I don't think NetworkManager is in the market for "somewhat weird network configuration".
Why don't you turn it off and use dhclient or dhcpcd instead?
Network Manager has been the absolute bane of my existence, however due to it being the defacto standard for most distros, one pretty much needs to support it. at the very least nmcli is... usable.
nmcli is quite nice actually. My only real issue with NM is keeping track of what it's doing behind the scenes.
Why don't you just get rid of NM? Like you said it's more intended for easy default cases.
How tho?
Uninstall it?
Help. Now my DNS doesn't work because systemd expects nm
I feel like we're not far away from saying "There's a systemd for that."
I've been wondering about how feasible an all-systemd system would be. Like, take Arch and do a manual install but replace everything possible with systemd. Resolved, networkd, (whatever the fstab alternative is called), systemd-boot (of course) etc. And just have everything replaced by systemd as much as possible. It's an interesting idea and ClearLinux essentially did just that so I might check it out for inspiration.
I think Poettering did a blog post just before he left RedHat (or maybe it was just after) where he described his 'perfect' OS - it was pretty detailed, I imagine it was indeed what we'd call systemd+Linux
Edit: Found it
Holy crap, that dude is just next level. He's talking about getting absolutely everything encrypted, and here I am, not even having my root partition encrypted.
🤦 Then you probably shouldn't uninstall it. When you enter a discussion about an advanced use case people are going to assume you want to manage /etc/resolv.conf and the network interfaces by hand.
No I'm fine to do that, but systemd overwrites it every few minutes.
You’re telling me you don’t want to update a configuration that updates a configuration that updates a configuration?
Just wait until you use Ubuntu cloud-init which updates netplan which then updates NetworkManager.
But once NM is gone, I don't even know how to update the thing that updates the thing that updates the thing.
My point is that NM is pretty baked-in, and I don't know how to remove it without breaking things
use arch btw ;)
mostly kidding, but shit like this is exactly why i love arch so much. set up the entire system from ground up - no bullshit on it, and you know how (almost) every part works and what it does.
There used to be wicd as alternative for NM but its development is stalled. There is ConnMan though with apparently GUI and TUI options :
Thanks for the suggestion, but I'm using NM for managing the AP and managed connections, not so much the bare connecting to wifi things.
The only real alternative to NM in this situation is a handful of delicate config files for iwconfig and dnsmasq.
So I want and have ip forwarding, and I only want to make a firewall whitelist between two of the interfaces.
I've uninstalled iptables, nftables isn't running, NM has the firewall backend disabled, and ip forwarding is on.
This should result in traffic moving between the interfaces, yet traffic is moving between two of the interfaces, and blocked between two of the interfaces. It just doesn't make sense.
Sorry I only have this generic troubleshooting point to offer, but have you checked to see if NetworkManager might be modifying your IP routing table in unwanted ways during its operation?
From what you've described I'm under the impression that no Internet traffic needs to run through this system; perhaps NM is adding an unwanted default route?
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