What lies behind the problem being discussed here is the simple fact that there exists no single adequate network configuration utility for GNU/Linux. I am most familiar with Debian. From Debian we inherit ifupdown which was designed for static configuration. Debian developers have known for more than ten years that ifupdown needed to be replaced, but have never managed to come up with a replacement. From RedHat we get NetworkManager which was never intended to be a general network configurer but in the absence of any alternative continues to be enhanced with new features. Considerable effort has obviously been spent in Ubuntu just to get NM to coexist with other networking packages. It still doesn't fully cooperate with them (see #47379 for another example) and will probably never be well integrated with them.
So we are still forced to choose between two network configuration approaches, NM-oriented in the desktop version and ifupdown-oriented in the server version. Each one has its limitations. If you try to combine the two, as you (Alkis) want to do, then you are confronted with these limitations. You are lucky that all you have to do is comment out one line in a configuration file to get things to work! We can continue playing around with the existing tools so that they work better in particular use cases but what we really need is a properly designed network configuration utility to supersede both ifupdown and NM. I am vaguely aware of the Wicd project. Must go read up on that. -- You received this bug notification because you are a member of Desktop Packages, which is subscribed to network-manager in Ubuntu. https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/959037 Title: Local resolver prohibits DNS servers from running Status in “dnsmasq” package in Ubuntu: Confirmed Status in “network-manager” package in Ubuntu: Triaged Bug description: As described in https://blueprints.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+spec/foundations-p-dns- resolving, network manager now starts a dnsmasq instance for local DNS resolving. That breaks the default bind9 and dnsmasq installations, for people that actually want to install a DNS server. Having to manually comment out "#dns=dnsmasq" in /etc/NetworkManager/NetworkManager.conf doesn't sound good, and if it stays that way, it should be moved to the bind9 and dnsmasq postinst scripts. Please make network-manager smarter so that it checks if bind9 or dnsmasq are installed, so that it doesn't start the local resolver in that case. To manage notifications about this bug go to: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/dnsmasq/+bug/959037/+subscriptions -- Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~desktop-packages Post to : [email protected] Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~desktop-packages More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp
