Re: Difference between using /etc/network/interfaces and nm-applet config

[Alexander Sack <asac ubuntu com>]

On Mon, Feb 16, 2009 at 09:05:54AM -0800, Bill Moseley wrote:
> I'm running Ubuntu 8.10.
> 
> I have an older Linksys router that allows port forwarding (i.e. I can
> port forward ssh traffic to a specific IP address.
> 
> The router unfortunately does not allow mapping MAC addresses to IP
> addresses, so I must use a fixed static ip address on the Linux
> machine running sshd.
> 
> My question is what's the difference between adding static settings in
> /etc/network/interfaces vs. "Edit Connections..." in nm-applet?

/etc/network/interfaces is ment to be legacy support (or convenience)
on debian based system for those that like it. Its not yet feature
complete.

"Edit Connections ..." allows you to use the NetworkManager format for
saving/reading system-wide connection information (aka keyfile), which
obviosly is more feature complete in that it supports to read/save any
network manager connection configuration.

> 
> 
> One nice thing about using the dhcpd client on the Linksys router is
> that the name servers in my /etc/resolv.conf were set automatically
> (by whatever the ISP's dhcpd client sends to the linksys router).
> Now, I have to manually config the name servers, it seems.  So, if the
> ISP's name servers ever change I would need to update the connection
> info.
> 
> Is there a way to say use dhcpd to get nameservers but still used a
> fixed IP address (when the router's dhcpd won't do MAC to IP address
> mapping)?


We currently only support DHCP (addresses only), which means that you
will get the addresses through dhcp and can set the nameserver
manually. The other way around is not yet available.

 - Alexander