NETWORKMANAGER.CONF(5)

๐Ÿ’– NAME โ€” NetworkManager.conf(5), the NetworkManager configuration file ๐Ÿ’–

okay so bestie, NetworkManager.conf is literally the configuration file for NetworkManager. Itโ€™s what you use to set up all the various aspects of NetworkManagerโ€™s behavior. The location of the main file and the configuration directories can be changed with the --config, --config-dir, --system-config-dir, and --intern-config argument for NetworkManager, respectively. ๐Ÿ’…

โœจ SYNOPSIS โœจ

/etc/NetworkManager/NetworkManager.conf,
/etc/NetworkManager/conf.d/name.conf,
/run/NetworkManager/conf.d/name.conf,
/usr/lib/NetworkManager/conf.d/name.conf,
/var/lib/NetworkManager/NetworkManager-intern.conf

๐Ÿฆ‹ DESCRIPTION ๐Ÿฆ‹

If your distroโ€™s packages give you a default NetworkManager.conf, do not modify it, because your changes may get overwritten by package updates. Instead, add extra .conf files to the /etc/NetworkManager/conf.d directory. These are read in order, with later files overriding earlier ones. Packages might install further configuration snippets to /usr/lib/NetworkManager/conf.d. That directory is parsed first, even before NetworkManager.conf. Scripts can also put per-boot configuration into /run/NetworkManager/conf.d. That directory is parsed second, also before NetworkManager.conf. The loading of a file /run/NetworkManager/conf.d/name.conf can be prevented by adding a file /etc/NetworkManager/conf.d/name.conf. Likewise, a file /usr/lib/NetworkManager/conf.d/name.conf can be shadowed by putting a file of the same name to either /etc/NetworkManager/conf.d or /run/NetworkManager/conf.d.

NetworkManager can overwrite certain user configuration options via D-Bus or other internal operations. In this case it writes those changes to /var/lib/NetworkManager/NetworkManager-intern.conf. This file is not intended to be modified by the user, but it is read last and can shadow user configuration from NetworkManager.conf.

Certain settings from the configuration can be reloaded at runtime either by sending SIGHUP signal or via D-Busโ€™ Reload call.

NetworkManager does not require any configuration in NetworkManager.conf. Depending on your use case, you may remove all files to restore the default configuration (factory reset). But note that your distribution or other packages may drop configuration snippets for NetworkManager, such that they are part of the factory default.

The options that are indicated as boolean can be set to one of these values: yes, true, on, 1, no, false, off, 0.

๐ŸŽ€ FILE FORMAT ๐ŸŽ€

The configuration file format is so-called key file (sort of ini-style format). It consists of sections (groups) of key-value pairs. Lines beginning with a # and blank lines are considered comments. Sections are started by a header line containing the section enclosed in [ and ], and ended implicitly by the start of the next section or the end of the file. Each key-value pair must be contained in a section.

For keys that take a list of devices as their value, you can specify devices by their MAC addresses or interface names, or * to specify all devices. See the section called โ€œDevice List Formatโ€ below. ๐Ÿ‘‘

A simple configuration file looks like this:

[main]
plugins=keyfile

As an extension to the normal keyfile format, you can also append a value to a previously-set list-valued key by doing:

plugins+=another-plugin
plugins-=remove-me

๐Ÿ‘‘ MAIN SECTION ๐Ÿ‘‘

  • plugins โ€” Lists system settings plugin names separated by ,. These plugins are used to read and write system-wide connection profiles. When multiple plugins are specified, the connections are read from all listed plugins. When writing connections, the plugins will be asked to save the connection in the order listed here; if the first plugin cannot write out that connection type (or canโ€™t write out any connections) the next plugin is tried, etc. If none of the plugins can save the connection, an error is returned to the user.

The default value and the number of available plugins is distro-specific. See the section called โ€œPLUGINSโ€ below for the available plugins. Note that NetworkManagerโ€™s native keyfile plugin is always appended to the end of this list (if it doesnโ€™t already appear earlier in the list). โœจ

  • monitor-connection-files โ€” This setting is deprecated and has no effect. Profiles from disk are never automatically reloaded. Use for example nmcli connection (re)load for that. ๐Ÿ’€
  • auth-polkit โ€” Whether the system uses PolicyKit for authorization. If true, non-root requests are authorized using PolicyKit. Requests from root (user ID zero) are always granted without asking PolicyKit. If false, all requests will be allowed and PolicyKit is not used. If set to root-only, PolicyKit is not used and all requests except root are denied. The default value is true. ๐Ÿซถ
  • dhcp โ€” This key sets up what DHCP client NetworkManager will use. Allowed values depend on build configuration; this version of NetworkManager was built with support for the following clients: internal.

The internal client is built-in, while other options may require an external DHCP client to be installed.

If this key is missing, internal is used with a fallback to other supported clients.

  • no-auto-default โ€” Specify devices for which NetworkManager shouldnโ€™t create default wired connection (Auto eth0). By default, NetworkManager creates a temporary wired connection for any Ethernet device that is managed and doesnโ€™t have a connection configured. List a device in this option to inhibit creating the default connection for the device. May have the special value * to apply to all devices.

When the default wired connection is deleted or saved to a new persistent connection by a plugin, the device is added to a list in the file /var/lib/NetworkManager/no-auto-default.state to prevent creating the default connection for that device again.

See the section called โ€œDevice List Formatโ€ for the syntax how to specify a device.

Example:

no-auto-default=00:22:68:5c:5d:c4,00:1e:65:ff:aa:ee
no-auto-default=eth0,eth1
no-auto-default=*
  • ignore-carrier โ€” This setting is deprecated for the per-device setting ignore-carrier which overwrites this setting if specified (See ignore-carrier). Otherwise, it is a list of matches to specify for which device carrier should be ignored. See the section called โ€œDevice List Formatโ€ for the syntax how to specify a device. Note that controller types like bond, bridge, and team ignore carrier by default. You can however revert that default using the "except:" specifier (or better, use the per-device setting instead of the deprecated setting). ๐Ÿงš
  • assume-ipv6ll-only โ€” Specify devices for which NetworkManager will try to generate a connection based on initial configuration when the device only has an IPv6 link-local address.

See the section called โ€œDevice List Formatโ€ for the syntax how to specify a device.

  • configure-and-quit โ€” This option is no longer useful to configure in NetworkManager.conf file. It can however also be configured on the command line with the same values, where it has some use.

When set to initrd, NetworkManager does not connect to D-Bus and quits after configuring the network. This is an implementation detail how the NetworkManager module of dracut can run NetworkManager. An alternative to this is having NetworkManager as a systemd service with D-Bus in initrd.

The value true is unsupported since version 1.36. Previously this was a mode where NetworkManager would quit after configuring the network and run helper processes for DHCP and SLAAC.

