Netplan | Backend-agnostic network configuration in YAML

Introduction

Distribution installers, cloud instantiation, image builds for particular
devices, or any other way to deploy an operating system put its desired
network configuration into YAML configuration file(s). During
early boot, the netplan “network renderer” runs which reads
/{lib,etc,run}/netplan/*.yaml and writes configuration to /run to hand
off control of devices to the specified networking daemon.

Configured devices get handled by systemd-networkd by default,
unless explicitly marked as managed by a specific renderer (NetworkManager)
Devices not covered by the network config do not get touched at all.
Usable in initramfs (few dependencies and fast)
No persistent generated config, only original YAML config
Parser supports multiple config files to allow applications like libvirt or lxd
to package up expected network config (virbr0, lxdbr0), or to change the
global default policy to use NetworkManager for everything.
Retains the flexibility to change backends/policy later or adjust to
removing NetworkManager, as generated configuration is ephemeral.

General structure

netplan’s configuration files use the
YAML format. All
/{lib,etc,run}/netplan/*.yaml are considered. Lexicographically later files
(regardless of in which directory they are) amend (new mapping keys) or
override (same mapping keys) previous ones. A file in /run/netplan
completely shadows a file with same name in /etc/netplan, and a file in
either of those directories shadows a file with the same name in
/lib/netplan.

The top-level node in a netplan configuration file is a network: mapping
that contains version: 2 (the YAML currently being used by curtin, MaaS,
etc. is version 1), and then device definitions grouped by their type, such as
ethernets:, modems:, wifis:, or bridges:. These are the types that our
renderer can understand and are supported by our backends.

Each type block contains device definitions as a map where the keys (called
“configuration IDs”) are defined as below.

Device configuration IDs

The key names below the per-device-type definition maps (like ethernets:)
are called "ID"s. They must be unique throughout the entire set of
configuration files. Their primary purpose is to serve as anchor names for
composite devices, for example to enumerate the members of a bridge that is
currently being defined.

(Since 0.97) If an interface is defined with an ID in a configuration file; it will
be brought up by the applicable renderer. To not have netplan touch an interface
at all, it should be completely omitted from the netplan configuration files.

There are two physically/structurally different classes of device definitions,
and the ID field has a different interpretation for each:

Physical devices

(Examples: ethernet, modem, wifi) These can dynamically come and go between
reboots and even during runtime (hotplugging). In the generic case, they
can be selected by match: rules on desired properties, such as name/name
pattern, MAC address, driver, or device paths. In general these will match
any number of devices (unless they refer to properties which are unique
such as the full path or MAC address), so without further knowledge about
the hardware these will always be considered as a group.

It is valid to specify no match rules at all, in which case the ID field is
simply the interface name to be matched. This is mostly useful if you want
to keep simple cases simple, and it’s how network device configuration has
been done for a long time.

If there are match: rules, then the ID field is a purely opaque name
which is only being used for references from definitions of compound
devices in the config.

Virtual devices

(Examples: veth, bridge, bond) These are fully under the control of the
config file(s) and the network stack. I. e. these devices are being created
instead of matched. Thus match: and set-name: are not applicable for
these, and the ID field is the name of the created virtual device.

Common properties for physical device types

match (mapping)

This selects a subset of available physical devices by various hardware
properties. The following configuration will then apply to all matching
devices, as soon as they appear. All specified properties must match.

name (scalar): Current interface name. Globs are supported, and the primary use case
for matching on names, as selecting one fixed name can be more easily
achieved with having no match: at all and just using the ID (see
above).
(NetworkManager: as of v1.14.0)
macaddress (scalar): Device’s MAC address in the form “XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX”. Globs are not
allowed.
driver (scalar or sequence of scalars) – sequence since 0.104: Kernel driver name, corresponding to the DRIVER udev property.
A sequence of globs is supported, any of which must match.
Matching on driver is only supported with networkd.

Examples:

all cards on second PCI bus:
```
 match:
   name: enp2*
```

fixed MAC address:

 match:
   macaddress: 11:22:33:AA:BB:FF

first card of driver ixgbe:

 match:
   driver: ixgbe
   name: en*s0

first card with a driver matching bcmgenet or smsc*:

 match:
   driver: ["bcmgenet", "smsc*"]
   name: en*

set-name (scalar)

When matching on unique properties such as path or MAC, or with additional
assumptions such as “there will only ever be one wifi device”,
match rules can be written so that they only match one device. Then this
property can be used to give that device a more specific/desirable/nicer
name than the default from udev’s ifnames. Any additional device that
satisfies the match rules will then fail to get renamed and keep the
original kernel name (and dmesg will show an error).

wakeonlan (bool)

Enable wake on LAN. Off by default.

