Is MAAS capable of co-existing with NetworkManager on gw/firewall?

[averyfreeman]

Hi,

I have been trying to find info about MAAS’s specific requirements for:

1. Supported host OS - if it’s a snap, will it basically run on any OS that has snapd and postgresql?
2. Network Renderer (e.g. networkd, NetworkManager, ifupdown, etc.) - is it tied to networkd, or do dhcpd+auto-discovery still work regardless of which renderer the host OS is using?
3. Ancillary network packages: cloud-init, netplan, dnsmasq, ufw, etc. does the MAAS snap require any of these to be available as packages on the system in order for the network features in MAAS to function properly?

The reason I ask is I was hoping to build a gateway/firewall box with cockpit and perhaps use MAAS on it, but cockpit requires NetworkManager + firewalld for its network functionality.

Is MAAS relatively OS-agnostic, and does it require any of the aforementioned tools to be available? Also, will it function on system running NetworkManager (does it require networkd)?

Thanks

[bjornt]

Hi Avery,

1. Yes, MAAS should be able to run on any OS that has snapd and postgres. But there might still be some complications, so we officially support running MAAS on Ubuntu only.

2. MAAS uses networkd to configure the deployed machines. MAAS itself doesn’t care whether networkd or NetworkManager is used on the host that MAAS is running.

3. Those packages are built-in to the snap, so they don’t need to be on the host system.

[billwear]

@averyfreeman, did Bjorn’s answer (above) help you? just me following up. yeah, i know, who does that, right?

[averyfreeman]

Hi, I’m so sorry, I feel really rude now for not coming back to follow up - I gave up running maas for a couple years, hence the last visit being a couple years ago, but yes, the answer to my question definitely does help quite a bit.

I appear to be successfully running maas on Ubuntu 24.04 (AFAICT) with netplan managing networkd for wired and NetworkManager for wireless devices. If Ubuntu is all that’s supported, then it’s Ubuntu I’ll use (I was on Fedora in 2022, but I have since lost interest in trying to make anything more frustrating than it needs to be).

I actually landed back here searching for this error that occurs at the very end of the lxd init process, which I have been through at least 8 times now trying to get it to work:

Error: Failed to update server configuration: Couldn't find the specified machine: wantonwildebeest.maas

I saw that someone asked about the same issue in 2019: How to manage LXD Container in Maas on Same Host - #2 by riccardo-magrini

So I’m a little disappointed not being able to run the two (maas and lxd) on the same machine, but that’s OK, I’ll get it sorted somehow, and I realize it’s probably not the main use case of the platform.

The OP of the question, using networkd and NetworkManager concurrently was great, and I really appreciate you guys getting back to me, thanks and of course, since I have experience doing it now, I can confirm no problems on my end (except not having a ‘machine’ for the maas controller in maas).

I did make sure to use netplan for everything, since I’ve torn it out in the past, but I figured going as supported as possible this time would probably a better idea. I can’t remember where I read it (probably here) but I did see the current renderer is a product of which was called last.

I haven’t had any issue with networkd operating as I would expect consistently in maas after NetworkManager is started, which is great. I am just trying to be doubly sure that one device isn’t managed by both accidentally. I don’t plan to use WIFI to discover any devices, so the split has been pretty intuitive to manage so far.

Lastly, I really like maas so far and I’m glad I finally set it up. Thanks for everything

[billwear]

it’s never too late to try again. in the MAAS team, you’ll find a bunch of FOSS hackers who will keep trying to tweak the product. a little cheat: i run MAAS and LXD on the same laptop, very vanilla, because i’m stubborn, but it definitely isn’t the recommended way, and not for production. if you’re determined, come back to me privately and i’ll spill my secrets.