plugins

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 can'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 “Plugins” below for the available plugins. Note that NetworkManager's native keyfile plugin is always appended to the end of this list (if it doesn't already appear earlier in the list).

monitor-connection-files

This setting is deprecated and has no effect. Profiles from disk are never automatically reloaded. Use for example nmcli connection (re)load for that.

auth-polkit

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.

dhcp

This key sets up what DHCP client NetworkManager will use. Allowed values are dhclient, dhcpcd, and internal. The dhclient and dhcpcd options require the indicated clients to be installed. The internal option uses a built-in DHCP client which is not currently as featureful as the external clients.

If this key is missing, it defaults to internal. If the chosen plugin is not available, clients are looked for in this order: dhclient, dhcpcd, internal.

no-auto-default

Specify devices for which NetworkManager shouldn't create default wired connection (Auto eth0). By default, NetworkManager creates a temporary wired connection for any Ethernet device that is managed and doesn'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 “Device List Format” 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

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 “Device List Format” for the syntax how to specify a device. Note that master 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).

assume-ipv6ll-only

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 “Device List Format” for the syntax how to specify a device.

configure-and-quit

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.

hostname-mode

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. An hostname empty or equal to 'localhost', 'localhost6', 'localhost.localdomain' or 'localhost6.localdomain' 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.

dns

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).

systemd-resolved: NetworkManager will push the DNS configuration to systemd-resolved

none: NetworkManager will not modify resolv.conf. This implies rc-manager unmanaged

Note that the plugins dnsmasq and systemd-resolved are caching local nameservers. Hence, when NetworkManager writes /run/NetworkManager/resolv.conf and /etc/resolv.conf (according to 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.

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

rc-manager

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 build 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.

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: 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: 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: 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: NetworkManager will run resolvconf to update the DNS configuration.

netconfig: NetworkManager will run netconfig to update the DNS configuration.

unmanaged: don't touch /etc/resolv.conf.

none: deprecated alias for symlink.

systemd-resolved

Additionally, send the connection DNS configuration to systemd-resolved. Defaults to "true".

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

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: set ulimit -c unlimited to write out core dumps. Beware, that a core dump can contain sensitive information such as passwords or configuration settings.

fatal-warnings: 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

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.

firewall-backend

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.

iwd-config-path

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.

The path can also be overriden 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

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.

hostname

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

The location where keyfiles are read and stored. This defaults to "/etc/NetworkManager/system-connections".

rename

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".

unmanaged-devices

Set devices that should be ignored by NetworkManager.

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 “Device List Format” 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

managed

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.

The default value is false.

level

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. Almost always, when debugging an issue or reporting a bug, collect full level TRACE logs to get the full picture.

domains

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.

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).

backend

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 "syslog".

audit

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.

enabled

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.

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 specifid text, it does not compare the exact string. This behavior might change in the future, so avoid relying on it. 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.

searches

A list of search domains to be used during hostname lookup.

options

A list of options to be passed to the hostname resolver.

servers

A list of addresses of DNS servers to be used for the given domain.

options

A list of domain-specific DNS options. Not used at the moment.

enable

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

More then one match can be specified. The configuration will be enabled if one of the predicates matches ("or"). 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, a 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

keyfile

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.

ifcfg-rh

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

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.

ibft, no-ibft

These plugins are deprecated and their selection has no effect. This is now handled by nm-initrd-generator.

ifcfg-suse, ifnet

These plugins are deprecated and their selection has no effect. The keyfile plugin should be used instead.