Bug#1006264: RFH: dhcpcd5 -- DHCPv4, IPv6RA and DHCPv6 client with IPv4LL support

[Martin-Éric Racine]

On Wed, Feb 23, 2022 at 8:38 AM Martin-Éric Racine
 wrote:
>
> On Wed, Feb 23, 2022 at 1:10 AM Noah Meyerhans  wrote:
> >
> > On Tue, Feb 22, 2022 at 08:27:10PM +0100, Marco d'Itri wrote:
> > > On Feb 22, Noah Meyerhans  wrote:
> > >
> > > > For servers, the ideal situation is somewhat less clear, but there was
> > > > at least some interest in using systemd-networkd (with or without
> > > > netplan).
> > > Why even consider netplan, I wonder?
> >
> > It's not something I'm interested in, but there were some arguments made
> > in favor of it in the earlier thread.
> > https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2021/09/msg00410.html
>
> On the plus side, netplan uses a centralized configuration file just
> as /etc/network/interface currently does. On the minus side, YAML
> really makes for cluttered config files. I don't like it.
>
> I tried networkd. It comes with the same problem as all of systemd:
> every tiniest thing is expected to have its own unit file; there is no
> centralized /etc/network/interface and no support for WPA. It sucks.
>
> NM works well on laptops via GNOME's NM applet, but is a PITA for
> everything else.
>
> Personally, I'd migrate dhclient to dhcpcd5. NM already has a dhcpcd5
> backend, as indicated in #964947 by Michael Biebel.
>
> Integrating bridge-utils into ifupdown and uniformizing the
> configuration syntax would also be desirable.

As mentioned in Bug #964947, I have a dhcpcd5 NMU waiting on Mentors.

Martin-Éric

Bug#1006264: RFH: dhcpcd5 -- DHCPv4, IPv6RA and DHCPv6 client with IPv4LL support

[Martin-Éric Racine]

On Wed, Feb 23, 2022 at 1:10 AM Noah Meyerhans  wrote:
>
> On Tue, Feb 22, 2022 at 08:27:10PM +0100, Marco d'Itri wrote:
> > On Feb 22, Noah Meyerhans  wrote:
> >
> > > For servers, the ideal situation is somewhat less clear, but there was
> > > at least some interest in using systemd-networkd (with or without
> > > netplan).
> > Why even consider netplan, I wonder?
>
> It's not something I'm interested in, but there were some arguments made
> in favor of it in the earlier thread.
> https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2021/09/msg00410.html

On the plus side, netplan uses a centralized configuration file just
as /etc/network/interface currently does. On the minus side, YAML
really makes for cluttered config files. I don't like it.

I tried networkd. It comes with the same problem as all of systemd:
every tiniest thing is expected to have its own unit file; there is no
centralized /etc/network/interface and no support for WPA. It sucks.

NM works well on laptops via GNOME's NM applet, but is a PITA for
everything else.

Personally, I'd migrate dhclient to dhcpcd5. NM already has a dhcpcd5
backend, as indicated in #964947 by Michael Biebel.

Integrating bridge-utils into ifupdown and uniformizing the
configuration syntax would also be desirable.

Martin-Éric

Bug#1006264: RFH: dhcpcd5 -- DHCPv4, IPv6RA and DHCPv6 client with IPv4LL support

[Noah Meyerhans]

On Tue, Feb 22, 2022 at 08:27:10PM +0100, Marco d'Itri wrote:
> On Feb 22, Noah Meyerhans  wrote:
> 
> > For servers, the ideal situation is somewhat less clear, but there was
> > at least some interest in using systemd-networkd (with or without
> > netplan).
> Why even consider netplan, I wonder?

It's not something I'm interested in, but there were some arguments made
in favor of it in the earlier thread.
https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2021/09/msg00410.html

Bug#1006264: RFH: dhcpcd5 -- DHCPv4, IPv6RA and DHCPv6 client with IPv4LL support

[Marco d'Itri]

On Feb 22, Noah Meyerhans  wrote:

> For servers, the ideal situation is somewhat less clear, but there was
> at least some interest in using systemd-networkd (with or without
> netplan).
Why even consider netplan, I wonder?

> So we may not need to specifically promote a DHCP client like dhcpcd5 to
> priority:important.  Systemd-networkd could be the default, and
> NetworkManager could be used when it's present.
I agree: while dhcpcd5 appears to be very good I do not think that it 
should be the default DHCP client since we already have very popular 
clients in the default Debian installations.
NetworkManager works great as the default client on desktops and 
systemd-networkd is more than enough for typical servers.

BTW: iwd, which at some point I expect should replace wpa_supplicant, 
has its own built-in DHCP client too.

