On Thu, 13 Feb 2020 at 11:40, Nicolas Kovacs <info at microlinux.fr> wrote: > Le 11/02/2020 à 14:11, Jonathan Billings a écrit : > > I've mentioned on this list countless times about how NetworkManager > > is actually pretty good for a general server. Automatic link > > detection and activation/deactivation, a dispatch service on link > > activation/deactivation, support for bringing up secondary interfaces > > after a primary goes up, a dbus interface for automation, etc. > > I just prepared myself to catch up and learn more about NetworkManager. So > I > opened my big fat "Unix and Linux System Administration Handbook 5th > edition", > with a text file open on the computer to take extensive notes... > > ... only to find out that there is only half a page on NetworkManager in > this > book. Allow me to quote it: > > "NetworkManager is primarily of use on laptops, since their network > enviromment > may change frequently. For servers and desktop systems, NetworkManager > isn't > necessary and may in fact complicate administration. In these > environments, it > should be ignored or configured out." > > The book was published in 2017 which means it was written in late 2016. As much as I love that series of books (I have read them from 1st edition), I do not expect that its comments on parts of Linux in the 3rd edition would be useful now. In the end, the problem is that NetworkManager, FirewallD, and other 'automatic' helpers are 'part' of the OS.. and while it was easy to tear them out in earlier versions.. as time goes on it is not. For a car analogy, it was much easier to convert any 1970 car from automatic back to manual as many parts were left over. Now in this era, you can do so if you pick the right car but for a lot of them it is not going to be easy in any form. I see the same trends in computer OS's with certain tools which were easy to pull out now requiring you to build the whole os from scratch as the part is assumed to be in so many other areas. -- Stephen J Smoogen.