Note: This will not work reliably for devices matched by name
only and rendered by networkd, due to interactions with device
renaming in udev. Match devices by MAC when setting wake on LAN.

emit-lldp (bool) – since 0.99

(networkd backend only) Whether to emit LLDP packets. Off by default.

receive-checksum-offload (bool) – since 0.104

(networkd backend only) If set to true, the hardware offload for
checksumming of ingress network packets is enabled. When unset,
the kernel’s default will be used.

transmit-checksum-offload (bool) – since 0.104

(networkd backend only) If set to true, the hardware offload for
checksumming of egress network packets is enabled. When unset,
the kernel’s default will be used.

tcp-segmentation-offload (bool) – since 0.104

(networkd backend only) If set to true, the TCP Segmentation
Offload (TSO) is enabled. When unset, the kernel’s default will
be used.

tcp6-segmentation-offload (bool) – since 0.104

(networkd backend only) If set to true, the TCP6 Segmentation
Offload (tx-tcp6-segmentation) is enabled. When unset, the
kernel’s default will be used.

generic-segmentation-offload (bool) – since 0.104

(networkd backend only) If set to true, the Generic Segmentation
Offload (GSO) is enabled. When unset, the kernel’s default will
be used.

generic-receive-offload (bool) – since 0.104

(networkd backend only) If set to true, the Generic Receive
Offload (GRO) is enabled. When unset, the kernel’s default will
be used.

large-receive-offload (bool) – since 0.104

(networkd backend only) If set to true, the Generic Receive
Offload (GRO) is enabled. When unset, the kernel’s default will
be used.

openvswitch (mapping) – since 0.100

This provides additional configuration for the network device for openvswitch.
If openvswitch is not available on the system, netplan treats the presence of
openvswitch configuration as an error.

Any supported network device that is declared with the openvswitch mapping
(or any bond/bridge that includes an interface with an openvswitch configuration)
will be created in openvswitch instead of the defined renderer.
In the case of a vlan definition declared the same way, netplan will create
a fake VLAN bridge in openvswitch with the requested vlan properties.

external-ids (mapping) – since 0.100

Passed-through directly to OpenVSwitch

other-config (mapping) – since 0.100

Passed-through directly to OpenVSwitch

lacp (scalar) – since 0.100

Valid for bond interfaces. Accepts active, passive or off (the default).

fail-mode (scalar) – since 0.100

Valid for bridge interfaces. Accepts secure or standalone (the default).

mcast-snooping (bool) – since 0.100

Valid for bridge interfaces. False by default.

protocols (sequence of scalars) – since 0.100

Valid for bridge interfaces or the network section. List of protocols to be used when
negotiating a connection with the controller. Accepts OpenFlow10, OpenFlow11,
OpenFlow12, OpenFlow13, OpenFlow14, OpenFlow15 and OpenFlow16.

rstp (bool) – since 0.100

Valid for bridge interfaces. False by default.

controller (mapping) – since 0.100

Valid for bridge interfaces. Specify an external OpenFlow controller.

addresses (sequence of scalars): Set the list of addresses to use for the controller targets. The
syntax of these addresses is as defined in ovs-vsctl(8). Example:
addresses: [tcp:127.0.0.1:6653, "ssl:[fe80::1234%eth0]:6653"]
connection-mode (scalar): Set the connection mode for the controller. Supported options are
in-band and out-of-band. The default is in-band.

ports (sequence of sequence of scalars) – since 0.100

OpenvSwitch patch ports. Each port is declared as a pair of names
which can be referenced as interfaces in dependent virtual devices
(bonds, bridges).

Example:

  openvswitch:
    ports:
      - [patch0-1, patch1-0]

ssl (mapping) – since 0.100

Valid for global openvswitch settings. Options for configuring SSL
server endpoint for the switch.

ca-cert (scalar): Path to a file containing the CA certificate to be used.
certificate (scalar): Path to a file containing the server certificate.
private-key (scalar): Path to a file containing the private key for the server.