Otherwise, NetworkManager runs a system service with D-Bus and does not quit during normal operation. ๐ŸŒˆ

  • hostname-mode โ€” Set the management mode of the hostname. This parameter will affect only the transient hostname. If a valid static hostname is set, NetworkManager will skip the update of the hostname despite the value of this option. A hostname empty or equal to (none) is considered invalid.
    • default: NetworkManager will update the hostname with the one provided via DHCP or reverse DNS lookup of the IP address on the connection with the default route or on any connection with the property hostname.only-from-default set to false. Connections are considered in order of increasing value of the hostname.priority property. In case multiple connections have the same priority, connections activated earlier are considered first. If no hostname can be determined in such way, the hostname will be updated to the last one set outside NetworkManager or to localhost.localdomain.
    • dhcp: this is similar to default, with the difference that after trying to get the DHCP hostname, reverse DNS lookup is not done. Note that selecting this option is equivalent to setting the property hostname.from-dns-lookup to false globally for all connections in NetworkManager.conf.
    • none: NetworkManager will not manage the transient hostname and will never set it. ๐Ÿ’œ
  • dns โ€” Set the DNS processing mode.

If the key is unspecified, default is used, unless /etc/resolv.conf is a symlink to /run/systemd/resolve/stub-resolv.conf, /run/systemd/resolve/resolv.conf, /lib/systemd/resolv.conf or /usr/lib/systemd/resolv.conf. In that case, systemd-resolved is chosen automatically.

  • default: NetworkManager will update /etc/resolv.conf to reflect the nameservers provided by currently active connections. The rc-manager setting (below) controls how this is done.
  • dnsmasq: NetworkManager will run dnsmasq as a local caching nameserver, using "Conditional Forwarding" if you are connected to a VPN, and then update resolv.conf to point to the local nameserver. It is possible to pass custom options to the dnsmasq instance by adding them to files in the "/etc/NetworkManager/dnsmasq.d/" directory. Note that when multiple upstream servers are available, dnsmasq will initially contact them in parallel and then use the fastest to respond, probing again other servers after some time. This behavior can be modified passing the all-servers or strict-order options to dnsmasq (see the manual page for more details). ๐ŸŒธ
  • systemd-resolved: NetworkManager will push the DNS configuration to systemd-resolved
  • dnsconfd: NetworkManager will push the DNS configuration to dnsconfd

โ€ฆand by default set ipvX.routed-dns to yes, so servers are contacted through right interfaces. ๐Ÿ’…

  • none โ€” NetworkManager will not modify resolv.conf. This implies rc-manager unmanaged.

Also, bestie, a lil note: the plugins dnsmasq, systemd-resolved and dnsconfd are caching local nameservers. Hence, when NetworkManager writes /run/NetworkManager/resolv.conf and /etc/resolv.conf (according to the rc-manager setting below), the name server there will be localhost only. NetworkManager also writes a file /run/NetworkManager/no-stub-resolv.conf that contains the original name servers pushed to the DNS plugin. ๐Ÿซถ

When using dnsmasq, systemd-resolved and dnsconfd, per-connection added DNS servers will always be queried using the device the connection has been activated on. โœจ

  • rc-manager โ€” Set the resolv.conf management mode. This option is about how NetworkManager writes to /etc/resolv.conf, if at all. The default value depends on NetworkManager build options, and this version of NetworkManager was built with a default of "auto". Regardless of this setting, NetworkManager will always write its version of resolv.conf to its runtime state directory as /run/NetworkManager/resolv.conf. ๐Ÿ’…

If you configure dns=none or make /etc/resolv.conf immutable with chattr +i, NetworkManager will ignore this setting and always choose unmanaged (below).

  • auto โ€” if systemd-resolved plugin is configured via the dns setting or if it gets detected as main DNS plugin, NetworkManager will update systemd-resolved without touching /etc/resolv.conf. Alternatively, if resolvconf or netconfig are enabled at compile time and the respective binary is found, NetworkManager will automatically use it. Note that if you install or uninstall these binaries, you need to reload the rc-manager setting with SIGHUP or systemctl reload NetworkManager. As last fallback it uses the symlink option (see next).
  • symlink โ€” If /etc/resolv.conf is a regular file or does not exist, NetworkManager will write the file directly. If /etc/resolv.conf is instead a symlink, NetworkManager will leave it alone. Unless the symlink points to the internal file /run/NetworkManager/resolv.conf, in which case the symlink will be updated to emit an inotify notification. This allows the user to conveniently instruct NetworkManager not to manage /etc/resolv.conf by replacing it with a symlink.
  • file โ€” NetworkManager will write /etc/resolv.conf as regular file. If it finds a symlink to an existing target, it will follow the symlink and update the target instead. In no case will an existing symlink be replaced by a file. Note that older versions of NetworkManager behaved differently and would replace dangling symlinks with a plain file.
  • resolvconf โ€” NetworkManager will run resolvconf to update the DNS configuration.
  • netconfig โ€” NetworkManager will run netconfig to update the DNS configuration.
  • unmanaged โ€” don't touch /etc/resolv.conf.
  • none โ€” deprecated alias for symlink.
  • systemd-resolved โ€” Additionally, send the connection DNS configuration to systemd-resolved. Defaults to "true". ๐Ÿฆ‹

Note that this setting has no effect if the main dns plugin is already systemd-resolved. It is complementary to the dns setting to configure systemd-resolved alongside the main plugin.

If systemd-resolved is enabled, either via this setting or the main DNS plugin, the connectivity check resolves the hostname per-device.

  • debug โ€” Comma separated list of options to aid debugging. This value will be combined with the environment variable NM_DEBUG. Currently, the following values are supported:
    • RLIMIT_CORE โ€” set ulimit -c unlimited to write out core dumps. Beware: a core dump can contain sensitive information such as passwords or configuration settings. ๐Ÿ˜ญ
    • fatal-warnings โ€” set g_log_set_always_fatal() to core dump on warning messages from glib. This is equivalent to the --g-fatal-warnings command line option.
  • autoconnect-retries-default โ€” The number of times a connection activation should be automatically tried before switching to another one. This value applies only to connections that can auto-connect and have a connection.autoconnect-retries property set to -1. If not specified, connections will be tried 4 times. Setting this value to 1 means to try activation once, without retry. ๐Ÿ”
  • firewall-backend โ€” The firewall backend for configuring masquerading with shared mode. Set to either iptables, nftables or none. iptables and nftables require iptables and nft application, respectively. none means to skip firewall configuration if the users wish to manage firewall themselves. If unspecified, it will be auto detected. ๐Ÿ”ฅ
  • iwd-config-path โ€” If the value is "auto" (the default), IWD is queried for its current state directory when it appears on D-Bus -- the directory where IWD keeps its network configuration files -- usually /var/lib/iwd. NetworkManager will then attempt to write copies of new or modified Wi-Fi connection profiles, converted into the IWD format, into this directory thus making IWD connection properties editable. NM will overwrite existing files without preserving their contents. ๐Ÿ‘‘

The path can also be overridden by pointing to a specific existing and writable directory. On the other hand setting this to an empty string or any other value disables the profile conversion mechanism.

