Manual network config uselessly asks for a "Subnet"

[Simon Déziel]

The manual network configuration asks to provide a "subnet" as well as the "address" to be used on a given interface. With the old installer, simply providing the address along with the netmask was enough and simpler.

IMHO, the address field should accept those 2 notations:

192.168.1.202/24
192.168.1.202/255.255.255.0

[Ryan Harper (raharper)]

IMHO, typing 24 is a lot simpler than 255.255.255.0, at a min, CIDR is less typing.

But let's say a user isn't cidr/prefixlen savvy and only knows a netmask;

I think we could accept a netmask and convert to cidr in the form.

If we did convert it in the form, would the same user be confused?

[Daniel Reinhardt (cryptodan)]

Yes this was annoying. I set 255.255.255.0 and had a 192.168.1.2/24 for the address and it said that axxress wasnt found in 255.255.255.0 but obviously it is part of 192.168.1.0-255.

[Lee Azzarello (lee-rockingtiger)]

I didn't understand why the subnet field was redundant and CIDR notation throws a validation error for IP address. The D-I based network config works for all possible options so why does this new validator do anything different?

I'm suspicious of a Linux distribution targeting "servers" that would need to adapt the UI to prioritize users who don't understand IP networking notation.