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NetworkManager 1.0 Released After Ten Years Development
An anonymous reader writes: After ten years of development focused on improving and simplifying Linux networking, NetworkManager 1.0 was released. NetworkManager 1.0 brings many features including an increasingly modernized client library, improved command-line support, a lightweight internal DHCP client, better Bluetooth support, VPN enhancements, WWAN IPv6 support, and other features.
One of the few unix command line tools whose command begins with a major letter.
Really, why do we need anything more than ifconfig and ethtool?
So, I want dnsmasq dynamically configured to use special name servers, in addition to and not in lieu of my regular name servers, when, and only when, a certain openvpn tunnel is active, as opposed to other openvpn tunnels I also have. Is this, after a decade of work, feasible using NetworkManager's normal built-in GUI interface? Or does it still cater to only straightforward DHCP wired and wireless use cases, ignoring anything move involved, as it has always done?
I thought so.
Dear distro makers; continue to anticipate the needs of those of us that cannot tolerate the limitations of NetworkManager and need to purge the thing from our systems. Specifically, ensure that it can be removed without being told the kernel depends on it, or some other ridiculousness. Thank you.
The most important feature is that it can be disabled, masked and unistalled without loosing functionality, as oppposed to other new TM things that I can't get rid of that easily
And I have been a constant Linux user since 1994. This cannot be too important.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Ran Debian with NM and KDE for the last couple of years as well. Purged it recently in order to remove systemd (NM depends on PolKit which depends on pam-systemd for login session management), and replaced it with WICD.
WiCD is not quite as smooth as NM for usb modems, but for wifi and wired ethernet, it does the job.
"Go to CNN [for a] spell-checked, fact-checked summary" -- CmdrTaco
And these guys spent 10 years simplifying that?
No, they spent 10 years simplifying things like scanning for wireless access points, detecting the encryption type, and storing credentials. Or setting up routing over Bluetooth. Or configuring and switching between different types of VPNs. Or bridging between multiple interfaces. And having a little icon in your system tray that you can right-click on to do it all.
If the only thing you ever do is set a static IP for your ethernet card then you probably don't need it, but a lot of people do more complex things than that.
Karma: Terrifying (mostly affected by atrocities you've committed)
oh, does bridging work finally? I spent well over an hour with nmcli docs and on Google trying to setup bridges for each vlan I was using on an el7 machine and got nowhere close to working. Spent 5 min setting up redhat ifcfg- files and was done after yum uninstalling nm. It says that nmcli got some love in 1.0, and boy that's a good thing.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
> It's hard to see how one could simplify Linux networking. It requires one ip addr command to set an IP address and one ip route command to set a default route. And on IPv6 even those are unnecessary, it's automatic.
And a dns, too. And the wireless network name. And the wireless network username+password.
And then, I have to do it all again in two minutes when you walk out of range. And then again when you get home. And then again at a cafe.
NM might not be the nicest of things, but it sure beats the hell out of running several commands every time I relocate myself/my laptop.
Since NetworkManager, day-to-day network use (be it WiFi, wired or whatever) Just Works. I like that.
However, when (as a developer, hardware-tinkerer or network problem solver) you are plugging in and out cables, connecting devices, etc, it would be nice to have NetworkManager to be put on "mute" or something. Just keep my fixed IP on the correct devices and stop enabling and disabling connections. That's the only time I turn the service off.
-- The Internet is a too slow way of doing things, you'd never do without it.
Well, you don't have to figth it. It will autoconfigure just fine after moving the cables. All you need to do is wait the 500ms it takes to do a new DHCP request and get the same IP adress again. If that is too long, you should probably be using a static configuration in the first place.
It presents the same problem as systemd. Take one problem, solving wifi connections, and then make a tool which unnecessarily manages all aspects of networking. dhclient manages to remain long-running and handle the DHCP operations for an interface, all that was needed was the equivalent wifi daemon. Once you step beyond the simplest configurations, Network-Manager has always become an impediment and not an assistant.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
The real WTF is that he's not kidding. Ubuntu says that systemd needs nm-online to function, and if it's not ready to go, they will replace it [NetworkManager] with something that will.