Common properties for all device types

renderer (scalar)

Use the given networking backend for this definition. Currently supported are
networkd and NetworkManager. This property can be specified globally
in network:, for a device type (in e. g. ethernets:) or
for a particular device definition. Default is networkd.

(Since 0.99) The renderer property has one additional acceptable value for vlan
objects (i. e. defined in vlans:): sriov. If a vlan is defined with the
sriov renderer for an SR-IOV Virtual Function interface, this causes netplan to
set up a hardware VLAN filter for it. There can be only one defined per VF.

dhcp4 (bool)

Enable DHCP for IPv4. Off by default.

dhcp6 (bool)

Enable DHCP for IPv6. Off by default. This covers both stateless DHCP -
where the DHCP server supplies information like DNS nameservers but not the
IP address - and stateful DHCP, where the server provides both the address
and the other information.

If you are in an IPv6-only environment with completely stateless
autoconfiguration (SLAAC with RDNSS), this option can be set to cause the
interface to be brought up. (Setting accept-ra alone is not sufficient.)
Autoconfiguration will still honour the contents of the router advertisement
and only use DHCP if requested in the RA.

Note that rdnssd(8) is required to use RDNSS with networkd. No extra
software is required for NetworkManager.

ipv6-mtu (scalar) – since 0.98

Set the IPv6 MTU (only supported with networkd backend). Note
that needing to set this is an unusual requirement.

Requires feature: ipv6-mtu

ipv6-privacy (bool)

Enable IPv6 Privacy Extensions (RFC 4941) for the specified interface, and
prefer temporary addresses. Defaults to false - no privacy extensions. There
is currently no way to have a private address but prefer the public address.

link-local (sequence of scalars)

Configure the link-local addresses to bring up. Valid options are ‘ipv4’
and ‘ipv6’, which respectively allow enabling IPv4 and IPv6 link local
addressing. If this field is not defined, the default is to enable only
IPv6 link-local addresses. If the field is defined but configured as an
empty set, IPv6 link-local addresses are disabled as well as IPv4 link-
local addresses.

This feature enables or disables link-local addresses for a protocol, but
the actual implementation differs per backend. On networkd, this directly
changes the behavior and may add an extra address on an interface. When
using the NetworkManager backend, enabling link-local has no effect if the
interface also has DHCP enabled.

Example to enable only IPv4 link-local: link-local: [ ipv4 ]
Example to enable all link-local addresses: link-local: [ ipv4, ipv6 ]
Example to disable all link-local addresses: link-local: [ ]

ignore-carrier (bool) – since 0.104

(networkd backend only) Allow the specified interface to be configured even
if it has no carrier.

critical (bool)

Designate the connection as “critical to the system”, meaning that special
care will be taken by to not release the assigned IP when the daemon is
restarted. (not recognized by NetworkManager)

dhcp-identifier (scalar)

(networkd backend only) Sets the source of DHCPv4 client identifier. If mac
is specified, the MAC address of the link is used. If this option is omitted,
or if duid is specified, networkd will generate an RFC4361-compliant client
identifier for the interface by combining the link’s IAID and DUID.

dhcp4-overrides (mapping)

(networkd backend only) Overrides default DHCP behavior; see the
DHCP Overrides section below.

dhcp6-overrides (mapping)

(networkd backend only) Overrides default DHCP behavior; see the
DHCP Overrides section below.

accept-ra (bool)

Accept Router Advertisement that would have the kernel configure IPv6 by itself.
When enabled, accept Router Advertisements. When disabled, do not respond to
Router Advertisements. If unset use the host kernel default setting.

addresses (sequence of scalars and mappings)

Add static addresses to the interface in addition to the ones received
through DHCP or RA. Each sequence entry is in CIDR notation, i. e. of the
form addr/prefixlen. addr is an IPv4 or IPv6 address as recognized
by inet_pton(3) and prefixlen the number of bits of the subnet.

For virtual devices (bridges, bonds, vlan) if there is no address
configured and DHCP is disabled, the interface may still be brought online,
but will not be addressable from the network.

In addition to the addresses themselves one can specify configuration
parameters as mappings. Current supported options are:

lifetime (scalar) – since 0.100: Default: forever. This can be forever or 0 and corresponds
to the PreferredLifetime option in systemd-networkd’s Address
section. Currently supported on the networkd backend only.
label (scalar) – since 0.100: An IP address label, equivalent to the ip address label
command. Currently supported on the networkd backend only.

