Bug 104302

Summary: neat's "profiles" are worthless (as-is, at least)
Product: [Retired] Red Hat Linux Reporter: Stig Hackvan <stig-redhat-bugzilla>
Component: redhat-config-networkAssignee: Harald Hoyer <harald>
Status: CLOSED NOTABUG QA Contact:
Severity: high Docs Contact:
Priority: high    
Version: 9   
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Hardware: All   
OS: Linux   
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Fixed In Version: Doc Type: Bug Fix
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Last Closed: 2003-09-12 11:09:23 UTC Type: ---
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oVirt Team: --- RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
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Description Stig Hackvan 2003-09-12 10:15:39 UTC 
Description of problem:

I've been trying to use profiles in 'neat' and they just waste my time because
the app is so buggy...

one glaring issue is that all the profiles in /etc/sysconfig/networking/profiles
use HARD LINKS and when changes to ONE profile's interface are made, those
changes OVERWRITE THAT SAME INTERFACE IN ALL PROFILES.  Delete an interface in
ONE profile, and it gets NUKED in ALL profiles.

Try using symlinks.  read the symlinks to generate another column in the neat
display...so that you know what you're inheriting from...  when the current
profile's interface is modified, break the upstream link by replacing the link
(instead of just writing to it!!!)...also ask if downstream links should be
broken as well.

USE CASE:

starting in common, copy profile & rename it to foo.  all of the files in
profiles/foo ( these steps are equivalent to 'mkdir foo ; cd foo ; ln -s
../common/* .')

now make bar in the same way...  bar's files are links to ../foo/*

select foo

now edit eth0 and foo/ifcfg-eth0 becomes a regular file.  common/ifcfg-eth0 is
unchanged.  bar/ifcfg-eth0 remains a link to ../foo/ifcfg-eth0 unless the user,
when queried, asks to break the dependency, in which case it retains the old
value of foo's eth0 settings.

-- stig
Comment 1 Harald Hoyer 2003-09-12 11:09:23 UTC 
>> one glaring issue is that all the profiles in /etc/sysconfig/networking/profiles
use HARD LINKS and when changes to ONE profile's interface are made, those
changes OVERWRITE THAT SAME INTERFACE IN ALL PROFILES.  Delete an interface in
ONE profile, and it gets NUKED in ALL profiles. <<

That is intended... if you want different settings for e.g. eth0 create a new
device or copy the existing one and activate this one only in your preffered
profile..