Networking: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 11:28, 12 May 2014

Networking features are nowadays important for virtually all users of Fedora and other linux distributions. Fedora's main network use cases are laptops, desktops, servers and virtualization. Fedora could also be used for routers, becoming part of networking infrastructure.

Networking concepts and configuration

Connectivity:

User experience:

Black magic:

Important networking projects

Kernel
GLIBC
NetworkManager
ISC DHCP

Known networking bugs

I moved all the information about known networking bugs to a separate article: Known networking bugs

Pieces of the puzzle

Interface for static IPv4 and IPv6 configuration (kernel)
Interface for bridging/bonding/vlan configuration (kernel)
Interface for DNS configuration (/etc/resolv.conf)
DHCP client implementation for IPv4 automatic configuration (dhclient)
RA client implementation for IPv6 address configuration (kernel, with workarounds in NetworkManager)
RDNSS/DNSSL client implementation for IPv6 DNS configuration (NetworkManager through kernel, with workarounds)
DHCP client implementation for IPv6 address/DNS/other configuration (dhclient)
IPsec, VPN and tunneling implementations (various daemons)
A network management daemon to properly manage all of the above together with user configuration (NetworkManager)
Networking API for applications (glibc, with many problems)

I may have missed something but the objective is to show that networking is rather complex and the various tools need to be centrally managed by a network management service in order to make users and administrators happy.

You can only live without network configuration daemons if you use static IP configuration and you avoid encrypted wireless networks at the same time. You can live with just wpa_supplicant and dhclient only if you are used to do most of the stuff yourself. Virtually all linux distributions now converge to network solutions based on network configuration daemons.

Examples of such daemons (without feature comparison):

NetworkManager
connman (MeeGo)
WICD
netifd (OpenWRT)
netcfg (Archlinux)
wicked
systemd-networkd
pyroute2 (?)

Yeah, it's a lot of fun writing new and new network configuration daemons.

Fedora feature pages

F20

Unknown

Contacts

Name: Pavel Šimerda
Email: psimerda@redhat.com, pavlix@pavlix.net
IRC: pavlix, #nm at freenode

Use the above contacts or Talk:Networking for discussions about Networking page, its subpages, related pages and covered topics. Add yourself to the contacts if you want to help me maintaining this set of information resources.

