NetworkManager

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NetworkManager is a network management software for Ethernet, Wifi, DSL, dialup, VPN, WiMAX, and mobile broadband network connections.

Note
NetworkManager and other network management services typically don't work together. That includes a standalone instance of dhcpcd. Make sure only one network management service is running.

Installation

NetworkManager requires an implementation of udev and D-Bus. On laptops and desktops, it is typically built with polkit to enable local users to configure it. It also optionally integrates with systemd, upower, ConsoleKit and others.

It is a good idea to use dhclient from net-misc/dhcp instead of net-misc/dhcpcd as 1.0.0 version is already doing. While dhcpcd in standalone mode provides some interesting features over dhclient, those will not be used by NetworkManager. Most NetworkManager developers do use dhclient and it is therefore much better tested with NetworkManager and is generally a better DHCP client to be used with NetworkManager. NetworkManager does not use the IPv6 support of dhcpcd and instead relies on dhclient for this.

Portage knows the global networkmanager USE flag for enabling support for NetworkManager in other packages. Enabling this USE flag will make those packages pull in net-misc/networkmanager automatically:

root #euse -E networkmanager

Kernel

For Wifi devices enable also the following options:

KERNEL 
[*] Networking support  --->
        Networking options  --->
        <*> Packet socket
    [*] Wireless  --->
        <*>   cfg80211 - wireless configuration API
        [*]     cfg80211 wireless extensions compatibility

Look at the udev page for kernel configuration needed for this NetworkManager dependency.

USE flags

USE flags for net-misc/networkmanager A set of co-operative tools that make networking simple and straightforward

bluetooth Enable Bluetooth Support global
connection-sharing Use net-dns/dnsmasq and net-firewall/iptables for connection sharing local
consolekit Use sys-auth/consolekit for session tracking local
dhclient Use dhclient from net-misc/dhcp for getting ip local
gnutls Add support for net-libs/gnutls (TLS 1.0 and SSL 3.0 support) global
introspection Add support for GObject based introspection global
json Enable JSON validation via dev-libs/jansson in libnm. local
modemmanager Enable support for mobile broadband devices using net-misc/modemmanager local
ncurses Add ncurses support (console display library) global
nss Use dev-libs/nss for cryptography local
ofono Use net-misc/ofono for telephony support. local
ppp Enable support for mobile broadband and PPPoE connections using net-dialup/ppp local
resolvconf Use net-dns/openresolv for managing DNS information local
selinux !!internal use only!! Security Enhanced Linux support, this must be set by the selinux profile or breakage will occur global
systemd Enable use of systemd-specific libraries and features like socket activation or session tracking global
teamd Enable Teamd control support local
test Workaround to pull in packages needed to run with FEATURES=test. Portage-2.1.2 handles this internally, so don't set it in make.conf/package.use anymore global
vala Enable bindings for dev-lang/vala global
wext Enable support for the deprecated Wext (Wireless Extensions) API; needed for some older drivers (e.g. ipw2200, ndiswrapper) local
wifi Enable support for wifi and 802.1x security using net-wireless/wpa_supplicant local
Data provided by the Gentoo Package Database · Last update: 2017-01-26 11:24 More information about USE flags

Emerge

After changing use flags run the following command to update the system so the changes take effect:

root #emerge --ask --changed-use --deep @world

To manually install NetworkManager, if not already pulled in automatically from above command:

root #emerge --ask net-misc/networkmanager

Additonal software

NetworkManager live ebuild (future 1.2 release)

NetworkManager is changing substantially and its feature set is slowly moving from a laptop oriented tool to a universal network management service configured using all sorts of tools from nmcli through nmtui to GUI tools like nm-applet, nm-connection-editor, Gnome Shell's network indicator, Gnome 3 control center, KDE plasma-nm, and more.

The most convenient way is to add the ixit overlay using Layman.

root #layman -a ixit

Then you can install the desired NetworkManager release.

root #emerge --ask --autounmask-write =net-misc/networkmanager-9999

If anything goes wrong, contact User:Pavlix. Those are live ebuilds and therefore they can occasionally need updating. I'm also considering starting a separate overlay just for networking related tools, let me know if that would help you.

NetworkManager VPN plugins

The following packages can be used to add VPN support to the base NetworkManager agent:

After emerging a plugin, it will be available when adding new connections to NetworkManager.

Note
Many, if not all, of these packages depend on both the gnome-base/gnome-keyring and explicit enabling of the gtk USE flag. Additionally, they are usually not compatible with the terminal interface, nmtui, and must be launched via nm-applet.

NetworkManager split DNS and DNSSEC support using unbound and dnssec-trigger

This doesn't yet work well with upstream releases nor in portage. But you can use Layman to add the [ixit overlay and install net-misc/networkmanager, net-dns/dnssec-trigger, and net-dns/unbound live ebuilds from there.

root #layman -a ixit

Now you can install the live ebuilds.

root #emerge --ask --autounmask-write =net-misc/networkmanager-9999 =net-dns/dnssec-trigger-9999 =net-dns/unbound-9999

The main difference from simple DNSSEC support like in the dnsmasq plugin is that dnssec-trigger does its best to ensure that you get a working DNSSEC configuration even on your laptop roaming among third party networks with different capabilities as well as to allow you to still access local resources and that you can choose to work without DNSSEC when it cannot provide a working setup.