Example: addresses: [192.168.14.2/24, "2001:1::1/64"]

Example:

  ethernets:
    eth0:
      addresses:
        - 10.0.0.15/24:
            lifetime: 0
            label: "maas"
        - "2001:1::1/64"

ipv6-address-generation (scalar) – since 0.99

Configure method for creating the address for use with RFC4862 IPv6
Stateless Address Autoconfiguration (only supported with NetworkManager
backend). Possible values are eui64 or stable-privacy.

ipv6-address-token (scalar) – since 0.100

Define an IPv6 address token for creating a static interface identifier for
IPv6 Stateless Address Autoconfiguration. This is mutually exclusive with
ipv6-address-generation.

gateway4, gateway6 (scalar)

Deprecated, see Default routes.
Set default gateway for IPv4/6, for manual address configuration. This
requires setting addresses too. Gateway IPs must be in a form
recognized by inet_pton(3). There should only be a single gateway
per IP address family set in your global config, to make it unambiguous.
If you need multiple default routes, please define them via
routing-policy.

Example for IPv4: gateway4: 172.16.0.1
Example for IPv6: gateway6: "2001:4::1"

nameservers (mapping)

Set DNS servers and search domains, for manual address configuration. There
are two supported fields: addresses: is a list of IPv4 or IPv6 addresses
similar to gateway*, and search: is a list of search domains.

Example:

  ethernets:
    id0:
      [...]
      nameservers:
        search: [lab, home]
        addresses: [8.8.8.8, "FEDC::1"]

macaddress (scalar)

Set the device’s MAC address. The MAC address must be in the form
“XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX”.

Note: This will not work reliably for devices matched by name
only and rendered by networkd, due to interactions with device
renaming in udev. Match devices by MAC when setting MAC addresses.

Example:

  ethernets:
    id0:
      match:
        macaddress: 52:54:00:6b:3c:58
      [...]
      macaddress: 52:54:00:6b:3c:59

mtu (scalar)

Set the Maximum Transmission Unit for the interface. The default is 1500.
Valid values depend on your network interface.

Note: This will not work reliably for devices matched by name
only and rendered by networkd, due to interactions with device
renaming in udev. Match devices by MAC when setting MTU.

optional (bool)

An optional device is not required for booting. Normally, networkd will
wait some time for device to become configured before proceeding with
booting. However, if a device is marked as optional, networkd will not wait
for it. This is only supported by networkd, and the default is false.

Example:

  ethernets:
    eth7:
      # this is plugged into a test network that is often
      # down - don't wait for it to come up during boot.
      dhcp4: true
      optional: true

optional-addresses (sequence of scalars)

Specify types of addresses that are not required for a device to be
considered online. This changes the behavior of backends at boot time to
avoid waiting for addresses that are marked optional, and thus consider
the interface as “usable” sooner. This does not disable these addresses,
which will be brought up anyway.

Example:

  ethernets:
    eth7:
      dhcp4: true
      dhcp6: true
      optional-addresses: [ ipv4-ll, dhcp6 ]

activation-mode (scalar) – since 0.103

Allows specifying the management policy of the selected interface. By
default, netplan brings up any configured interface if possible. Using the
activation-mode setting users can override that behavior by either
specifying manual, to hand over control over the interface state to the
administrator or (for networkd backend only) off to force the link
in a down state at all times. Any interface with activation-mode
defined is implicitly considered optional.
Supported officially as of networkd v248+.

Example:

  ethernets:
    eth1:
      # this interface will not be put into an UP state automatically
      dhcp4: true
      activation-mode: manual

routes (sequence of mappings)

Configure static routing for the device; see the Routing section below.

routing-policy (sequence of mappings)

Configure policy routing for the device; see the Routing section below.

DHCP Overrides

Several DHCP behavior overrides are available. Most currently only have any
effect when using the networkd backend, with the exception of use-routes
and route-metric.

Overrides only have an effect if the corresponding dhcp4 or dhcp6 is
set to true.

If both dhcp4 and dhcp6 are true, the networkd backend requires
that dhcp4-overrides and dhcp6-overrides contain the same keys and
values. If the values do not match, an error will be shown and the network
configuration will not be applied.

