Re: Wrong gateway address in default squeeze setup (10.0.2.1 should be 10.0.0.1)

[Jürgen Leibner <2010jl@gmx.de>]

On Wednesday 04 January 2012 13:42 Petter Reinholdtsen wrote:
> Hi.  I just discovered that the default setup in Squeeze do not use
> the first IP address in its subnet as the gateway address.  This is a
> mistake I believe we need to fix.
>
> The new and extended backbone network went from 10.0.2.0/23 to
> 10.0.0.0/8 earlier this year, but the server and gateway adressess
> where not moved from 10.0.2.0/23 to 10.0.0.0/8.  I believe the
> gateway should change from 10.0.2.1 to 10.0.0.1.  It might be a good
> idea to move tjener from 10.0.2.2 to 10.0.0.2 too, but that is not
> equally important.
>
> Without this, a lot of third party packages will propose the wrong
> gateway address when configured to connect to the skolelinux backbone
> network.  We break the principle of least surprise as sysadmins
> around the globe are used to finding the gateway on the first IP
> address on a subnet.
>
> This change will require some testing, so I suggest we do it first
> thing after beta2 is released this weekend.  As part of this fix, I
> plan to move the network configuration function from
> debian-edu-install to debian-edu-config, to get all the subnet
> related code in one package.
>
> Changing the gateway IP address require changes to the function
> generating /etc/network/interfaces in pre-pkgsel, and updates for the
> DNS and DHCP setup in LDAP.
>
> Changing the tjener IP address require updating all configuration
> files refering to its IP address.  I do not yet have a complete list.
> --
> Happy hacking
> Petter Reinholdtsen

I think, to change the gateway address would be ok and is the right 
move, but would suggest to announce it heavily, with a good description 
why we are doing it, where ever we can.

There are a lot of schools I know of, which are not able to or they are 
not allowed to configure the gateway. They have to ask a third party 
(goverment, it-service, ... ) to do this for them and maybe in some 
(most? I don't know) cases it will cost money.


Greetings
Jürgen Leibner