-- 
ciao,
Marco


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Bug#1006264: RFH: dhcpcd5 -- DHCPv4, IPv6RA and DHCPv6 client with IPv4LL support

[Martin-Éric Racine]

On Tue, Feb 22, 2022 at 9:14 PM Noah Meyerhans  wrote:
> On Tue, Feb 22, 2022 at 11:22:08AM +0200, Martin-Éric Racine wrote:
> > Given how upstream ISC will stop development of its DHCP suite by the end 
> > of 2022 [1], Debian will need to select a new stock DHCP client to ship 
> > with Priority:Important.
> >
> > dhcpcd5 seems like the most potential replacement. It covers most IPv4 and 
> > IPv6 usage cases, and upstream regularly updates the code. However, the 
> > Debian package hasn't been updated in ages.
>
> We talked a little bit about the future of DHCP clients in #995189,
> though we didn't come up with a definitive plan.  Regardless of what
> happens with dhcpcd5, we do need to move forward with something.  Doing
> nothing (which effectively leaves us with an unsupported dhclient by
> default) is not a good option.
>
> As far as I know, there are no drop-in replacements for dhclient.  Thus,
> the change is going to be pretty significant for dhclient users.  On the
> plus side, we get to use this as an opportunity to figure out what we
> really want to support long-term.

Agreed.

> For desktop systems running NetworkManager, it sounds like we don't need
> a dedicated DHCP client at all; nm has DHCP client support built in and
> uses it by default.

NM has support for a variety of DHCP backends. dhclient and dhcpcd5
are both supported. In #964947, Michael Biebel mentions that enabling
the dhcpcd5 backend has been requested, but cannot proceed until
Debian has a recent enough version in the repository.

> For servers, the ideal situation is somewhat less clear, but there was
> at least some interest in using systemd-networkd (with or without
> netplan).

I would avoid anything systemd or NM specific.

Martin-Éric

Bug#1006264: RFH: dhcpcd5 -- DHCPv4, IPv6RA and DHCPv6 client with IPv4LL support

[Noah Meyerhans]

On Tue, Feb 22, 2022 at 11:22:08AM +0200, Martin-Éric Racine wrote:
> Given how upstream ISC will stop development of its DHCP suite by the end of 
> 2022 [1], Debian will need to select a new stock DHCP client to ship with 
> Priority:Important.
> 
> dhcpcd5 seems like the most potential replacement. It covers most IPv4 and 
> IPv6 usage cases, and upstream regularly updates the code. However, the 
> Debian package hasn't been updated in ages.

We talked a little bit about the future of DHCP clients in #995189,
though we didn't come up with a definitive plan.  Regardless of what
happens with dhcpcd5, we do need to move forward with something.  Doing
nothing (which effectively leaves us with an unsupported dhclient by
default) is not a good option.

As far as I know, there are no drop-in replacements for dhclient.  Thus,
the change is going to be pretty significant for dhclient users.  On the
plus side, we get to use this as an opportunity to figure out what we
really want to support long-term.

For desktop systems running NetworkManager, it sounds like we don't need
a dedicated DHCP client at all; nm has DHCP client support built in and
uses it by default.

For servers, the ideal situation is somewhat less clear, but there was
at least some interest in using systemd-networkd (with or without
netplan).

So we may not need to specifically promote a DHCP client like dhcpcd5 to
priority:important.  Systemd-networkd could be the default, and
NetworkManager could be used when it's present.

noah

Bug#1006264: RFH: dhcpcd5 -- DHCPv4, IPv6RA and DHCPv6 client with IPv4LL support

[Martin-Éric Racine]

Package: wnpp
Severity: normal
X-Debbugs-Cc: debian-de...@lists.debian.org
Control: affects -1 src:dhcpcd5

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Hash: SHA256

Given how upstream ISC will stop development of its DHCP suite by the end of 
2022 [1], Debian will need to select a new stock DHCP client to ship with 
Priority:Important.

dhcpcd5 seems like the most potential replacement. It covers most IPv4 and IPv6 
usage cases, and upstream regularly updates the code. However, the Debian 
package hasn't been updated in ages.

A bug was filed asking for the latest upstream release to be packaged was filed 
[2] but remains unanswered nearly 2 years later. A recent comment by Michael 
Biebl suggests that current versions of Network-Manager ship with support for 
this, but it would require a MUCH more recent version than what Debian 
currently ships.

I therefore think that dhcpcd5 deserves plenty of maintainance help, perhaps 
even a new maintainer.

Martin-Éric

The package description is:
 dhcpcd is a one stop network management daemon which includes
  * RFC compliant DHCPv4 and DHCPv6 clients
  * DHCPv6 Prefix Delegation support
  * IPv4LL (aka ZeroConf) support
  * ARP address conflict resolution
  * Link carrier detection
  * Wireless SSID profiles
  * ARP ping profiles

1. 
2. 

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