When using the NetworkManager backend, different values may be specified for
dhcp4-overrides and dhcp6-overrides, and will be applied to the DHCP
client processes as specified in the netplan YAML.

dhcp4-overrides, dhcp6-overrides (mapping)

The dhcp4-overrides and dhcp6-overrides mappings override the
default DHCP behavior.

use-dns (bool)

Default: true. When true, the DNS servers received from the
DHCP server will be used and take precedence over any statically
configured ones. Currently only has an effect on the networkd
backend.

use-ntp (bool)

Default: true. When true, the NTP servers received from the
DHCP server will be used by systemd-timesyncd and take precedence
over any statically configured ones. Currently only has an effect on
the networkd backend.

send-hostname (bool)

Default: true. When true, the machine’s hostname will be sent
to the DHCP server. Currently only has an effect on the networkd
backend.

use-hostname (bool)

Default: true. When true, the hostname received from the DHCP
server will be set as the transient hostname of the system. Currently
only has an effect on the networkd backend.

use-mtu (bool)

Default: true. When true, the MTU received from the DHCP
server will be set as the MTU of the network interface. When false,
the MTU advertised by the DHCP server will be ignored. Currently only
has an effect on the networkd backend.

hostname (scalar)

Use this value for the hostname which is sent to the DHCP server,
instead of machine’s hostname. Currently only has an effect on the
networkd backend.

use-routes (bool)

Default: true. When true, the routes received from the DHCP
server will be installed in the routing table normally. When set to
false, routes from the DHCP server will be ignored: in this case,
the user is responsible for adding static routes if necessary for
correct network operation. This allows users to avoid installing a
default gateway for interfaces configured via DHCP. Available for
both the networkd and NetworkManager backends.

route-metric (scalar)

Use this value for default metric for automatically-added routes.
Use this to prioritize routes for devices by setting a lower metric
on a preferred interface. Available for both the networkd and
NetworkManager backends.

use-domains (scalar) – since 0.98

Takes a boolean, or the special value “route”. When true, the domain
name received from the DHCP server will be used as DNS search domain
over this link, similar to the effect of the Domains= setting. If set
to “route”, the domain name received from the DHCP server will be
used for routing DNS queries only, but not for searching, similar to
the effect of the Domains= setting when the argument is prefixed with
“~”.

Requires feature: dhcp-use-domains

Routing

Complex routing is possible with netplan. Standard static routes as well
as policy routing using routing tables are supported via the networkd
backend.

These options are available for all types of interfaces.

Default routes

The most common need for routing concerns the definition of default routes to
reach the wider Internet. Those default routes can only defined once per IP family
and routing table. A typical example would look like the following:

eth0:
  [...]
  routes:
  - to: default # could be 0/0 or 0.0.0.0/0 optionally
    via: 10.0.0.1
    metric: 100
    on-link: true
  - to: default # could be ::/0 optionally
    via: cf02:de:ad:be:ef::2
eth1:
  [...]
  routes:
  - to: default
    via: 172.134.67.1
    metric: 100
    on-link: true
    table: 76 # Not on the main routing table, does not conflict with the eth0 default route

routes (mapping)

The routes block defines standard static routes for an interface.
At least to must be specified. If type is local or nat a
default scope of host is assumed.
If type is unicast and no gateway (via) is given or type is
broadcast, multicast or anycast a default scope of link
is assumend. Otherwise, a global scope is the default setting.

For from, to, and via, both IPv4 and IPv6 addresses are
recognized, and must be in the form addr/prefixlen or addr.

from (scalar): Set a source IP address for traffic going through the route.
(NetworkManager: as of v1.8.0)
to (scalar): Destination address for the route.
via (scalar): Address to the gateway to use for this route.
on-link (bool): When set to “true”, specifies that the route is directly connected
to the interface.
(NetworkManager: as of v1.12.0 for IPv4 and v1.18.0 for IPv6)
metric (scalar): The relative priority of the route. Must be a positive integer value.
type (scalar): The type of route. Valid options are “unicast” (default), “anycast”,
“blackhole”, “broadcast”, “local”, “multicast”, “nat”, “prohibit”,
“throw”, “unreachable” or “xresolve”.
scope (scalar): The route scope, how wide-ranging it is to the network. Possible
values are “global”, “link”, or “host”.
table (scalar): The table number to use for the route. In some scenarios, it may be
useful to set routes in a separate routing table. It may also be used
to refer to routing policy rules which also accept a table
parameter. Allowed values are positive integers starting from 1.
Some values are already in use to refer to specific routing tables:
see /etc/iproute2/rt_tables.
(NetworkManager: as of v1.10.0)
mtu (scalar) – since 0.101: The MTU to be used for the route, in bytes. Must be a positive integer
value.
congestion-window (scalar) – since 0.102: The congestion window to be used for the route, represented by number
of segments. Must be a positive integer value.
advertised-receive-window (scalar) – since 0.102: The receive window to be advertised for the route, represented by
number of segments. Must be a positive integer value.

