14 DAY TRIAL // Today was the last day of the Ubuntu Online Summit (UOS) event that took place online on the UbuntuOnAir channel on Google+ via YouTube live sessions, between May 5 and 7, and there were still some interesting discussions about the upcoming features of Ubuntu 15.10 (Wily Werewolf).
During a UOS session called "Replace ifupdown with networkd on snappy / cloud / server for 16.04," some of the biggest names in the Ubuntu development team discussed the possibility of replacing the ifupdown network configuration tool with networkd, which is integrated in systemd, but only to select flavors, such as Ubuntu Snappy Core, Ubuntu Cloud, and Ubuntu Server.
"ifupdown is a frequent pain point for cloud integration, due to its lack of apis and its idiosyncratic configuration format. Examine what it would take to replace ifupdown with systemd-networkd for clouds, servers, and ubuntu core by 16.04, since it's reported to be at feature parity for server use cases (i.e. vlans/bridges/bonding, but not vpns/wifi)" was stated in the UOS session's description.
Ubuntu 15.04 does not benefit from all of systemd functionality
As you might know, Ubuntu 15.04 (Vivid Vervet) is the first release of Ubuntu to integrate the controversial systemd init system, replacing Upstart. However, it would appear that Ubuntu does not benefit from all of systemd's functionality, which means that, by Ubuntu 16.04 LTS, Canonical will integrate networkd as the default network configuration tool.
While the team talked about implementing networkd by Ubuntu 16.04 LTS, it would mean that Ubuntu 15.10 (Wily Werewolf) might be a testbed for them to see if everything goes well. For more details on the subject, we recommend watching the entire "Replace ifupdown with networkd on snappy / cloud / server for 16.04" session from Ubuntu Online Summit in the video attached below.