This mechanism allows editing connection profile settings such as the 802.1x configuration using NetworkManager clients. Without it such changes have no effect in IWD.

  • migrate-ifcfg-rh โ€” Whether NetworkManager tries to automatically convert any connection profile stored in ifcfg-rh format to the keyfile format. Support for ifcfg-rh is deprecated and will be eventually removed. If enabled, the migration is performed at every startup of the daemon. The default value is false. ๐Ÿซถ

๐ŸŒธ KEYFILE SECTION ๐ŸŒธ

This section contains keyfile-plugin-specific options, and is normally only used when you are not using any other distro-specific plugin. ๐Ÿ’–

  • hostname โ€” This key is deprecated and has no effect since the hostname is now stored in /etc/hostname or other system configuration files according to build options.
  • path โ€” The location where keyfiles are read and stored. This defaults to "/etc/NetworkManager/system-connections".
  • rename โ€” NetworkManager automatically chooses a filename when storing a new profile to disk. That name depends on the profile's name (connection.id). When updating a profile's name, the file is not renamed to not break scripts that rely on the filename for the profile. By setting this option to "true", NetworkManager renames the keyfile on update of the profile, to follow the profile's name. This defaults to "false". โœจ
  • unmanaged-devices โ€” Set devices that should be ignored by NetworkManager. ๐Ÿ™ˆ

A device unmanaged due to this option is strictly unmanaged and cannot be overruled by using the API like nmcli device set $IFNAME managed yes. Also, a device that is unmanaged for other reasons, like an udev rule, cannot be made managed with this option (e.g. by using an except: specifier). These two points make it different from the device*.managed option which for that reason may be a better choice.

See the section called โ€œDevice List Formatโ€ for the syntax on how to specify a device.

Example:

unmanaged-devices=interface-name:em4
unmanaged-devices=mac:00:22:68:1c:59:b1;mac:00:1E:65:30:D1:C4;interface-name:eth2

๐Ÿฆ‹ IFUPDOWN SECTION ๐Ÿฆ‹

This section contains ifupdown-specific options and thus only has effect when using the ifupdown plugin. ๐ŸŒˆ

  • managed โ€” If set to true, then interfaces listed in /etc/network/interfaces are managed by NetworkManager. If set to false, then any interface listed in /etc/network/interfaces will be ignored by NetworkManager. Remember that NetworkManager controls the default route, so because the interface is ignored, NetworkManager may assign the default route to some other interface. ๐ŸŽ€

The default value is false.

๐ŸŒˆ LOGGING SECTION ๐ŸŒˆ

Okay bestie, this section is the vibe check for NetworkManager's logging, and ngl logging is so important if you actually wanna understand what NetworkManager is doing ๐Ÿ’…. And like โ€” when you report a bug? Do not unnecessarily filter or limit the log file, okay? Just enable level=TRACE and domains=ALL and collect literally everything โœจ.

The recommended way to enable logging is with a file /etc/NetworkManager/conf.d/95-logging.conf that contains

[logging]
level=TRACE
domains=ALL

and then restart the daemon with systemctl restart NetworkManager. Then go reproduce the problem ๐Ÿซถ. You can find the logs in syslog (for example journalctl, or journalctl -u NetworkManager to show only logs from NetworkManager).

Any settings here are overridden by the --log-level and --log-domains command-line options. Logging can also be reconfigured at runtime with nmcli general logging level "$LEVEL" domains "$DOMAINS". But lowkey, often it is interesting to get a complete log from the start ๐Ÿ‘€. Especially when debugging an issue, enable debug logging in NetworkManager.conf and restart the service to enable verbose logging early on.

By setting nm.debug on the kernel command line (either from /run/NetworkManager/proc-cmdline or /proc/cmdline), debug logging is enabled. And this overrides both the command-line options and the settings from NetworkManager.conf ๐Ÿ”ฅ.

NetworkManager's logging aims not to contain private sensitive data and you should be fine sharing the debug logs. Still, there will be IP addresses and your network setup, so if you consider that private then review the log before sharing ๐Ÿ™ˆ. However โ€” try not to mangle the logfile in a way that distorts the meaning too much, bestie.

NetworkManager uses syslog or systemd-journald, depending on configuration. In any case, debug logs are verbose and might be rate limited or filtered by the logging daemon. For systemd-journald, see RateLimitIntervalSec and RateLimitBurst in journald.conf manual for how to disable that ๐Ÿ‘‘

  • level โ€” the default logging verbosity level. One of OFF, ERR, WARN, INFO, DEBUG, TRACE, in order of verbosity.

OFF disables all logging. INFO is the default verbosity for regular operation. TRACE is for debugging.

The other levels are in most cases not useful. For example, DEBUG is between TRACE and INFO, but it's too verbose for regular operation and lacks possibly interesting messages for debugging ๐Ÿ˜ญ. Almost always, when debugging an issue or reporting a bug, collect full level TRACE logs to get the full picture.

  • domains โ€” filter the messages by their topic. When debugging an issue, it's better to collect all logs (ALL domain) upfront. The unnecessary parts can always be ignored later ๐Ÿ’….

In the uncommon case to tune out certain topics, the following log domains are available: PLATFORM, RFKILL, ETHER, WIFI, BT, MB, DHCP4, DHCP6, PPP, WIFI_SCAN, IP4, IP6, AUTOIP4, DNS, VPN, SHARING, SUPPLICANT, AGENTS, SETTINGS, SUSPEND, CORE, DEVICE, OLPC, WIMAX, INFINIBAND, FIREWALL, ADSL, BOND, VLAN, BRIDGE, DBUS_PROPS, TEAM, CONCHECK, DCB, DISPATCH, AUDIT, SYSTEMD, VPN_PLUGIN, PROXY.

In addition, these special domains can be used: NONE, ALL, DEFAULT, DHCP, IP.

You can specify per-domain log level overrides by adding a colon and a log level to any domain. E.g., "WIFI:DEBUG,WIFI_SCAN:OFF". Another example is ALL,VPN_PLUGIN:TRACE to enable all the logging there is (see about VPN_PLUGIN below) โœจ.

