starting Fedora Server SIG

[Seth Vidal]

On Thu, 13 Nov 2008, Bill Nottingham wrote:

> Chris Adams (cmadams at hiwaay.net) said:
>> That gets back to my previous question: why would I want one or more
>> daemons required for a static server configuration?  That is just more
>> things to break.
>
> Things NM gives you, as part of having that daemon (note: may not be
> relevant to all usage cases, including desktops, servers, etc.):
>
> - Consistently queryable for all various network settings, via dbus
>  (as opposed to the conglomeration of ifconfig, ip, route, iwconfig,
>  and 'cat <config file here>')
> - Better scriptability of actions when you join and leave networks,
>  links go up and down, etc. (netreport is not a good interface.)
> - Support for both user-specific and system-wide configurations
> - Sane WPA, mobile broadband, etc. support
>
> This is above and beyond the GUI-related stuff, such as easily
> switching between wireless networks, connection sharing, etc.

You might notice that all of the above are features that are good for
developers working on enhancing other software and good for desktop 
users but not so much features that a sysadmin worried only about keeping 
systems running and using as few resources as possible will care about.

Its just complexity where it isn't needed (in the case of a server).

-sv