On Wed, Feb 13, 2019 at 02:13:52PM -0600, Kent West wrote:
> But, that leaves my second question unanswered:
>
> 2) What is the canonical current method in 2019 to [semi-]manually
> configure networking in stretch? And is it documented anywhere? (My two
> days of searching leads me to think "no". Or my google-fu really sucks.)
>
> I *thought* "/etc/network/interfaces" was being phased out (perhaps as part
> of systemd or Network-Manager?). Then the web provides this answer then
> that answer - "service...", "systemctl...", "ip...", "ifup...", "if up...",
> and I'm confident some of these are deprecated or not preferred or apply in
> Case X but not Case Y, etc. With "The Handbook" being out of date, is there
> a definitive explanation/guide out there?
It's not being phased out, at least to my knowledge.
There are, unfortunately, at least three competing ways to configure
network interfaces in Debian: /etc/network/interfaces, NetworkManager,
and systemd-networkd.
I know nothing about systemd-networkd, except that it is disabled by
default, so I won't discuss that. Someone else may feel free to talk
about it.
The other two are able to work in tandem. Any interface definition
in the /etc/network/interfaces file is authoritative and exclusive.
NetworkManager will not touch that interface.
If NetworkManager isn't installed, then other interfaces not mentioned
in /e/n/i will simply be left unconfigured. If NM is installed, then
it will take control of any interfaces not configured by /e/n/i.
NM is not installed by default with just the "Standard" task, but it
*is* installed as a dependency of some, or perhaps all, of the desktop
environment tasks.
As far as I know, this is not new behavior; Debian has worked this way
for at least a few releases. You may think the handbook is "out of date",
and perhaps it is for some things, but not for this one.
Thank you! That's a pretty good explanation. Had your explanation been in the Handbook (unless I just missed it), I wouldn't have been so ready to call a version 8 handbook "out of date" for a version 9.7 product.
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