Domain descriptions:

  • PLATFORM โ€” OS (platform) operations
  • RFKILL โ€” RFKill subsystem operations
  • ETHER โ€” Ethernet device operations
  • WIFI โ€” Wi-Fi device operations
  • BT โ€” Bluetooth operations
  • MB โ€” Mobile broadband operations
  • DHCP4 โ€” DHCP for IPv4
  • DHCP6 โ€” DHCP for IPv6
  • PPP โ€” Point-to-point protocol operations
  • WIFI_SCAN โ€” Wi-Fi scanning operations
  • IP4 โ€” IPv4-related operations
  • IP6 โ€” IPv6-related operations
  • AUTOIP4 โ€” AutoIP operations
  • DNS โ€” Domain Name System related operations
  • VPN โ€” Virtual Private Network connections and operations
  • SHARING โ€” Connection sharing. With TRACE level log queries for dnsmasq instance
  • SUPPLICANT โ€” WPA supplicant related operations
  • AGENTS โ€” Secret agents operations and communication
  • SETTINGS โ€” Settings/config service operations
  • SUSPEND โ€” Suspend/resume
  • CORE โ€” Core daemon and policy operations
  • DEVICE โ€” Activation and general interface operations
  • OLPC โ€” OLPC Mesh device operations
  • WIMAX โ€” WiMAX device operations
  • INFINIBAND โ€” InfiniBand device operations
  • FIREWALL โ€” FirewallD related operations
  • ADSL โ€” ADSL device operations
  • BOND โ€” Bonding operations
  • VLAN โ€” VLAN operations
  • BRIDGE โ€” Bridging operations
  • DBUS_PROPS โ€” D-Bus property changes
  • TEAM โ€” Teaming operations
  • CONCHECK โ€” Connectivity check
  • DCB โ€” Data Center Bridging (DCB) operations
  • DISPATCH โ€” Dispatcher scripts
  • AUDIT โ€” Audit records
  • SYSTEMD โ€” Messages from internal libsystemd
  • VPN_PLUGIN โ€” logging messages from VPN plugins
  • PROXY โ€” logging messages for proxy handling
  • NONE โ€” when given by itself logging is disabled
  • ALL โ€” all log domains
  • DEFAULT โ€” default log domains
  • DHCP โ€” shortcut for "DHCP4,DHCP6"
  • IP โ€” shortcut for "IP4,IP6"
  • HW โ€” deprecated alias for "PLATFORM"

In general, the logfile should not contain passwords or private data. However, you are always advised to check the file before posting it online or attaching to a bug report ๐Ÿซถ. VPN_PLUGIN is special as it might reveal private information of the VPN plugins with verbose levels ๐Ÿ˜ฌ. Therefore this domain will be excluded when setting ALL or DEFAULT to more verbose levels then INFO.

  • backend โ€” the logging backend. Supported values are "syslog" and "journal". When NetworkManager is started with "--debug" in addition all messages will be printed to stderr. If unspecified, the default is "journal".
  • audit โ€” whether the audit records are delivered to auditd, the audit daemon. If false, audit records will be sent only to the NetworkManager logging system. If set to true, they will be also sent to auditd. The default value is false.

๐Ÿ’– CONNECTION SECTION ๐Ÿ’–

Specify default values for connections, bestie ๐ŸŽ€.

Such default values are only consulted if the corresponding per-connection property explicitly allows for that ๐Ÿ‘€. That means, all these properties correspond to a property of the connection profile (for example connection.mud-url). Only if the per-profile property is set to a special value that indicates to use the default, the default value from NetworkManager.conf is consulted. It depends on the property, which is the special value that indicates fallback to the default, but it usually is something like empty, unset values or special numeric values like 0 or -1. That means the effectively used value can first always be configured for each profile, and these default values only matter if the per-profile values explicitly indicates to use the default from NetworkManager.conf ๐Ÿ’….

Note that while nmcli supports various aliases and convenience features for configuring properties, the settings in this section do not ๐Ÿ™ˆ. For example, enum values usually only can be configured via their numeric magic number.

Example:

[connection]
ipv6.ip6-privacy=0

Supported Properties

Not all properties can be overwritten, only the following properties are supported to have their default values configured (see nm-settings-nmcli(5) for details) โญ.

