Re: Debian netbase 3.17-1 init.d scripts

[Jeff Sheinberg <jeffsh@erols.com>]

Stefan Gybas writes:
 > Jeff Sheinberg wrote:
 > 
 > > Make that 3 places - I now need to muck with network/interfaces
 > > also!  And I just tried dpkg-reconfigure netbase - how come I
 > > didn't get asked any questions about my interfaces?
 > 
 > The basic network interface configuration is done by the boot floppies
 > so it is already there on a newly installed system. Package configuration
 > using an interactive postinst or debconf is only there for a basic
 > configuration and not a complete setup so why should it be done in
 > netbase?

Because one of the great advertised features of Debian is to be
able to upgrade without re-installing.  Boot floppies means
re-installing.

 > 
 > If you want a GUI to configure network interfaces just wait for my next
 > Linuxconf upload which will read and write the network interface
 > configuration from/to /etc/network/interfaces.

I don't want a GUI (actually I'm an agnostic about it - as long as
it works).

 > > And what is ifup (a c program) all about?  Don't we already have
 > > ifconfig, the canonical (c) program to configure interfaces?
 > 
 > ifup calls ifconfig (or a dhcp client for dynamic addresses) for setting
 > up the interfaces. This is also useful for the administrator: He just has
 > to call "ifup -a" and all interfaces are being configured.

The interfaces are not fully configured by ifup.  The current scheme
doesn't handle my ip-masq config.  

 > > And to throw this stuff into frozen potato without any
 > > documentation that at least describes what problem you are trying
 > > to solve and how you have solved it.
 > 
 > This has been in netbase for a long time and I've been using ifup with
 > no problems for at least 3 months. Anthony made this the default because
 > that's the setup that the Debian 2.2 boot floppies will create.

With `this is alpha' warnings and `it doesn't work yet' comments.
And as you pointed out, it requires boot floppies to be run first
before providing me with a *working* version that I can then tweak
as necessary.

Fortunately, I have installed on a spare partition using
boot floppies 2.2.7, so I will use that as my exemplar - thanks
for the suggestion. 

 > It's fine if you don't want to change your setup. Just stick with
 > /etc/init.d/network and leave /etc/network/interfaces empty. But then you
 > won't be able to use a GUI for network configuration.

I have found that it's less work for myself if I follow the Debian
provided `way' as much as possible.

Thanks,
-- 
Jeff Sheinberg  <jeffsh@erols.com>