On Tue, May 15, 2018 at 12:40:06PM +0200, Nicolas Kovacs wrote: > [..] On servers and desktop clients, I usually remove > it and configure the network "traditionally" by simply editing > /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-whatever, /etc/resolv.conf, > /etc/hosts, /etc/hostname and /etc/sysconfig/network. Running > NetworkManager on anything else than a laptop has never made any sense > to me, since it's basically an extra layer of abstraction. On a server, who cares if you remove GDM, you aren't running X anyway. If you are, it's a workstation really, and the following applies. On a Workstation, it's part of the GNOME environment. I'm not surprised it is required if you want GNOME. If you don't want NM, I suggest using something other than GNOME (which requires gdm on workstations, otherwise you don't get a screen lock). Workstations need the ability to manage things like VPNs and ephemeral network devices like bluetooth, so you'll need a GUI interface, which talks with NetworkManager. However, I've always used NM on servers in C7. The old 'network' service tries once to set up the network when the system boots, and doesn't handle network outages well at all. With NM, it can detect media coming up and restore networking. It can be set up with dispatchers to run commands when the network goes up and down (fix the clock and restart remote syslog, for example). A lot of these are also the case for Workstations (maybe even more so). You need something to be able to handle a changing network environment during the daily utilization of a system. NM in CentOS 7 is a different beast than it was in C6. If you were burned by NM in C6, give it a try in C7, you might find it acceptable. -- Jonathan Billings <billings at negate.org>