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Comment by karhard | Hacker News Reader

"Conclusion: networkd works well enough for someone configuring an IPv4-only network from 20 years ago, but is utterly inadequate for IPv6 or dual-stack installations, doubly so on a software distribution that claims to care about privacy and network security."

Great to see some sanity in Debian again. Now please also get rid of systemd altogether and generally simplify the IP address configuration and routing to the level of OpenBSD.

But this is a very good start.

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At this point more people would be pissed off that systemd is missing then using another init system. Its too late in the game for most major distros to get away from systemd. Systemd is here to stay, the most we can do is fight to try and make it better.

There aren't that many alternatives either [1], and honestly I'd love to never ever have to see a shellscript initfile ever again.

[1] https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Comparison_of_init_systems

> At this point more people would be pissed off that systemd is missing then using another init system.

Maybe systemd should stick with being an init system rather than a network interface management system.

> Systemd is here to stay, the most we can do is fight to try and make it better.

Perhaps we need to get the government involved for anti-trust actions to break up this monopoly.

systemd is, but it has a well integrated ecosystem of other binaries that are managed in the same project (ie. systemd-networkd, systemd-resolvd, etc.). These generally follow the unix philosophy of doing one thing and doing it well and are almost all completely optional.

I personally find systemd-networkd to be a tiny fraction of the headache that NetworkManager is, so I'm glad it exists.

> I personally find systemd-networkd to be a tiny fraction of the headache that NetworkManager...

I find this take interesting, because NM automagically gets out of the way in both Debian and RedHat.

Any interface you define in /etc/network/interfaces is automatically "unmanaged" by NM in Debian, and since RedHat stores NM configs in /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts files directly, you can either create your own files, or edit already existing ones.

systemd-* doesn't have this magick and loves to compete and override other daemons silently and wreak havoc in the process.

I maintain pretty tight control over all of my systems. I don't typically want miscellaneous daemons floating around with configs strewn about /etc, so systemd's ecosystem fits nicely with that. Sure, that's personal preference, but there's something to be said about cohesive system configuration.

NM is not a miscellaneous daemon which throws configuration files around. It's under "/etc/NetworkManager" for Debian, and it uses standard sysconfig/network-scripts folder in RedHat. So it's pretty cohesive since it integrates with everything pretty nicely from get go. All the config files are pretty human readable, and there are tons of tools plus your favorite editor to work with it.

Of course you can prefer to use the tools from the same toolbox, it's your system, it's your choice. However, my experience shows me that using full-featured stacks even if they are not that tightly integrated is better in the long run.

E.g. I used to use DHCP options in my home network in the past, and we use them at work. So even if systemd-networkd feels good, it means nothing if I can't configure my system the way it should be.

When I have thousand servers to tend, I want my configs to work the way they should. I can't get emotional about how using all my tools from a single toolbox, or this and that. I just want my systems installed, work reliably over long periods of time, and just sleep at night.

Network manager proved to be both helpful and reliable in that regard, so I'm a happy camper.

Good to hear! I'm glad NM (and other tools) exist, and I'm not saying they shouldn't. My needs are adequately met by the tools systemd-networkd provides, and I find it works well. Again, it's optional.

I also wasn't really referring to NM itself, but about other ancillary daemons that were referenced in the GP.

> I don't typically want miscellaneous daemons floating around with configs strewn about /etc, so systemd's ecosystem fits nicely with that.

Ironically resolved running is another miscellaneous daemon, and it messing around with /etc/resolv.conf makes systemd's ecosystem super annoying to me.

> These generally follow the unix philosophy of doing one thing and doing it well and are almost all completely optional.

So I can take just systemd-networkd or just systemd-resolvd and install it on a FreeBSD box?

Just because these are different binaries does not make them 'separate'. All the things in the systemd code base are tightly coupled together. That is the opposite of the Unix philosophy.

> I personally find systemd-networkd to be a tiny fraction of the headache that NetworkManager is, so I'm glad it exists.

And I just want my Debian/Ubuntu interfaces(5) file back.

Once I set up a server I want it to stay still, and static text files are the best way to do that IMHO. I also found manipulating them much easier than the messy that is YAML (where whitespace is important—which is one of dumbest notions I've come across: given me {}s for better context any day of the week).

> Its too late in the game for most major distros to get away from systemd.

Oddly, this is the same rationale for keeping the established setup that was dismissed when systemd was introduced.

Because someone actually did the work that provided what people wanted and needed.

which so far no one else has done

The established setup (initd) did a lot less. Systemd has a huuuge sprawling interface and is more like a challenge to POSIX itself than some script folders.

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