Summarizing what just came up in a private chat: When we did copy the wicked configuration to the target system, that led to a false sense of security: The information was correct - for a while. Until a user changed the network configuration with any NetworkManager tools; like an applet on the desktop. Then the old copied wicked configuration was still there, but possibly no longer correct; and that's much worse than being honest and not pretending to have any information about the network configuration at all, like it is now.