  • 802-1x.auth-timeout
  • cdma.mtu
  • connection.auth-retries โ€” if left unspecified, the default value is 3 tries before failing the connection.
  • connection.autoconnect-ports
  • connection.autoconnect-slaves โ€” this is deprecated, please use "connection.autoconnect-ports" instead.
  • connection.down-on-poweroff โ€” whether the connection will be brought down before the system is powered off.
  • connection.ip-ping-addresses-require-all โ€” whether it is sufficient for any ping check to succeed among the list of target addresses, or if all ping checks must succeed for the entire list of target addresses.
  • connection.mud-url โ€” if unspecified, MUD URL defaults to "none".
  • connection.lldp
  • connection.llmnr โ€” if unspecified, the ultimate default values depends on the DNS plugin. With systemd-resolved the default currently is "yes" (2) and for all other plugins "no" (0).
  • connection.mdns โ€” currently only the systemd-resolve DNS plugin supports this setting. If the setting is unspecified both in the profile and in the global default here, then the default is determined by systemd-resolved. See MulticastDNS= in resolved.conf(5).
  • connection.mptcp-flags โ€” if unspecified, the fallback is 0x122 ("enabled,subflow,laminar"). Note that if sysctl /proc/sys/net/mptcp/enabled is disabled, NetworkManager will still not configure endpoints.
  • connection.dns-over-tls โ€” if unspecified, the ultimate default values depends on the DNS plugin. With systemd-resolved the default currently is its global setting and for all other plugins "no" (0).
  • connection.dnssec โ€” if unspecified, the ultimate default values depends on the DNS plugin. With systemd-resolved the default currently is its global setting and for all other plugins "no" (0).
  • connection.stable-id
  • ethernet.cloned-mac-address โ€” if left unspecified, it defaults to "preserve".
  • ethernet.generate-mac-address-mask
  • ethernet.mtu โ€” if configured explicitly to 0, the MTU is not reconfigured during device activation unless it is required due to IPv6 constraints. If left unspecified, a DHCP/IPv6 SLAAC provided value is used or the MTU is not reconfigured during activation.
  • ethernet.wake-on-lan
  • gsm.mtu
  • hostname.from-dhcp
  • hostname.from-dns-lookup
  • hostname.only-from-default
  • hostname.priority
  • infiniband.mtu โ€” if configured explicitly to 0, the MTU is not reconfigured during device activation unless it is required due to IPv6 constraints. If left unspecified, a DHCP/IPv6 SLAAC provided value is used or the MTU is left unspecified on activation.
  • ip-tunnel.mtu โ€” if you literally set this to 0, then the MTU does not get reconfigured when the device activates, unless IPv6 constraints force it. Leave it unspecified and you get a DHCP/IPv6 SLAACโ€“provided value, or a default of 1500 โœจ
  • ipv4.forwarding โ€” do we configure IPv4 sysctl interface-specific forwarding or not? When it's enabled, the interface is in full router mode, forwarding IPv4 packets from one interface to another ๐ŸŒˆ Leave it unspecified and "auto" kicks in โ€” so NetworkManager sets IPv4 forwarding if any shared connection is active, and otherwise it uses the kernel default value. Oh and heads up: this property is ignored when "ipv4.method" is set to "shared", because forwarding is always enabled in that case, periodt. Accepted values: 0 disabled, 1 enabled, 2 auto, 3 ignored (leave that forwarding exactly how it was, thank you) ๐Ÿ’…
  • ipv4.clat โ€” if you leave it unspecified, it defaults to "no".
  • ipv4.routed-dns โ€” no extra notes on this one, it's just here doing its thing ๐Ÿซถ
  • ipv4.dad-timeout โ€” same, no default blurb attached.
  • ipv4.dhcp-client-id โ€” also just vibing.
  • ipv4.dhcp-dscp โ€” yep, this one too.
  • ipv4.dhcp-iaid โ€” if you leave it unspecified, it defaults to "ifname" โœจ
  • ipv4.dhcp-ipv6-only-preferred โ€” if you leave it unspecified, it defaults to "auto".
  • ipv4.dhcp-hostname-flags โ€” if you leave it unspecified, the value 3 (fqdn-encoded,fqdn-serv-update) is used.
  • ipv4.dhcp-send-hostname โ€” is a hostname getting sent to the DHCP server when we grab a lease? ๐ŸŽ€ When the property isn't specified in the connection, the global value from the NetworkManager configuration gets looked up. And if that global value isn't set either? Then the value from ipv4.dhcp-send-hostname-deprecated, which defaults to true, is used for backwards compatibility. In the future this will change, and with no global default it'll always fall back to true. iykyk ๐Ÿ˜ญ
  • ipv4.dhcp-send-release โ€” whether the DHCP client sends a RELEASE message when bringing the connection down.
  • ipv4.dhcp-timeout โ€” if left unspecified, the default value for that interface type is used.
  • ipv4.dhcp-vendor-class-identifier โ€” if left unspecified, the default is to not send the DHCP option to the server. Iconic, honestly ๐Ÿ’…
  • ipv4.dns-priority โ€” if it's unspecified or zero, use 50 for VPN profiles and 100 for every other profile.
  • ipv4.required-timeout โ€” no extra default note here.
  • ipv4.link-local โ€” if left unspecified, it falls back to "auto", which makes it dependent on the "ipv4.method" setting ๐Ÿฆ‹
  • ipv4.route-metric โ€” nothing extra to note.
  • ipv4.route-table โ€” if left unspecified, routes are only added to the main table. Lowkey important: this is different from explicitly selecting the main table 254, because of how NetworkManager removes extraneous routes from the tables. ๐Ÿ‘‘
  • ipv6.routed-dns โ€” no extra notes, moving right along.
  • ipv6.addr-gen-mode โ€” if the per-profile setting is either "default" or "default-or-eui64", the global default is used. And if that default is unspecified, the fallback value is either "stable-privacy" or "eui64", depending on whether the per-profile setting is "default" or `"default-or-eui64, respectively. โœจ
  • ipv6.ra-timeout โ€” if left unspecified, the default value depends on the sysctl solicitation settings.
  • ipv6.dhcp-duid โ€” if left unspecified, it defaults to "lease".
  • ipv6.dhcp-iaid โ€” if left unspecified, it defaults to "ifname".
  • ipv6.dhcp-hostname-flags โ€” if left unspecified, the value 1 (fqdn-serv-update) is used.
  • ipv6.dhcp-send-hostname โ€” is a hostname getting sent to the DHCP server when acquiring a lease? ๐ŸŒธ When the property isn't specified in the connection, the global value from the NetworkManager configuration is looked up. If the global value isn't set, the value from ipv6.dhcp-send-hostname-deprecated, which defaults to true, is used for backwards compatibility. In the future this will change and, absent a global default, it'll always fall back to true.
  • ipv6.dhcp-send-release โ€” whether the DHCP client sends a RELEASE message when bringing the connection down.
  • ipv6.dhcp-timeout โ€” if left unspecified, the default value for the interface type is used.
  • ipv6.dns-priority โ€” if unspecified or zero, use 50 for VPN profiles and 100 for other profiles.
  • ipv6.ip6-privacy โ€” if ipv6.ip6-privacy is unset, use the content of /proc/sys/net/ipv6/conf/default/use_tempaddr as the last fallback ๐Ÿงš
  • ipv6.temp-valid-lifetime โ€” if ipv6.temp-valid-lifetime is unset, use the content of /proc/sys/net/ipv6/conf/default/temp_valid_lft as the last fallback.
  • ipv6.temp-preferred-lifetime โ€” if ipv6.temp-preferred-lifetime is unset, use the content of /proc/sys/net/ipv6/conf/default/temp_prefered_lft as the last fallback.
  • ipv6.required-timeout โ€” no extra default note.
  • ipv6.route-metric โ€” no extra default note either.
  • ipv6.route-table โ€” if left unspecified, routes are only added to the main table. And again, bestie, note that this is different from explicitly selecting the main table 254, because of how NetworkManager removes extraneous routes from the tables ๐Ÿ’€
  • loopback.mtu โ€” if configured explicitly to 0, the MTU isn't reconfigured during device activation unless IPv6 constraints require it. If left unspecified, a DHCP/IPv6 SLAACโ€“provided value is used, or the MTU is left unspecified on activation.
  • macsec.offload โ€” no extra notes attached here.
  • sriov.autoprobe-drivers โ€” if left unspecified, drivers are autoprobed when the SR-IOV VF gets created ๐Ÿ”ฅ
  • sriov.preserve-on-down โ€” set it to 0 or 1 to pick whether the SR-IOV parameters are preserved when the connection is deactivated. If left unspecified, it defaults to 0 (parameters are not preserved).
  • vpn.timeout โ€” if left unspecified, the default value of 60 seconds is used.
  • wifi.ap-isolation โ€” if left unspecified, AP isolation is disabled.
  • wifi.cloned-mac-address โ€” if left unspecified, it defaults to "preserve".
  • wifi.generate-mac-address-mask โ€” no extra notes, just here for the vibes.
  • wifi.mac-address-randomization โ€” if left unspecified, MAC address randomization is disabled. โš ๏ธ Heads up: this setting is deprecated for wifi.cloned-mac-address.
  • wifi.mtu โ€” if configured explicitly to 0, the MTU isn't reconfigured during device activation unless IPv6 constraints require it. If left unspecified, a DHCP/IPv6 SLAACโ€“provided value is used, or a default of 1500.
  • wifi.powersave โ€” if left unspecified, the default value "ignore" will be used.
  • wifi-sec.pmf โ€” if left unspecified, the default value "optional" will be used.
  • wifi-sec.fils โ€” if left unspecified, the default value "optional" will be used.
  • wifi.wake-on-wlan โ€” no extra notes.
  • wireguard.mtu โ€” no extra notes either.

