On Sun, Dec 9, 2012 at 7:28 PM, Nico Kadel-Garcia <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> On Sun, Dec 9, 2012 at 6:38 PM, Tom H <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>> On Sun, Dec 9, 2012 at 5:21 PM, Nico Kadel-Garcia <[log in to unmask]> wrote:


>>> You can put "NM_MANAGER=no" in /etc/sysconfig/network, along with
>>> "NO_ZEROCONF=yes" to aovid generating those default, irritating
>>> "169.254.*" IP addresses at network startup time.
>>
>> "NM_MANAGER=no" in /etc/sysconfig/network?
>>
>> You must mean NM_CONTROLLED.
>> Are you sure that you can set it in "/etc/sysconfig/network"?
>
> Yes, quite right. It's already been a day....
>
> If you look at the /ets/sysconfig/network-scripts maze of twisty
> little scripts, all different, you'll see that most of the "ifup",
> "ifdown", and similar executable scripts actually source
> "/etc/sysconfig/network" somewhere in their actual operation. So yes,
> "/etc/sysconfig/network" actuall works to shut down NetworkManager
> without having to maintain and edit individual components.
>
> Unfortunately, if you don't read the source code, you won't know about
> this sort of thing.

I've never seen any documentation about setting "NM_CONTROLLED" in
"/etc/sysconfig/network" but there seem to be a few things about
"/etc/sysconfig" that aren't documented... I've forgotten why but I
read those scripts in the past, got the info that I was looking for,
and hoped that I'd never have to read them again... I guess that I'll
have to go through them one more time to look up some variables. :(


>> I thought that it was meant to be used in
>> "/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-*".
>
> It's like turning off the circuit breakers. You're not relying on the
> local switch for individual channels, and it's much safer in case you
> re-arrange the network in the future (by adding network ports,
> replacing a network card, or cloning a virtual machine).

ACK, thanks.


>> (I've never had a problem removing NM from an X-less box.)
>
> And on a machine that's a pure LAMP stack, DNS server, or other pure
> server that can work.

AFAIK, you might have a problem removing NM from a recent Fedora
running GNOME because there was some talk of making it a dependency. I
might install F-18 this weekend and, if I do, I'll check.

Anyway, NM's going to become the default and unique Fedora/EL
networking setup in the future because some Fedora/RH developer's
going to say, at some point, "maintaining both NM and the
'/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/' doesn't make sense" and the powers
that be'll agree. NM 0.9.6 can handle bonding/bridging/vlan-ing" so an
EL-8 target wouldn't surprise me...