On Thursday 06 October 2016 at 13:01:07 +1030, Ron wrote: > > The current tftpd-hpa package defaults to being available on all interfaces > > via an IPv4 address. In Message #25, Ron rightly questioned whether this is > > still a sensible default. But, as I said in Message #30, I don't believe > > that changing the default to TFTP_ADDRESS=":69" makes the situation any > > worse, and it does mean that tftpd does work correctly when no network > > interface is available at startup. Maybe if the default was changed then it > > could be turned into a debconf question? > > What if it already was a debconf question ;?
Oh, it is. :) I'd never noticed since it is low priority so I'd never been asked it. :( The full text of the question is: --8<-- Please specify an address and port to listen to in the form of [address][:port]. By default, the TFTP server listens to port 69 on all addresses and all interfaces (0.0.0.0:69). If no port is specified, it defaults to 69. Please note that numeric IPv6 addresses must be enclosed in square brackets to avoid ambiguity with the optional port information. TFTP server address and port: -->8-- I think that a reasonable reading of that would leave me with the expectation that the default would work with IPv6, which it does not. But, that's a different bug which I should probably raise separately. > What the default should be is mostly a balancing act between what is > sane for a relatively naive user who doesn't know what they should > answer there, and what would be right out of the box for most people > without 'special needs'. Whether it should be changed now, also adds > the question of line of least surprise for existing users, so there > is some inertia and risk there which we shouldn't ignore if changing > it now is not the clearly compelling thing to do. If the default were changed to :69 then the observable change to users who accept that default would be that IPv6 would start working when previously it hadn't. I suspect that Debian is full of services that started working on IPv6 upon package upgrade (mostly in the now distant past.) > I'm inclined to think that running this on a laptop is a special case. > And that changing it "because otherwise NM breaks" would be hiding a > bug in NM rather than fixing it at the real cause. I can't help wondering whether there might be more users now installing tftpd-hpa on their desktop or laptop in order to backup their router configuration or boot some embedded device, than on a server to boot a room full of diskless workstations. Maybe I'm guilty of being skewed by my own experience. > But I'm not ruling out that there might be other compelling reasons > to still change the default for this at some point. Whether that > should be to :69, or to something else, is still an open question. You won't be surprised to hear that I think that :69 makes a more sensible default. I believe that this is only slightly influenced by that default also ensuring that tftpd-hpa starts even when the network interface isn't yet up. Thanks. Mike.
