NetworkManage and ypbind

Rick Stevens ricks at nerd.com
Tue May 5 21:56:47 UTC 2009


Rahul Sundaram wrote:
> On 05/05/2009 10:28 PM, Rick Stevens wrote:
> 
>> Does anyone else find it odd that ypbind (necessary for network-based
>> logins via NIS) is dependent on a service that will not start until a
>> user is already logged in?  Ditto for anything authenticating off a
>> remote LDAP server.  Can you say "Catch-22"?
> 
> You can say "bug". Of course, we should fixing the bugs instead of
> shipping two methods, either with their own set of bugs. Please report
> issues you find.

I don't know that I'd call it a bug.  NM works okay (when you ignore its
other bugs) IF you've got a desktop session going.  Problem is, if you
authenticate off LDAP or NIS/NIS+, you'll never get a desktop session
because you can't authenticate.  There's the catch-22 of it.

Now, if you use a static config that meets NM's requirements and it can
make a network connection before users log in, it's fine.  Problem is
that those requirements are undocumented.  I know how to make it work
because I've looked at NM's source, but others may not.

So, that's why I suggest letting an installer choose a static network
config (using the old /etc/rc.d/init.d/network stuff and removing
requirements for ypbind and its brethren to talk to NM over dbus) or an
NM-based setup.  It depends on how they want the thing to work.  I work
on so many different network configs (VPNs, tunnels, multiple NICs,
different wireless networks, etc.) that NM is more of a bloody nuisance
than anything else.  80% of the time it's disabled on my laptops and
it's always disabled on my desktop machines (all seven of them).

As far as documentation is concerned...I did offer my services to write
a man page, HOWTO and basic user docs for NM, but my offers were either
ignored or never reached NM's maintainers.  I know I can do it on the 
side (because I'm a nice chap), but at the time NM was a frantically
moving target and anything I wrote was obsoleted by changes made in NM
in the next version.  I did the human thing and punted.

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