaking) is clearly a bug in NetworkManager which should be reported through the appropriate channels.
Posted Apr 27, 2012 16:03 UTC (Fri)
by dlang (guest, #313)
[Link] (1 responses)
The problem is how you define "reasonable to desire"
there are an incredible number of situations where the right thing to do in a particular situation is not something that would be considered sane in most other situations. Listing all these special cases in a tool like NM would confuse users and cause them to select the wrong thing.
Posted Apr 27, 2012 16:14 UTC (Fri)
by mpr22 (subscriber, #60784)
[Link]
Posted Apr 27, 2012 3:33 UTC (Fri)
by shemminger (subscriber, #5739)
[Link] (7 responses)
I fear systemd will end up the same way. Kind of like the Apple IOS, when everything works its wonderful, but when you want to develop hardware support or run another OS, or have a hardware error, it just says "your not worthy" and spits in your face.
Posted Apr 27, 2012 22:06 UTC (Fri)
by zlynx (guest, #2285)
[Link] (6 responses)
I *used* to run a caching named with forwarding servers defined for the internal nameservers on remote networks. The scripts would set the reference to the server and reconfig named.
To do the same thing on NetworkManager I'd have to write a plugin. Considering the state of other NM plugins, the NM authors have zero concern for API compatibility and therefore I'd also have to rewrite the code every six months or so.
Posted Apr 27, 2012 22:14 UTC (Fri)
by jimparis (guest, #38647)
[Link] (5 responses)
Posted Apr 28, 2012 1:45 UTC (Sat)
by jspaleta (subscriber, #50639)
[Link] (1 responses)
i just want to be clear as to what you have attempted.
-jef
Posted Apr 28, 2012 2:29 UTC (Sat)
by jspaleta (subscriber, #50639)
[Link]
-jef
Posted Apr 28, 2012 21:02 UTC (Sat)
by zlynx (guest, #2285)
[Link] (2 responses)
Do you realize the dispatch stuff isn't documented anywhere?
Besides that, NM makes it quite difficult to use DHCP and still point the DNS at ::1.
Which seems to be why someone wrote the dns=plugin stuff that is in the NetworkManager configuration file.
Posted Apr 29, 2012 0:44 UTC (Sun)
by jimparis (guest, #38647)
[Link] (1 responses)
On my system, it's the majority of the "Description" section in "man networkmanager". See http://linux.die.net/man/8/networkmanager
> Besides that, NM makes it quite difficult to use DHCP and still point the DNS at ::1.
Under your IPv4 or IPv6 settings tab, just set the "method" to "Automatic (DHCP) addresses only" or "Automatic, addresses only". Then fill in the DNS servers yourself.
Posted May 1, 2012 6:50 UTC (Tue)
by zlynx (guest, #2285)
[Link]
Or it is possible that I was logged into a CentOS 5 system when I ran the man command. NetworkManager 0.7 (the RHEL 5 version) has a dispatcher.d directory, but nothing in the man page about it. And this time I double-checked.
systemd & the tightly couple core band vs a world of many inits
systemd & the tightly couple core band vs a world of many inits
systemd & the tightly couple core band vs a world of many inits
> Not really. All operating systems need to do a more-or-less the same job regardless of what you plan on doing with them. It doesn't really matter what you want to do with them.
systemd & the tightly couple core band vs a world of many inits
systemd & the tightly couple core band vs a world of many inits
systemd & the tightly couple core band vs a world of many inits
systemd & the tightly couple core band vs a world of many inits
systemd & the tightly couple core band vs a world of many inits
systemd & the tightly couple core band vs a world of many inits
"some days i really wish forums like this had a killfile."systemd & the tightly couple core band vs a world of many inits
It does. You're now in it.
systemd & the tightly couple core band vs a world of many inits
- configure one wired port with a static IP
- independently, connect to a 3G network via USB modem
- run an OpenVPN tunnel over that 3G network
Combined with a script that lightly poked around with "nmcli con" to reconnect if the 3G seemed to be stuck, it was by far the easiest way to deal with the cell phone and VPN setup.
step further and makes that configuration _easy_.
systemd & the tightly couple core band vs a world of many inits
systemd & the tightly couple core band vs a world of many inits
systemd & the tightly couple core band vs a world of many inits
systemd & the tightly couple core band vs a world of many inits
you can not use a combination of NM for the simple stuff plus your own hand-crafted config for the more complex / non-preprogrammed stuff.
systemd & the tightly couple core band vs a world of many inits
NetworkManager, the daemon, is not nm-connection-editor, the GUI tool for manipulating the daemon's configuration.
systemd & the tightly couple core band vs a world of many inits
systemd & the tightly couple core band vs a world of many inits
systemd & the tightly couple core band vs a world of many inits
systemd & the tightly couple core band vs a world of many inits
systemd & the tightly couple core band vs a world of many inits
systemd & the tightly couple core band vs a world of many inits
systemd & the tightly couple core band vs a world of many inits
systemd & the tightly couple core band vs a world of many inits
systemd & the tightly couple core band vs a world of many inits