Bug 541410

Of course not using NetworkManager is an option, but I am hoping to eliminate differences between net-booted and local configurations in our cluster.  And it's nice to be able to use NM for wireless on a laptop that net-booted from a wired interface.

NM will "take over" an existing interface configuration if:

1) the interface's current configuration is reflected in backing system configuration in an ifcfg file in /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/

2) if the interface uses DHCP, that the current dhclient leasefile exists in /var/lib/dhclient-<uuid>-<iface>.lease where <uuid> is the same as the UUID key in that ifcfg file

this "takeover" stuff was done a year ago exactly for this reason; if there's no backing configuration, the applications have no idea what network connection the interface is actually using, and you can't even "ifdown eth0" because there's no valid ifcfg-eth0 file to take down (or if there is, it almost certainly doesn't match whatever dracut configured the interface with).  If there's no dhclient leasefile in the specific location, then we can't direct dhclient to renew the current least because we can't find it.  We need to launch our own dhclient because the normal dhclient-script is insufficient for NM's purposes, and thus NM uses its own script when launching dhclient.  (and leases are connections specific, not interface specific, since you don't use the same lease at home and at work even though both might use interface eth0, hence the UUID requirement as part of the leasefile name)

I've discussed this issue with network-mounted root at length with Warren when he was still at Red Hat; basically dracut should be creating an ifcfg file using the current interface configuration (adding the UUID key using 'uuidgen'), after switchroot copying the ifcfg file and the dhclient leasefile to the the right places in the normal system.  NM will then seamlessly take over the interface and will not interrupt the existing connection.

If the dracut folks have any questions let me know...

(In reply to comment #2)
> I've discussed this issue with network-mounted root at length with Warren when
> he was still at Red Hat; basically dracut should be creating an ifcfg file
> using the current interface configuration (adding the UUID key using
> 'uuidgen'), after switchroot copying the ifcfg file and the dhclient leasefile
> to the the right places in the normal system.  NM will then seamlessly take
> over the interface and will not interrupt the existing connection.
> 
> If the dracut folks have any questions let me know...

there is no UUID used.. everything is in /dev/.initramfs/state/

There is no dracut script taking care of that stuff in post... I thought this was all set and done by Network-Manager?

(In reply to comment #3)
> (In reply to comment #2)
> > I've discussed this issue with network-mounted root at length with Warren when
> > he was still at Red Hat; basically dracut should be creating an ifcfg file
> > using the current interface configuration (adding the UUID key using
> > 'uuidgen'), after switchroot copying the ifcfg file and the dhclient leasefile
> > to the the right places in the normal system.  NM will then seamlessly take
> > over the interface and will not interrupt the existing connection.
> > 
> > If the dracut folks have any questions let me know...
> 
> there is no UUID used.. everything is in /dev/.initramfs/state/
> 
> There is no dracut script taking care of that stuff in post... I thought this
> was all set and done by Network-Manager?

does that mean, that this does not work in Fedora 13, 14, RHEL6?

reassigning back

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