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Bug 720841 - man page for networkmanager.conf appears to be out of date
man page for networkmanager.conf appears to be out of date
Status: RESOLVED FIXED
Product: NetworkManager
Classification: Platform
Component: Documentation
0.9.x
Other Linux
: Normal normal
: ---
Assigned To: NetworkManager maintainer(s)
NetworkManager maintainer(s)
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
 
Reported: 2013-12-20 17:34 UTC by Dan Mossor
Modified: 2014-02-03 09:55 UTC
See Also:
GNOME target: ---
GNOME version: ---


Attachments
man: NetworkManager.conf.5 fixes and updates (8.33 KB, patch)
2013-12-23 18:40 UTC, Dan Winship
committed Details | Review

Description Dan Mossor 2013-12-20 17:34:03 UTC
The networkmanager.con(5) man page has what appears to be conflicting information, giving the impression that the document is out of date.

Specifically, it states in the IFUPDOWN SECTION:

managed
       If set to true, then interfaces listed in /etc/network/interfaces are managed by NetworkManager.

This path does not exist by default, and the only hint to that is the first line in the section saying that it only has effect when using the ifdown plugin, which isn't addressed in the document - ifupdown plugin is mentioned, but states it is only applicable to Debian and Ubuntu systems.

If this section is only applicable to Debian and Ubuntu distributions, and only when the ifupdown plugin is used, this needs to be stated in the 'managed' paragraph.

Additionally, the first section is titled:

MAIN SECTION (MANDATORY)

leading the users to believe that the /etc/NetworkManager/networkmanager.conf file is to contain *at a minimum* the plugins, monitor-connection-files, dhcp, no-auto-default, ignore-carrier, and dns sections. By default (on Fedora), networkmanager.conf contains *exactly* two lines:

[main]
plugins=ifcfg-rh

In short, the man page is confusing and does not match reality.
Comment 1 Dan Winship 2013-12-23 18:34:31 UTC
(In reply to comment #0)
> If this section is only applicable to Debian and Ubuntu distributions, and only
> when the ifupdown plugin is used, this needs to be stated in the 'managed'
> paragraph.

I don't think we need to state that again; it's already state at the beginning of the IFUPDOWN section. (The reference to "ifdown" rather than "ifupdown" is a bug.)
Comment 2 Dan Winship 2013-12-23 18:40:32 UTC
Created attachment 264811 [details] [review]
man: NetworkManager.conf.5 fixes and updates

The [main] section is not mandatory.

Clarify in several places that the keyfile plugin is always used for
fallback, and that the [keyfile] section is normally only used if you
aren't using any other plugin.

Fix some erroneous references to "keyfile" and "ifdown" in the
ifupdown section.

Update the ifcfg-rh docs to list all currently-supported connection
types.

Swap the order of ifcfg-suse and ifupdown to make them alphabetical.
(Note that ifnet is currently missing.)
Comment 3 Dan Mossor 2013-12-26 16:49:05 UTC
The proposed changes are more well defined and have a more logical layout than the original.
Comment 4 Pavel Simerda 2014-02-02 16:26:07 UTC
Any progress?
Comment 5 Dan Winship 2014-02-03 09:55:39 UTC
Attachment 264811 [details] pushed as 736bc1c - man: NetworkManager.conf.5 fixes and updates