[main]
plugins=keyfile

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

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).

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 suppored clients in this order: internal, dhcpcd, dhclient.

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=*

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

The default value is false.

[logging]
level=TRACE
domains=ALL

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.

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).

Domain descriptions:

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. VPN_PLUGIN is special as it might reveal private information of the VPN plugins with verbose levels. Therefore this domain will be excluded when setting ALL or DEFAULT to more verbose levels then INFO.

[connection]
ipv6.ip6-privacy=0

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

# 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

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.

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.