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Also predates netplan. NetworkManager (another redhat tool to makes things "simpler", like systemd) is mentioned in part 3. I've used Debian based distribution

Also predates netplan. NetworkManager (another redhat tool to makes things "simpler", like systemd) is mentioned in part 3. I've used Debian based distributions for 20 years with nothing more than ifupdown, resolvconf, and occasionally dnsmasq, but no distro for old men and all that.

tyingq 5y ago
"no distro for old men". Hah, that's great. I had a brief thought of a Javier Bardem as SystemD.
eikenberry 5y ago
I did the same for years, with the addition of wireless tools when I switched to using laptops. With Buster and the additional networking features of systemd (and iwd for wifi), I was able to replace the whole stack with just 2-3 things. Much simpler in design and easier to setup and use. I wrote a small gist on the setup a couple years ago that is still mostly relevant. In case you're interested... https://gist.github.com/eikenb/1e9faeb8210e639e8caa69e9832db594 https://gist.github.com/eikenb/1e9faeb8210e639e8caa69e9832db...
- iso1631 5y ago
  99% of my machines (everything apart from one laptop) has no wifi. Systemd is constantly Now of course I can return to basics and learn everything again from scratch. The problem with that approach is distros like Ubuntu frequently drop in new features which last 5 years, and then they're gone as they're no longer sexy. This reduces the payoff of learning something new, may as well just continue to fight. I probably won't use ubuntu on servers going forward as they broke the installer for 20.04 (they got rid of the nice simple debian-installer, which just needed a new kernel/initrd and a preseed tweak every 2 years) and replaced it with some live cd monstrosity. Managed to avoid netplan on 18.04. It's a pain, as it means spending mental effort to make changes to something that just works, and the whole reason I use linux is because it has "just worked" for 2 decades. It seems all these recent changes are aimed at people who want their linux machine to operate just like an OSX laptop.
  - rubicks 5y ago
    You can get a "legacy" installer for Focal server: http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-legacy-server/releases/20.04/release/ http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-legacy-server/releases/20.0... I'm using it myself for $DAYJOB, although, as you say, my Bionic preseed needed a _lot_ of adaptation.
  - glitchcrab 5y ago
    You can use autoinstall instead of d-i - I vastly prefer it over the arcane d-i configurations. d-i is one of those things which you get working and never touch again in case you break it. https://ubuntu.com/server/docs/install/autoinstall https://ubuntu.com/server/docs/install/autoinstall
    - iso1631 5y ago
      I've used d-i with ubuntu since 6.10 and it just works. Never managed to find a base pxe boot for autoinstall, but it's just one of the many straws As I say, just one of the many reasons I'm trying to leave the tech industry, just like the unix greybeards were annoyed by young upstart linux people in the late 90s, these things are cyclical.
  - eikenberry 5y ago
    Without wifi it isn't very compelling vs. the good old /etc/network/interfaces setup, it's hard to get simpler than that. I still use that on my servers as well. I use Debian myself and know that they don't change tech lightly and will keep supporting Systemd for the foreseeable future. So that part isn't a concern for me. Can't help with the Ubuntu installer, I only ever used it for cloud deployments with cloudinit. Systemd is a mixed bag but overall I've been happy with it. I have been using it since Jesse and have never had any issues with it and definitely prefer it over sysv-init (which I always hated, every other init system is an improvement over it IMO... so low bar I guess).
znpy 5y ago
I'm looking forward for "old men" to retire. Stuff like systemd (and systemd-resolved) are wonderful innovation and that m god they're the de-facto standard on most desktops. And by the way, the joy of systemd-resolved is in complex stuff that become surprisingly easy. Example: split-horizon DNS. You're connected to a VPN network but you're only routing some subnets through that, not everything. Thus, you have to have DNS that query some DNS server inside the VPN for a set of domains, but keep using the usual DNS servers for everything else. It's surprisingly easy with systemd-resolved, but I'm not aware of any feasibility without a DNS server running on the local machine (albeit in resolver mode). Which usually would be dnsmasq, but at that point you might as well run systemd-resolved.
- iso1631 5y ago
  > Example: split-horizon DNS. You're connected to a VPN network but you're only routing some subnets through that, not everything. Thus, you have to have DNS that query some DNS server inside the VPN for a set of domains, but keep using the usual DNS servers for everything else. Why. I want to route 10.0.0.0/8 via a VPN, I don't know if "flargle.bazonga.com" resolves to 10.0.0.1 or 99.99.99.99 until I do the lookup.
  - znpy 5y ago
    You might know beforehand. Your employer might have the whole intranet.employer.tld within the VPN. And everything within that network resolves to some 10.8.0.0/8 address.
    - iso1631 5y ago
      I might, but that's not at all how my networks work. Indeed even the corporate business network (which I rarely ever touch) doesn't do that any more - some internal looking DNS resolve to public IPs, some external looking DNS resolve to rfc1918s, some are overwritten if you're on the network or not, and vpns are now based around zscaler which doesn't even allow access via IP address, not entirely sure how it works but DNS resolves everything to 100.64.x.x or similar (cg nat I believe) - not sure how it routes web traffic to the right server, but as I say I very rarely use it (I don't think I've used it since covid started) If I were setting up a corporate laptop, I would likely set all dns, and possibly all traffic, routing via the vpn for security/compliance/monitoring purposes. What benefit does resolvd give me?