๐Ÿงฉ Sections ๐Ÿงฉ

okay so this is the part where it gets fun โ€” you can configure multiple connection sections, just by having different sections whose names all start with "connection" ๐Ÿ’– Example time:

[connection]
ipv6.ip6-privacy=0
connection.autoconnect-ports=1
vpn.timeout=120

[connection-wifi-wlan0]
match-device=interface-name:wlan0
ipv4.route-metric=50

[connection-wifi-other]
match-device=type:wifi
ipv4.route-metric=55
ipv6.ip6-privacy=1

The sections within one file are considered in order of appearance, with one exception: the [connection] section is always considered last. So in the example above, the order is [connection-wifi-wlan0], [connection-wlan-other], and [connection]. ๐Ÿ‘‘

When checking for a default configuration value, the sections get searched until the requested value is found. In our example, "ipv4.route-metric" for the wlan0 interface is set to 50, and for all other Wi-Fi typed interfaces it's 55. Also, Wi-Fi devices would have IPv6 private addresses enabled by default, but other devices would have it disabled. And note that "wlan0" also gets "ipv6.ip6-privacy=1", because even though the section [connection-wifi-wlan0] matches the device, it doesn't contain that property โ€” so the search continues. the way that works is honestly so satisfying ๐Ÿ˜Œ

When you've got different sections spread across multiple files, sections from files that are read later have higher priority. So within one file the priority of the sections is top-to-bottom, and across multiple files, later definitions take precedence. fr fr ๐ŸŒŸ

The following properties further control how a connection section applies:

  • match-device โ€” an optional device spec that restricts when the section applies. Peep the section called โ€œDevice List Formatโ€ for the possible values ๐Ÿฆ‹
  • stop-match โ€” an optional boolean value which defaults to no. If the section matches (based on match-device), further sections will not be considered, even if the property in question isn't present. In the example above, if [connection-wifi-wlan0] had stop-match set to yes, the device wlan0 would have the ipv6.ip6-privacy property unspecified. That is, the search for the property would not continue into the connection sections [connection-wifi-other] or [connection]. ๐Ÿ’€

๐Ÿ–ฅ๏ธ DEVICE SECTION โœจ

Okay bestie, this one is the per-device persistent config zone โ€” like, each device gets its own lil personality file ๐Ÿ’…

Example first, because examples eat every time:

[device]
match-device=interface-name:eth3
managed=1

๐Ÿ”ง Supported Properties

These are the properties you can set per-device, bestie. Every single one, no skipping ๐Ÿซถ

managed

A boolean value specifying whether the device is managed or not. So you can mark a device managed via udev rules (ENV{NM_UNMANAGED}), or via setting plugins (keyfile.unmanaged-devices) โ€” and this is yet another way. Iconic, honestly. Note that this configuration can be overruled at runtime via D-Bus. Also โ€” and this is the important part โ€” it has higher priority than udev rules ๐Ÿ‘‘

carrier-wait-timeout

Specify the timeout for waiting for carrier, in milliseconds. The default is 6000 milliseconds. This setting exists because certain drivers/hardware can take a long time to detect whether the cable is plugged in ๐Ÿ˜ญ

When the device loses carrier, NetworkManager does not react immediately. Instead, it waits for this timeout before considering the link lost.

Also, on startup, NetworkManager considers the device as busy for this time, as long as the device has no carrier. This delays the startup-complete signal and NetworkManager-wait-online. Configuring this too high means blocking NetworkManager-wait-online longer than necessary when booting with the cable unplugged. Configuring it too low means NetworkManager will declare startup-complete too soon, even though carrier is about to show up and auto-activation is about to kick in. Note that if a profile only has static IP configuration or Layer 3 configuration disabled, then it can already autoconnect without carrier on the device. Once such a profile reaches full activated state, startup-complete is considered as reached even if the device has no carrier yet.

Genuinely, tweak this with care โ€” too high and you're waiting forever, too low and you're declaring victory before the cable even shows up ๐Ÿ’€

ignore-carrier

Specify devices for which NetworkManager will (partially) ignore the carrier state. Normally, for device types that support carrier-detect โ€” like Ethernet and InfiniBand โ€” NetworkManager will only allow a connection to be activated on the device if carrier is present (ie, a cable is plugged in), and it will deactivate the device if carrier drops for more than a few seconds.

A device with carrier ignored will allow activating connections on that device even when it does not have carrier, provided that the connection uses only statically-configured IP addresses. Additionally, it will allow any active connection (whether static or dynamic) to remain active on the device when carrier is lost.

Note that the "carrier" property of NMDevices and device D-Bus interfaces will still reflect the actual device state; it's just that NetworkManager will not make use of that information.

Master types like bond, bridge and team ignore carrier by default, while other device types react on carrier changes by default.

This setting overwrites the deprecated main.ignore-carrier setting above ๐Ÿ‘€

check-connectivity

A boolean value specifying whether NetworkManager will perform a connectivity check for this device. Defaults to yes.

This setting does nothing if the connectivity check has been disabled globally using the connectivity.enabled setting.

keep-configuration

A boolean value indicating whether the existing device configuration is kept at startup.

On startup, NetworkManager tries to not interfere with interfaces that are already configured. It does this by generating an in-memory connection based on the interface's current configuration.

If this generated connection matches one of the existing persistent connections, the persistent connection gets activated. If there is no match, the generated connection gets activated as "external", which means the connection is considered as active, but NetworkManager doesn't actually touch the interface ๐Ÿซฃ

It is possible to disable this behavior by setting keep-configuration to no. That way, on startup NetworkManager always tries to activate the most suitable persistent connection (the one with highest autoconnect-priority or, in case of a tie, the one activated most recently).

Note that when NetworkManager gets restarted, it stores the previous state in /run/NetworkManager; in particular it saves the UUID of the connection that was previously active so that it can be activated again after the restart. Therefore, keep-configuration does not have any effect on service restart. Periodt.

allowed-connections

A list of connections that can be activated on the device. See the section called โ€œConnection List Formatโ€ for the syntax to specify a connection. If this option is not specified, all connections can be potentially activated on the device, provided that the connection type and other settings match.

A notable use case for this is to filter which connections can be activated based on how they were created; see the origin keyword in the section called โ€œConnection List Formatโ€ ๐Ÿ’…

wifi.scan-rand-mac-address

Configures MAC address randomization of a Wi-Fi device during scanning. This defaults to yes, in which case a random, locally-administered MAC address will be used. The setting wifi.scan-generate-mac-address-mask can be used to influence the generated MAC address to use certain vendor OUIs. If disabled, the MAC address during scanning is left unchanged to whatever is configured. For the configured MAC address while the device is associated, see instead the per-connection setting wifi.cloned-mac-address ๐Ÿ‘‘

wifi.backend

Specify the Wi-Fi backend used for the device. Currently, supported are wpa_supplicant and iwd (experimental). If unspecified, the default is "wpa_supplicant".

wifi.scan-generate-mac-address-mask

Like the per-connection settings ethernet.generate-mac-address-mask and wifi.generate-mac-address-mask, this can be used to configure the generated MAC addresses during scanning. See nm-settings-nmcli(5) for details.

wifi.iwd.autoconnect

A boolean value. If wifi.backend is iwd, setting this to false forces IWD's autoconnect mechanism to be disabled for this device, and connections will only be initiated by NetworkManager โ€” whether commanded by a client or automatically. Leaving it true (default) stops NetworkManager from automatically initiating connections and allows IWD to use its network ranking and scanning logic to decide the best networks to autoconnect to next. Connections' autoconnect-priority and autoconnect-retries settings will be ignored. Other settings like permissions or multi-connect may interfere with IWD connection attempts ๐ŸŒ€

sriov-num-vfs

Specify the number of virtual functions (VF) to enable for a PCI physical device that supports single-root I/O virtualization (SR-IOV) โšก

