Fedora 36 Looking To Move Users Away From Legacy "ifcfg" Network Scripts

Longtime Linux users will likely recall when it was commonplace to modify /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-* files for managing your network connections. Fortunately, that's largely a thing of the past and Fedora 36 is looking to remove support for those legacy network configuration files from new Fedora installs.

Those "ifcfg" network configuration scripts are largely a thing of the past with NetworkManager and the like working well for most users these days. NetworkManager has retained support for ifcfg files, but handling them is a mess and maintaining this support is a burden.

The Red Hat led change proposal for dropping ifcfg file support from new Fedora installs explains, "Given the complexities stemming from historical legacy of ifcfg files not being designed (or documented) in a particularly forward-looking way, this has been a huge and complex effort with all the downsides: The ifcfg support code is huge (130K lines, not counting the enormous test suite) and has constantly been a source of bugs."

Thankfully hand-editing ifcfg files and other network configuration files is no longer necessary with modern Linux distributions.

Thus the hope with "NoifcfgFiles" change proposal is to remove this big chunk of code that is a source of bugs and consumes maintenance resources while in 2022 nearly everyone should have moved beyond using ifcfg files.

If you find yourself still using ifcfg files for some reason, the sub-package providing the support will be kept around for those upgrading their Fedora installations but would not be present by default on new installs.