tyingq 5y ago

"no distro for old men". Hah, that's great. I had a brief thought of a Javier Bardem as SystemD.

eikenberry 5y ago

I did the same for years, with the addition of wireless tools when I switched to using laptops. With Buster and the additional networking features of systemd (and iwd for wifi), I was able to replace the whole stack with just 2-3 things. Much simpler in design and easier to setup and use. I wrote a small gist on the setup a couple years ago that is still mostly relevant. In case you're interested... https://gist.github.com/eikenb/1e9faeb8210e639e8caa69e9832db594 https://gist.github.com/eikenb/1e9faeb8210e639e8caa69e9832db...

iso1631 5y ago
99% of my machines (everything apart from one laptop) has no wifi. Systemd is constantly Now of course I can return to basics and learn everything again from scratch. The problem with that approach is distros like Ubuntu frequently drop in new features which last 5 years, and then they're gone as they're no longer sexy. This reduces the payoff of learning something new, may as well just continue to fight. I probably won't use ubuntu on servers going forward as they broke the installer for 20.04 (they got rid of the nice simple debian-installer, which just needed a new kernel/initrd and a preseed tweak every 2 years) and replaced it with some live cd monstrosity. Managed to avoid netplan on 18.04. It's a pain, as it means spending mental effort to make changes to something that just works, and the whole reason I use linux is because it has "just worked" for 2 decades. It seems all these recent changes are aimed at people who want their linux machine to operate just like an OSX laptop.
- rubicks 5y ago
  You can get a "legacy" installer for Focal server: http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-legacy-server/releases/20.04/release/ http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-legacy-server/releases/20.0... I'm using it myself for $DAYJOB, although, as you say, my Bionic preseed needed a _lot_ of adaptation.
- glitchcrab 5y ago
  You can use autoinstall instead of d-i - I vastly prefer it over the arcane d-i configurations. d-i is one of those things which you get working and never touch again in case you break it. https://ubuntu.com/server/docs/install/autoinstall https://ubuntu.com/server/docs/install/autoinstall
  - iso1631 5y ago
    I've used d-i with ubuntu since 6.10 and it just works. Never managed to find a base pxe boot for autoinstall, but it's just one of the many straws As I say, just one of the many reasons I'm trying to leave the tech industry, just like the unix greybeards were annoyed by young upstart linux people in the late 90s, these things are cyclical.
- eikenberry 5y ago
  Without wifi it isn't very compelling vs. the good old /etc/network/interfaces setup, it's hard to get simpler than that. I still use that on my servers as well. I use Debian myself and know that they don't change tech lightly and will keep supporting Systemd for the foreseeable future. So that part isn't a concern for me. Can't help with the Ubuntu installer, I only ever used it for cloud deployments with cloudinit. Systemd is a mixed bag but overall I've been happy with it. I have been using it since Jesse and have never had any issues with it and definitely prefer it over sysv-init (which I always hated, every other init system is an improvement over it IMO... so low bar I guess).

znpy 5y ago

I'm looking forward for "old men" to retire. Stuff like systemd (and systemd-resolved) are wonderful innovation and that m god they're the de-facto standard on most desktops. And by the way, the joy of systemd-resolved is in complex stuff that become surprisingly easy. Example: split-horizon DNS. You're connected to a VPN network but you're only routing some subnets through that, not everything. Thus, you have to have DNS that query some DNS server inside the VPN for a set of domains, but keep using the usual DNS servers for everything else. It's surprisingly easy with systemd-resolved, but I'm not aware of any feasibility without a DNS server running on the local machine (albeit in resolver mode). Which usually would be dnsmasq, but at that point you might as well run systemd-resolved.

iso1631 5y ago
> Example: split-horizon DNS. You're connected to a VPN network but you're only routing some subnets through that, not everything. Thus, you have to have DNS that query some DNS server inside the VPN for a set of domains, but keep using the usual DNS servers for everything else. Why. I want to route 10.0.0.0/8 via a VPN, I don't know if "flargle.bazonga.com" resolves to 10.0.0.1 or 99.99.99.99 until I do the lookup.
- znpy 5y ago
  You might know beforehand. Your employer might have the whole intranet.employer.tld within the VPN. And everything within that network resolves to some 10.8.0.0/8 address.
  - iso1631 5y ago
    I might, but that's not at all how my networks work. Indeed even the corporate business network (which I rarely ever touch) doesn't do that any more - some internal looking DNS resolve to public IPs, some external looking DNS resolve to rfc1918s, some are overwritten if you're on the network or not, and vpns are now based around zscaler which doesn't even allow access via IP address, not entirely sure how it works but DNS resolves everything to 100.64.x.x or similar (cg nat I believe) - not sure how it routes web traffic to the right server, but as I say I very rarely use it (I don't think I've used it since covid started) If I were setting up a corporate laptop, I would likely set all dns, and possibly all traffic, routing via the vpn for security/compliance/monitoring purposes. What benefit does resolvd give me?