@@ Line 5: / Line 5: @@
 == Networking concepts and configuration ==
+Connectivity:
 * [[Networking/Ethernet|Ethernet]]
@@ Line 10: / Line 12: @@
 * [[Networking/Routing|Routing]]
 * [[Networking/Bridging|Bridging]]
-* [[Networking/Teaming|Bonding / Teaming]]
+* [[Networking/VLAN|VLAN]]
+* [[Networking/Bonding|Bonding]] / [[Networking/Teaming|Teaming]]
+* [[Networking/Tunneling|Tunneling]]
+User experience:
+* [[Networking/Hostname|Hostname]]
+* [[Networking/NameResolution|Name Resolution]], [[Networking/NameResolution/DNS|DNS]], [[Networking/NameResolution/DNSSEC|DNSSEC]]
+* [[Networking/LaptopAndDesktop|Laptop and desktop]]
+Black magic:
 * [[Networking/NAT|TCP, UDP and ICMP NAT]]
 * [[Networking/Traffic control|Traffic control]]
-* [[Networking/Tunneling|Tunneling]]
-* [[Networking/NameResolution|Name Resolution]]
 * [[Networking/Dependencies|Network connectivity dependencies]]
-== Most prominent projects involved in linux networking ==
+== Important networking projects ==
 * Kernel
@@ Line 24: / Line 35: @@
 * ISC DHCP
-== Networking problems ==
+== Known networking bugs ==
-Only platform bugs that can influence various application and/or the overall behavior of the system belong here.
-=== Kernel ===
+I moved all the information about known networking bugs to a separate article: [[Networking/Bugs|Known networking bugs]]
-* Bridge: Adding first interface after setting MAC address changes the MAC address
+== Pieces of the puzzle ==
-* IPv4: Kernel can't store DHCP lifetime and cannot mark IPv6 addresses dynamic (in the DHCP sense)
-* IPv6: Kernel ignores RA router preference
-* IPv6: Tempaddr cycling breaks TCP connections prematurely
-* IPv6: Kernel doesn't cache RDNSS and DNSSL
-* IPv6: Kernel doesn't provide default route information when defrtr is disabled
-* IPv6: Kernel doesn't provide prefix route information when pinfo is disabled
-=== libnl ===
+* Interface for static IPv4 and IPv6 configuration (kernel)
+* Interface for bridging/bonding/vlan configuration (kernel)
+* Interface for DNS configuration (/etc/resolv.conf)
+* DHCP client implementation for IPv4 automatic configuration (dhclient)
+* RA client implementation for IPv6 address configuration (kernel, with workarounds in NetworkManager)
+* RDNSS/DNSSL client implementation for IPv6 DNS configuration (NetworkManager through kernel, with workarounds)
+* DHCP client implementation for IPv6 address/DNS/other configuration (dhclient)
+* IPsec, VPN and tunneling implementations (various daemons)
+* A network management daemon to properly manage all of the above together with user configuration (NetworkManager)
+* Networking API for applications (glibc, with many problems)
-* rtnl_link_bond_add() succeeds when device already exists
+I may have missed something but the objective is to show that networking is rather complex and the various tools need
-* rtnl_link_bridge_add() and rtnl_link_vlan_add missing
+to be centrally managed by a network management service in order to make users and administrators happy.
-=== iproute ===
+You can only live without network configuration daemons if you use static IP configuration and you avoid encrypted
+wireless networks at the same time. You can live with just wpa_supplicant and dhclient only if you are used to do
+most of the stuff yourself. Virtually all linux distributions now converge to network solutions based on network
+configuration daemons.
-* iproute won't distinguish bridges and bonds
+Examples of such daemons (without feature comparison):
-* iproute won't show vlan id
-=== GLIBC ===
+* NetworkManager
+* connman (MeeGo)
+* WICD
+* netifd (OpenWRT)
+* netcfg (Archlinux)
+* wicked
+* systemd-networkd
+* pyroute2 (?)
-* IPv4: [http://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=721350 <code>getaddrinfo("127.0.0.1", ...)</code> fail with some AI_ADDRCONFIG configurations]
+Yeah, it's a lot of fun writing new and new network configuration daemons.
-* IPv6: [http://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=808147 Fedora 808147 - <code>getaddrinfo("::1", ...)</code> fails with some configurations of AI_ADDRCONFIG]
-* IPv6: <code>getaddrinfo("fe80::1234:56ff:fe78:90%eth0", ...)</code> also fails as above
-* IPv6: [http://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=843054 GLIBC's nsswitch doesn't support overriding <code>getaddrinfo</code> which is requred to resolve link-local IPv6 addresses]
-* DNS: [http://sourceware.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=2099 <code>getaddrinfo</code> doesn't support SRV records]
-=== dhclient ===
+== Fedora feature pages ==
-* Fixed: [http://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=662254 <code>dhclient</code> fails with large values of dhcp-renawal-time, notably the infinity (0xffffffff) value]
+=== F20 ===
-* People say that dhclient exchange is slow, especially on wireless (I can't reproduce)
-=== Avahi ===
+* [[Features/NetworkManagerBridging]]
+* [[Features/NetworkManagerBonding]]
+* [[Features/NetworkManagerCLIAddConnection]]
+* [[Features/FixNetworkNameResolution]]
+* [[Features/NetworkManagerNameBasedConfiguration]]
-* [http://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=719178 Avahi's ''nss-mdns'' returns link-local IPv6 addresses ''without'' scope_id and applications fail to connect]
+=== Unknown ===
-* [http://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=821127 Avahi's IPv6 support is disabled by default (this has been resolved in the past)]
-=== NetworkManager ===
+* [[Features/NetworkManagerAdvancedIPv6]]
+* [[Features/DualstackNetworkTestingTools]]
+* [[Features/ZeroconfNetworking]]
+* [[Features/NetworkManagerRuntimeConfigurationAPI]]
+* [[Features/NetworkManagerForInitramfs]]
+* [[Features/NetworkManagerTestSuites]]
+* [[Features/NetworkManagerTeaming]]
-* Various bugs in [[Tools/NetworkManager|NetworkManager]]
+== Contacts ==
-=== Testing tools ===
+* Name: [[User:pavlix|Pavel Šimerda]]
+* Email: psimerda@redhat.com, pavlix@pavlix.net
+* IRC: pavlix, #nm at freenode
-* ping doesn't support IPv6 (you have to use ping6)
+Use the above contacts or [[Talk:Networking]] for discussions about
-* netstat and sockstat won't mark non-v6only sockets
+[[Networking]] page, its subpages, related pages and covered topics. Add yourself
+to the contacts if you want to help me maintaining this set of
+information resources.

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