[systemd-devel] [PATCH v2] networkd: do not change kernel forwarding parameters when IPForwarding is unset

[Michael Marineau]

(build time option to ./configure that is)

On Fri, May 15, 2015 at 12:55 PM, Michael Marineau
<michael.marineau at coreos.com> wrote:
> On Fri, May 15, 2015 at 12:52 PM, Lennart Poettering
> <lennart at poettering.net> wrote:
>> On Fri, 15.05.15 12:42, Michael Marineau (michael.marineau at coreos.com) wrote:
>>
>>> On Fri, May 15, 2015 at 12:18 PM, Lennart Poettering
>>> <lennart at poettering.net> wrote:
>>> > On Fri, 15.05.15 12:08, Nick Owens (nick.owens at coreos.com) wrote:
>>> >
>>> >> In 5a8bcb674f71a20e95df55319b34c556638378ce, IPForwarding was introduced
>>> >> to set forwarding flags on interfaces in .network files. networkd sets
>>> >> forwarding options regardless of the previous setting, even if it was
>>> >> set by e.g. sysctl. This commit makes IPForwarding not change forwarding
>>> >> settings, so that systems using sysctl continue to work even if
>>> >> IPForwarding is unset in their .network files.
>>> >>
>>> >> See https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=89509 for the initial
>>> >> bug report.
>>> >
>>> > I think there should be an explicit way to enable the "kernel default
>>> > mode", i.e. the parser for this one option should consider a special
>>> > value "kernel" or so to explicitly ask for the kernel default.
>>> >
>>> > I'd still prefer if we'd default to ip forwarding off, rather than ip
>>> > forwarding as kernel default, for security reasons.
>>>
>>> Well, in CoreOS we *have* to use the kernel default if the value is
>>> unset, there simply is no way to safely upgrade existing systems to
>>> the new configuration scheme from the old sysctl one. The semantics of
>>> the two are too different. Even if there was a reasonable translation
>>> we are not in the business of modifying user configs.
>>
>> Well, but I think I would prefer if upstream would default to "off",
>> even if coreos then deviates from that and defaults to "kernel"...
>
> Fair enough, should it be a option to configure then?