RHEL7 - Network Manager

Do I have to keep Network Manager enabled on my labs? Unless I'm missing something, everything works as it is with Network Manager disabled. I'm comfortable editing network-scripts by hand and don't need nm-gui stuff. I'd like to know if Network Manager is required for rhcsa/rhce. thanks!

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Expect

you don't have to use it.

varelg

gratchie wrote: »

Do I have to keep Network Manager enabled on my labs? Unless I'm missing something, everything works as it is with Network Manager disabled. I'm comfortable editing network-scripts by hand and don't need nm-gui stuff. I'd like to know if Network Manager is required for rhcsa/rhce. thanks!

You are actually on the right track. Know the syntax of key files. Or start liking nmtui.
nmcli is absolutely not a requirement for RHCSA and RHCE. They better not make it into one. Its long-winded syntax, sometimes you'd type less if you go and manually redact a config file than to do the same thing via nmcli.

gratchie

Perfect. Systemctl disable NetworkManager it is. Thanks!

Verities

Yeah you don't have to use network manager they just added it so you don't have to manually update all the config files. If you want to edit all the files manually that's OK too.

varelg

I just read a little note at Cert depot, and have not personally tested it, but if you disable Network Manager, you'll have to use iptables for your firewall. firewall-cmd won't work if Network Manager is off.

JockVSJock

varelg wrote: »

I just read a little note at Cert depot, and have not personally tested it, but if you disable Network Manager, you'll have to use iptables for your firewall. firewall-cmd won't work if Network Manager is off.

Really? I looked and couldn't find any info on this.

Verities

Here's what I could find from the official Red Hat documentation:

https://access.redhat.com/documentation/en-US/Red_Hat_Enterprise_Linux/7/html/Security_Guide/sec-Using_Firewalls.html

Firewalld uses Network Manager to update zones. If you have any experience with firewalld, you should realize zones are a huge piece of it. It only makes sense if you disable Network Manager you would have to use IP Tables then.

Firewalld is just a front-end application for netfilter, the part of the kernel that actually handles packet filtering. So if you disabled network manager,you would only be able to use the other tool that provides instructions to netfilter, which would be IP tables and in my opinion firewalld is hands down easier to use than IP tables.

I don't recommend disabling network manager because you don't like nmcli. If you really don't want to use the CLI, either install the GUI tool or TUI tool.

gratchie

hmmm, I may have to play with this a little bit more then. I was looking forward to using firewall-cmd instead of iptables. thanks for the input folks!

Undy

You could still edit the configuration files and use NetworkManager.

For instance, create a new file /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-TEST
Add- TYPE, BOOTPROTO, ONBOOT, NAME, UUID, DEVICE, IPADDR, PREFIX, GATEWAY, etc....

Then

systemctl restart NetworkManager

"nmcli con show" should show the new connection.

If you edit an existing file, make sure to do a "nmcli con reload" which will pull in all the new settings.