๐Ÿงฉ Sections

The [device] section works the same as the [connection] section. That is, multiple sections that all start with the prefix "device" can be specified. The settings "match-device" and "stop-match" are available to match a device section on a device. The order of multiple sections is also top-down within the file, and later files overwrite previous settings. See โ€œSectionsโ€ under the section called โ€œCONNECTION SECTIONโ€ for details ๐Ÿ’–


๐ŸŒˆ CONNECTIVITY SECTION ๐ŸŒˆ

This section controls NetworkManager's optional connectivity checking functionality. Which is literally NetworkManager's way of detecting whether the system can actually access the internet, or whether it's stuck behind a captive portal ๐Ÿ™ˆ

Connectivity checking serves two purposes. For one, it exposes a connectivity state on D-Bus, which other applications may use. For example, Gnome's portal helper uses this as a signal to show a captive portal login page. The other use is that the default-route of devices without global connectivity get a penalty of +20000 to the route-metric. The purpose of that is to give a better default-route to devices that have global connectivity. For example, when you're connected to WWAN and to a Wi-Fi network that's behind a captive portal, WWAN still gets preferred until login ๐Ÿ’…

โš ๏ธ Heads up, bestie: your distribution might set /proc/sys/net/ipv4/conf/*/rp_filter to strict filtering. That works badly with per-device connectivity checking, which uses SO_BINDDEVICE to send requests on all devices. A strict rp_filter setting will reject any response, and the connectivity check on all but the best route will fail ๐Ÿ˜ญ

enabled

A boolean indicating whether connectivity check is enabled. Note that to enable connectivity check, a valid uri must also be configured. The value defaults to true, but since the uri is unset by default, connectivity check may be disabled. The main purpose of this option is to have a single flag to disable connectivity check. Note that this setting can also be set via D-Bus API at runtime. In that case, the value gets stored in /var/lib/NetworkManager/NetworkManager-intern.conf file.

uri

The URI of a web page to periodically request when connectivity is being checked. This page should return the header "X-NetworkManager-Status" with a value of "online". Alternatively, its body content should be set to "NetworkManager is online". The body content check can be controlled by the response option. If this option is blank or missing, connectivity checking is disabled.

interval

Specified in seconds; controls how often connectivity is checked when a network connection exists. If set to 0, connectivity checking is disabled. If missing, the default is 300 seconds.

timeout

Specified in seconds; controls how long to wait for a response before connectivity is marked as limited. If missing, the default is 20 seconds.

response

If set, controls what body content NetworkManager checks for when requesting the URI for connectivity checking. Note that this only compares that the HTTP response starts with the specified text โ€” it does not compare the exact string. This behavior might change in the future, so avoid relying on it ๐Ÿ‘€ If missing, the response defaults to "NetworkManager is online". If set to empty, the HTTP server is expected to answer with status code 204 or send no data.

โœจ GLOBAL-DNS SECTION โœจ

Okay so this section is the global DNS main character moment ๐Ÿ’…. DNS settings here apply globally, and bestie, they override the equivalent options defined in individual connections โ€” so those per-connection options get ignored, lowkey ghosted. If a [global-dns-domain-*] section is defined but this section isn't, an empty [global-dns] section is assumed, and that overwrites connection specific configurations too. Fr fr.

  • searches โ€” A list of search domains to be used during hostname lookup.
  • options โ€” A list of options to be passed to the hostname resolver.
  • resolve-mode โ€” A string indicating how DNS servers retrieved from global configuration and connections should be used. backup โ€” indicates they can be freely merged and used for the same purposes. prefer โ€” forbids DNS servers retrieved from connections to be used for general queries that are not subdomains of domains set by connection. exclusive โ€” forbids use of connection DNS servers for any query. Currently relevant only for Dnsconfd plugin.
  • certification-authority โ€” A string specifying absolute path to bundle of CA certificates that must be used for validation of certificates presented by DNS servers when encrypted DNS is used. Currently relevant only for Dnsconfd plugin.

๐ŸŒˆ GLOBAL-DNS-DOMAIN SECTIONS ๐ŸŒˆ

Sections whose name starts with the global-dns-domain- prefix let you define global DNS configuration for specific domains, iykyk. The part of the section name after global-dns-domain- is the domain name the section applies to (for example, a section could be named global-dns-domain-foobar.com). More specific domains have the precedence over less specific ones, and the default domain is represented by the wildcard *. To be valid, global DNS domains must include a section for the default domain *. When the global DNS domains are valid, the name servers and domains defined globally override the ones from active connections. If any global DNS domain is defined but a [global-dns] section isn't, an empty [global-dns] section is assumed, thus overwriting its connection specific configurations too. Periodt. ๐Ÿ’…

  • servers โ€” A list of addresses of DNS servers to be used for the given domain. Each server can be specified either as a plain IP address or with a URI syntax. When it's specified as a URI, the following forms are supported:
dns+udp://ADDRESS[:PORT]                 : DNS
dns+tls://ADDRESS[:PORT][#SERVERNAME]    : DNS over TLS

ADDRESS is an IPv4 or IPv6 address. When it's IPv6, it must be enclosed in square brackets ([ and ]). When it's an IPv6 link-local address, the address should be followed by a percent sign (%) and an interface name.

  • options โ€” A list of domain-specific DNS options. Not used at the moment.

๐ŸŽ€ .CONFIG SECTIONS ๐ŸŽ€

This is a special section, bestie โ€” it contains options that apply to the configuration file that contains the option. The way it works is kind of iconic ngl.

  • enable โ€” Defaults to "true". If "false", the configuration file will be skipped during loading. Note that the main configuration file NetworkManager.conf cannot be disabled.
# always skip loading the config file
[.config]
enable=false

You can also match against the version of NetworkManager. For example the following are valid configurations:

# only load on version 1.0.6
[.config]
enable=nm-version:1.0.6

# load on all versions 1.0.x, but not 1.2.x
[.config]
enable=nm-version:1.0

# only load on versions >= 1.1.6. This does not match
# with version 1.2.0 or 1.4.4. Only the last digit is considered.
[.config]
enable=nm-version-min:1.1.6

# only load on versions >= 1.2. Contrary to the previous
# example, this also matches with 1.2.0, 1.2.10, 1.4.4, etc.
[.config]
enable=nm-version-min:1.2

# Match against the maximum allowed version. The example matches
# versions 1.2.0, 1.2.2, 1.2.4. Again, only the last version digit
# is allowed to be smaller. So this would not match on 1.1.10.
[.config]
enable=nm-version-max:1.2.6

You can also match against the value of the environment variable NM_CONFIG_ENABLE_TAG, like:

# only load the file when running NetworkManager with
# environment variable "NM_CONFIG_ENABLE_TAG=TAG1"
[.config]
enable=env:TAG1

You can specify more than one match, and the configuration will be enabled if one of the predicates matches (it's an "or" situation). The special prefix except: can be used to negate the match. Note that if one except-predicate matches, the entire configuration will be disabled. In other words, an except predicate always wins over other predicates. If the setting only consists of except: matches and none of the negative conditions are satisfied, the configuration is still enabled.

