Beware - NetworkManager

[Matthew Saltzman]

On Mon, 11 Dec 2006, Marc Schwartz wrote:

> Aaron Konstam wrote:
>> On Mon, 2006-12-11 at 09:42 -0500, Gene Poole wrote:
>>> Beware - It seems that the first time you use NetworkManager it destroys
>>> the contents of you resolv.conf (built at install time).  It also seems
>>> that it doesn't make a backup copy first.
>>> 
>>> Thanks,
>>> Gene Poole
>>> 
>> I have never noticed that this is true. I will have to look into your
>> statement.
>
> If you have a network profile that is based upon a fixed IP address and DNS 
> servers (which I do have at home behind a router with DHCP disabled), then NM 
> will overwrite the configurations for that profile, including 
> /etc/resolv.conf.
>
> I use NM at work, where we have DHCP and of course with wireless networks 
> when travelling.
>
> However, at home, I end up disabling NM and then run a shell script which 
> activates the Home profile and associated config settings and then ifup's 
> eth0.
>
> It seems to me that I have seen references to this previously, relative to 
> using NM when one has a fixed IP and DNS settings. My recollection is that NM 
> is really configured for DHCP based nets and does not (yet) support network 
> profiles.
>
> However, I would love for somebody to tell me that I am wrong on this, as I 
> would love to not have to go through the steps that I do when at home.

Do you access the Internet directly at home or through some sort of 
router?  If the latter, you can probably configure your home router to 
provide DHCP service (including nameserver info) to your laptop.

I do this, and NM works just fine.  I actually use a Linux box as a home 
server.  It runs dhcpd so it can even match IP addresses to MAC addresses 
so machines get "static" addresses.

IIRC, NM should respect a static id set in /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts, 
but you still need to stop it and change profiles if you sometimes have a 
static id and sometimes want to DHCP.

>
> HTH,
>
> Marc Schwartz
>
>
>

-- 
 		Matthew Saltzman

Clemson University Math Sciences
mjs AT clemson DOT edu
http://www.math.clemson.edu/~mjs