NetworkManager GUI bits in GTK

The systray applet is in gnome-extra/nm-applet and works in classic Xembed based systrays. If a systray is not included as part of the desktop environment in use, a standalone systray like stalonetray can be installed. The connection editor GUI in the same package as the applet. Note that this package serves all sorts of desktop environments and panels with systrays but it is no longer used by Gnome which has its own implementations in Gnome Shell and Gnome Control Center.

root #emerge --ask gnome-extra/nm-applet

Also note that the current upstream version doesn't support the appindicator API and thus does not work in some systray implementations like those in current versions of KDE and Unity or the development versions of Enlightenment.

NetworkManager KDE GUIs

Configuration

On Gentoo NetworkManager uses the plugdev group to specify which users can manage plug-able devices. Be sure to substitute <user_name> for each user who should be managing network connections in the command below:

root #gpasswd -a <user_name> plugdev

Service

OpenRC

Remove any existing network management services (if installed):

root #for service in $(rc-update show default | grep 'net\.' | awk '{ print $1 }'); do rc-update del $service default; done
root #rc-update del dhcpcd default

Start NetworkManager:

root #/etc/init.d/NetworkManager start

To start NetworkManager at boot time add it the default runlevel:

root #rc-update add NetworkManager default

systemd

To start NetworkManager now:

root #systemctl start NetworkManager

Enable NetworkManager to be started at boot time.

root #systemctl enable NetworkManager

With NetworkManager older than 0.9.10 or when you have services that order themselves after network.service instead of network-online.service, you may want to enable the NetworkManager-wait-online.service for multi-user.target. Note that it extends the boot time even if you don't have any services that need to wait for network connections.

root #systemctl enable NetworkManager-wait-online.service

When writing your own systemd services, you can easily make them wait for NetworkManager to configure the boot time connections. With NetworkManager 0.9.10 and later it works even without explicitly enabling the network-online.service.

FILE /etc/systemd/system/*.service
[Unit]
After=network-online.service
Wants=network-online.service

Setting a hostname

If NetworkManager was built with the dhclient USE flag enabled a hostname can be set using the following command:

FILE /etc/dhcp/dhclient.conf
send host-name "yourhostname";

Checking connectivity

NetworkManager can try to reach a page on Internet when connecting to a network. For those behind a captive portal, the desktop manager can automatically open a window asking for credentials. To enable this feature, edit (or create) the /etc/NetworkManager/NetworkManager.conf file to look something like this:

FILE /etc/NetworkManager/NetworkManager.conf
[connectivity]
uri=http://nmcheck.gnome.org/check_network_status.txt

nm-applet and X session startup

To be able to get nm-applet started when starting your light X session or light desktop environment, just put the following line in your ~/.xinitrc file:

FILE ~/.xinitrc
dbus-launch nm-applet &

For gnome-base/gnome-keyring support, add the following lines before the previous line. This will ease password management for GnuPG, ssh and Wifi:

FILE ~/.xinitrc
eval $(gnome-keyring-daemon --components=pkcs11,secrets,ssh,gpg)
export GNOME_KEYRING_PID
export GNOME_KEYRING_SOCKET
export SSH_AUTH_SOCK
export GPG_AGENT_INFO

Dnsmasq

NetworkManager can be set up to use Dnsmasq as a local DNS server that passes the DNS queries on to your provider's DNS server. /etc/resolv.conf will be set to point to 127.0.0.1, where dnsmasq runs and processes the queries. This can be useful for example if an application chroots for security reasons and before doing so copies /etc/resolv.conf. Then it would never be informed about changes to the DNS servers as your laptop moves from Wifi to Wifi.

Setup of dnsmasq is simple:

FILE /etc/NetworkManager/NetworkManager.conf
[main]
plugins=keyfile
dns=dnsmasq

Then restart NetworkManager.

DNSSEC

Dnsmasq can optionally validate DNSSEC data while passing through queries (must be compiled with the dnssec USE flag). This can be accomplished by adding these lines to the NetworkManager dnsmasq config file:

FILE /etc/NetworkManager/dnsmasq.d/dnssec
# DNSSEC setup
dnssec
trust-anchor=.,19036,8,2,49AAC11D7B6F6446702E54A1607371607A1A41855200FD2CE1CDDE32F24E8FB5
dnssec-check-unsigned

The trusted anchor can be found here. After this change dnsmasq will return SERVFAIL and no DNS data if the validation fails. If the validation succeeds it sets the Authenticated Data (AD) flag. In case the domain does not support DNSSEC dnsmasq behaves as before.

If your ISP's DNS server does not forward DNSSEC data then this will fail. In that case you can uncomment the last line, but it will defy the purpose of DNSSEC. Google's server 8.8.8.8 provides DNSSEC data.

Troubleshooting

Fixing nm-applet insufficient privileges

If nm-applet fails to create new networks with the error "Insufficient Privileges," then it could be a policy kit issue. Create the following file:

FILE /etc/polkit-1/rules.d/50-org.freedesktop.NetworkManager.rules
polkit.addRule(function(action, subject) {
    if (action.id.indexOf("org.freedesktop.NetworkManager.") == 0 && subject.isInGroup("plugdev")) {
        return polkit.Result.YES;
    }
});

This lets all users in the plugdev group control network manager.

Hostname problems

The standard "keyfile" plugin does not forward the hostname in default configuration - to avoid having it changed upon network connection, add the following section to your NetworkManager.conf and enter your hostname accordingly:

FILE /etc/NetworkManager/NetworkManager.conf
[keyfile]
hostname=your_hostname

External Links

Retrieved from "http://wiki.gentoo.org/index.php?title=NetworkManager&oldid=576700"