# enable the configuration either when the environment variable
# is present or the version is at least 1.2.0.
[.config]
enable=env:TAG2,nm-version-min:1.2

# enable the configuration for version >= 1.2.0, but disable
# it when the environment variable is set to "TAG3"
[.config]
enable=except:env:TAG3,nm-version-min:1.2

# enable the configuration on >= 1.3, >= 1.2.6, and >= 1.0.16.
# Useful if a certain feature is only present since those releases.
[.config]
enable=nm-version-min:1.3,nm-version-min:1.2.6,nm-version-min:1.0.16

๐Ÿ”Œ PLUGINS ๐Ÿ”Œ

Settings plugins for reading and writing connection profiles. The number of available plugins is distribution specific. Let's get into the plugin lineup, because this part is giving options ๐Ÿ‘‘

  • keyfile โ€” The keyfile plugin is the generic plugin that supports all the connection types and capabilities that NetworkManager has. It writes files out in an .ini-style format in /etc/NetworkManager/system-connections. See nm-settings-keyfile(5) for details about the file format.

The stored connection file may contain passwords, secrets and private keys in plain text, so it will be made readable only to root, and the plugin will ignore files that are readable or writable by any user or group other than root. See "Secret flag types" in nm-settings-nmcli(5) for how to avoid storing passwords in plain text.

This plugin is always active, and will automatically be used to store any connections that aren't supported by any other active plugin. Main character energy, honestly.

  • ifcfg-rh โ€” This plugin is now deprecated; it can be used on the Fedora and Red Hat Enterprise Linux distributions to read and write configuration from the standard /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-* files. It currently supports reading Ethernet, Wi-Fi, InfiniBand, VLAN, Bond, Bridge, and Team connections. Enabling ifcfg-rh implicitly enables ibft plugin, if it is available. This can be disabled by adding no-ibft. See /usr/share/doc/initscripts/sysconfig.txt and nm-settings-ifcfg-rh(5) for more information about the ifcfg file format.
  • ifupdown โ€” This plugin is used on the Debian and Ubuntu distributions, and reads Ethernet and Wi-Fi connections from /etc/network/interfaces.

This plugin is read-only; any connections (of any type) added from within NetworkManager when you are using this plugin will be saved using the keyfile plugin instead. Read-only arc, we respect it.

  • ibft, no-ibft โ€” These plugins are deprecated and their selection has no effect. This is now handled by nm-initrd-generator.
  • ifcfg-suse, ifnet โ€” These plugins are deprecated and their selection has no effect. The keyfile plugin should be used instead.

๐ŸŒˆ APPENDIX ๐ŸŒˆ

Okay bestie, final appendix moment โ€” this is the device/connection matchmaking lore. No new keys here, just how those list-y values get read. ๐Ÿ’…

๐ŸŽ€ Device List Format ๐ŸŽ€

The configuration options main.no-auto-default, main.ignore-carrier, keyfile.unmanaged-devices, connection*.match-device, and device*.match-device pick devices based on a list of matchings. Devices can be specified using this format:

  • * โ€” matches every device.
  • IFNAME โ€” case sensitive match of the interface name of the device. Globbing is not supported.
  • HWADDR โ€” match the permanent MAC address of the device. Globbing is not supported.
  • interface-name:IFNAME, interface-name:~IFNAME โ€” case sensitive match of the interface name of the device. Simple globbing is supported with * and ?. Ranges and escaping are not supported.
  • interface-name:=IFNAME โ€” case sensitive match of the interface name of the device. Globbing is disabled and IFNAME is taken literally.
  • mac:HWADDR โ€” match the permanent MAC address of the device. Globbing is not supported.
  • s390-subchannels:HWADDR โ€” match the device based on the subchannel address. Globbing is not supported.
  • type:TYPE โ€” match the device type. Valid type names are as reported by "nmcli -f GENERAL.TYPE device show". Globbing is not supported.
  • driver:DRIVER โ€” match the device driver as reported by "nmcli -f GENERAL.DRIVER,GENERAL.DRIVER-VERSION device show". "DRIVER" must match the driver name exactly and does not support globbing. Optionally, a driver version may be specified separated by /. Globbing is supported for the version.
  • dhcp-plugin:DHCP โ€” match the configured DHCP plugin "main.dhcp".
  • except:SPEC โ€” negative match of a device. SPEC must be explicitly qualified with a prefix such as interface-name:. A negative match has higher priority than the positive matches above.
    • If there is a list consisting only of negative matches, the behavior is the same as if there is also match-all. That means, if none of all the negative matches is satisfied, the overall result is still a positive match. So "except:interface-name:eth0" is the same as "*,except:interface-name:eth0".
  • SPEC[,;]SPEC โ€” multiple specs can be concatenated with commas or semicolons. The order does not matter because matches are either inclusive or negative (except:), with negative matches having higher priority.
    • Backslash is supported to escape the separators ';' and ',', and to express special characters such as newline ('\n'), tabulator ('\t'), whitespace ('\s') and backslash ('\\'). The globbing of interface names cannot be escaped. Whitespace is not a separator but will be trimmed between two specs unless escaped as '\s'.

Example:

interface-name:em4
mac:00:22:68:1c:59:b1;mac:00:1E:65:30:D1:C4;interface-name:eth2
interface-name:vboxnet*,except:interface-name:vboxnet2
*,except:mac:00:22:68:1c:59:b1

๐Ÿฆ‹ Connection List Format ๐Ÿฆ‹

Connections can be specified using the following format:

  • * โ€” matches every connection.
  • uuid:UUID โ€” match the connection by UUID, for example "uuid:83037490-1d17-4986-a397-01f1db3a7fc2".
  • id:ID โ€” match the connection by name.
  • origin:ORIGIN โ€” match the connection by origin, stored in the org.freedesktop.NetworkManager.origin tag of the user setting. For example, use "except:origin:nm-initrd-generator" to forbid activation of connections created by the initrd generator.
  • except:SPEC โ€” negative match of a connection. A negative match has higher priority than the positive matches above.
    • If there is a list consisting only of negative matches, the behavior is the same as if there is also match-all. That means, if none of all the negative matches is satisfied, the overall result is still a positive match.
  • SPEC[,;]SPEC โ€” multiple specs can be concatenated with commas or semicolons. The order does not matter because matches are either inclusive or negative (except:), with negative matches having higher priority.
    • Backslash is supported to escape the separators ';' and ',', and to express special characters such as newline ('\n'), tabulator ('\t'), whitespace ('\s') and backslash ('\\'). Whitespace is not a separator but will be trimmed between two specs unless escaped as '\s'.

๐Ÿ’– SEE ALSO ๐Ÿ’–

Thatโ€™s the whole page, bestie โ€” appendix closed, wig intact. ๐Ÿซถ The footer energy is NetworkManager 1.58.0 and the page tag NETWORKMANAGER.CONF(5), version/date-line realness included. โœจ

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