nm-settings-keyfile - Man Page

NetworkManager is based on the concept of connection profiles that contain network configuration (see nm-settings-nmcli(5) for details). The profiles can be stored in various formats. NetworkManager uses plugins for reading and writing the data. The plugins can be configured in NetworkManager.conf(5).

The keyfile plugin is the generic plugin that supports all the connection types and capabilities that NetworkManager has. The files are in a .ini-style format and located in /etc/NetworkManager/system-connections/, /usr/lib/NetworkManager/system-connections/ and /run/NetworkManager/system-connections/. This plugin is always enabled and will automatically be used to store any connections that are not supported by any other active plugin. For security, it will ignore files that are readable or writable by any user other than 'root' since private keys and passphrases may be stored in plaintext inside the file.

The keyfile config format is a simple .ini-style format. It consists of sections (groups) of key-value pairs. More information of the generic key file format can be found at GLib key file format^[1] (Lines beginning with a '#' are comments, lists are separated by character ; etc.).

Each section corresponds to a setting name as described in the settings specification (nm-settings-nmcli(5)). Each key/value pair in a section is one of the properties from the specification.

The majority of properties are written in the same format as the specification into the keyfile. However, some values are inconvenient for people to use so they are stored in the keyfile in more readable ways. These properties that differ from the specification are described below. An example could be IP addresses that are not written as integer arrays, but more reasonably as "1.2.3.4/12 1.2.3.254". Also, some lists of complex values (addresses, routes, routing-rules), instead of using a semicolon separated list, use one key-value pair per list element, with the key being the singular of the property name followed by the numeric index (i.e address1, address2, ...).

Users can create or modify the keyfile connection files manually, even if that is not the recommended way of managing the profiles. However, if they choose to do that, they must inform NetworkManager about their changes (for example via nmcli con (re)load).

Examples of keyfile configuration.

A sample configuration for an ethernet network:
[connection]
id=Main eth0
uuid=27afa607-ee36-43f0-b8c3-9d245cdc4bb3
type=802-3-ethernet
autoconnect=true

[ipv4]
method=auto

[802-3-ethernet]
mac-address=00:23:5a:47:1f:71

A sample configuration for WPA-EAP (PEAP with MSCHAPv2) and always-ask secret:
[connection]
id=CompanyWIFI
uuid=cdac6154-a33b-4b15-9904-666772cfa5ee
type=wifi
autoconnect=false

[wifi]
ssid=CorpWLAN
mode=infrastructure
security=802-11-wireless-security

[wifi-security]
key-mgmt=wpa-eap

[ipv4]
method=auto

[ipv6]
method=auto

[802-1x]
eap=peap;
identity=joe
ca-cert=/home/joe/.cert/corp.crt
phase1-peapver=1
phase2-auth=mschapv2
password-flags=2

A sample configuration for openvpn:
[connection]
id=RedHat-openvpn
uuid=7f9b3356-b210-4c0e-8123-bd116c9c280f
type=vpn
timestamp=1385401165

[vpn]
service-type=org.freedesktop.NetworkManager.openvpn
connection-type=password
password-flags=3
remote=ovpn.my-company.com
cipher=AES-256-CBC
reneg-seconds=0
port=443
username=joe
ca=/etc/openvpn/ISCA.pem
tls-remote=ovpn.my-company.com

[ipv6]
method=auto

[ipv4]
method=auto
ignore-auto-dns=true
never-default=true

A sample configuration for a bridge and a bridge port:
[connection]                                 [connection]
id=MainBridge                                id=br-port-1
uuid=171ae855-a0ab-42b6-bd0c-60f5812eea9d    uuid=d6e8ae98-71f8-4b3d-9d2d-2e26048fe794
interface-name=MainBridge                    interface-name=em1
type=bridge                                  type=ethernet
                                             controller=MainBridge
[bridge]                                     port-type=bridge
interface-name=MainBridge

A sample configuration for a VLAN:
[connection]
id=VLAN for building 4A
uuid=8ce1c9e0-ce7a-4d2c-aa28-077dda09dd7e
interface-name=VLAN-4A
type=vlan

[vlan]
interface-name=VLAN-4A
parent=eth0
id=4

keyfile plugin variables for the majority of NetworkManager properties have one-to-one mapping. It means a NetworkManager property is stored in the keyfile as a variable of the same name and in the same format. There are several exceptions to this rule, mainly for making keyfile syntax easier for humans. The exceptions handled specially by keyfile plugin are listed below. Refer to nm-settings-nmcli(5) for all available settings and properties and their description.

Name aliases. Some of the NetworkManager setting names are somewhat hard to type or remember. Therefore keyfile introduces aliases that can be used instead of the names.

Table 1. 802-11-wireless setting (section)

Table 2. 802-3-ethernet setting (section)

Table 3. bridge setting (section)

Table 4. infiniband setting (section)

Table 5. ipv4 setting (section)

Table 6. ipv6 setting (section)

Table 7. serial setting (section)

Table 8. vpn setting (section)

Table 9. wifi-p2p setting (section)

Table 10. wpan setting (section)

/etc/NetworkManager/system-connections/*

nm-settings-nmcli(5), nm-settings-ifcfg-rh(5), NetworkManager(8), NetworkManager.conf(5), nmcli(1), nmcli-examples(7)

1.

GLib key file format
https://developer.gnome.org/glib/stable/glib-Key-value-file-parser.html#glib-Key-value-file-parser.description

NetworkManager.conf(5), nmcli(1), nm-settings(5), nm-settings-dbus(5).