Is there a command to know what software is currently either handling or managing the Network of the OS?

Ask Fedora
1

Hello Friends

Is there a command in Fedora itself to know what software is currently either handling or managing the Network of the OS? It mostly for a server environment

For the current moment for purposes to set a static ip for a server environment: it is NetworkManager

But assuming it if is unknown or for some reason it is changed due any of the following reasons:

  • The next release changed the tool (new technology)
  • It was changed manually to other technology for any reason (if it is possible)

Furthermore consider the scenario if the server is an old release and thus it could be working with an old release of the network software manager. Therefore the current technology either could not exist or was not applied yet

Thank You

2

You can check the status of known managers. For example:

$ systemctl show -p ActiveState NetworkManager.service
ActiveState=inactive
$ systemctl show -p ActiveState systemd-networkd.service
ActiveState=active

I guess if none of them show active, you’d have to assume that the user brought the network up manually with ip commands.

3

How old are you talking and what distribution?

If very very old the network will be setup by the SysV network init script.
Otherwise NetworkManager has been used for a long time.
If the system has systemd then systemd-networks is a optional possibility.

Note an old enough system will not have the systemctl command.

4

… and these scripts are no longer provided since Fedora 41

2 Likes
5

Thanks to all for the replies

Because each distribution has its own evolution (and even perhaps according with a direct dependency with other distribution) I created this post. Of course here is specific for Fedora.

Thanks

6

I’d say that’s what release notes are for, but I don’t even read those when updating :stuck_out_tongue:

openSUSE Tumbleweed had different defaults depending on Server (Wicked) or Desktop (NetworkManager); in this case I noticed when trying to configure something network-related and the settings looked different which caused me to look more into stuff.

Iirc Ubuntu also had a significant network change I think around 20, but I caught that before-install from a news article that mentioned it :stuck_out_tongue:

I wouldn’t trust a script to detect this properly across various OS versions and distros. If I was on an unknown system, I’d start with that OS’s version release notes to see what they default to.