14 DAY TRIAL // Last year in August, Canonical's Martin Pitt, the systemd maintainer for the Ubuntu Linux operating system at that time, announced the company's plans to unify and clean up the networking configuration in Ubuntu Linux.
They introduced netplan, a project that promised to centralize the network configuration for all Ubuntu Linux operating system versions, including Desktop, Server, Cloud, and Core (Snappy) under a single file (e.g. /etc/netplan/*.yaml) instead of using /etc/network/interfaces files.
The implementation of netplan in Ubuntu would mean the replacement of ifupdown and the ability of the installers to generate only those YAML-based network configuration files, giving Ubuntu developers the flexibility of dynamically switching between multiple backends like NetworkManager and systemd-networkd.
Netplan to be the default configuration method for networking in Ubuntu 17.10
Today, Canonical's Mathieu Trudel-Lapierre announced that netplan has landed in the repositories of the upcoming Ubuntu 17.10 (Artful Aardvark) operating system as default configuration method for networking, replacing ifupdown. It's currently included in the minimal images and should be available on all new installs.
"Netplan is intended to be the default configuration method for networking in 17.10," says Mathieu Trudel-Lapierre in the mailing list announcement. "Netplan can use either NetworkManager or systemd-networkd to render the network the way you want it."
Ubuntu 17.10 being in development these days, not everything will work as expected, so if you don't see netplan or ifupdown properly disappear from your default installs, don't hesitate to submit a bug report via Launchpad or contact the developer directly via the announcement (link above).
A simple netplan configuration was implemented in Ubuntu since the Ubuntu 16.10 (Yakkety Yak) release for the Ubuntu Desktop images to let NetworkManager control the network devices, but it will now be the default for the Ubuntu 17.10 operating system, due for release later this year, on October 19, 2017.
Thanks Simon Quigley for the news tip!