routing-policy (mapping)

The routing-policy block defines extra routing policy for a network,
where traffic may be handled specially based on the source IP, firewall
marking, etc.

For from, to, both IPv4 and IPv6 addresses are recognized, and
must be in the form addr/prefixlen or addr.

from (scalar): Set a source IP address to match traffic for this policy rule.
to (scalar): Match on traffic going to the specified destination.
table (scalar): The table number to match for the route. In some scenarios, it may be
useful to set routes in a separate routing table. It may also be used
to refer to routes which also accept a table parameter.
Allowed values are positive integers starting from 1.
Some values are already in use to refer to specific routing tables:
see /etc/iproute2/rt_tables.
priority (scalar): Specify a priority for the routing policy rule, to influence the order
in which routing rules are processed. A higher number means lower
priority: rules are processed in order by increasing priority number.
mark (scalar): Have this routing policy rule match on traffic that has been marked
by the iptables firewall with this value. Allowed values are positive
integers starting from 1.
type-of-service (scalar): Match this policy rule based on the type of service number applied to
the traffic.

Authentication

Netplan supports advanced authentication settings for ethernet and wifi
interfaces, as well as individual wifi networks, by means of the auth block.

auth (mapping)

Specifies authentication settings for a device of type ethernets:, or
an access-points: entry on a wifis: device.

The auth block supports the following properties:

key-management (scalar): The supported key management modes are none (no key management);
psk (WPA with pre-shared key, common for home wifi); eap (WPA
with EAP, common for enterprise wifi); and 802.1x (used primarily
for wired Ethernet connections).
password (scalar): The password string for EAP, or the pre-shared key for WPA-PSK.

The following properties can be used if key-management is eap
or 802.1x:

method (scalar): The EAP method to use. The supported EAP methods are tls (TLS),
peap (Protected EAP), and ttls (Tunneled TLS).
identity (scalar): The identity to use for EAP.
anonymous-identity (scalar): The identity to pass over the unencrypted channel if the chosen EAP
method supports passing a different tunnelled identity.
ca-certificate (scalar): Path to a file with one or more trusted certificate authority (CA)
certificates.
client-certificate (scalar): Path to a file containing the certificate to be used by the client
during authentication.
client-key (scalar): Path to a file containing the private key corresponding to
client-certificate.
client-key-password (scalar): Password to use to decrypt the private key specified in
client-key if it is encrypted.
phase2-auth (scalar) – since 0.99: Phase 2 authentication mechanism.

Properties for device type `ethernets:`

Ethernet device definitions, beyond common ones described above, also support
some additional properties that can be used for SR-IOV devices.

link (scalar) – since 0.99: (SR-IOV devices only) The link property declares the device as a
Virtual Function of the selected Physical Function device, as identified
by the given netplan id.

Example:

ethernets:
  enp1: {...}
  enp1s16f1:
    link: enp1

virtual-function-count (scalar) – since 0.99

(SR-IOV devices only) In certain special cases VFs might need to be
configured outside of netplan. For such configurations virtual-function-count
can be optionally used to set an explicit number of Virtual Functions for
the given Physical Function. If unset, the default is to create only as many
VFs as are defined in the netplan configuration. This should be used for special
cases only.

Requires feature: sriov

embedded-switch-mode (scalar) – since 0.104

(SR-IOV devices only) Change the operational mode of the embedded switch
of a supported SmartNIC PCI device (e.g. Mellanox ConnectX-5). Possible
values are switchdev or legacy, if unspecified the vendor’s
default configuration is used.

Requires feature: eswitch-mode

delay-virtual-functions-rebind (bool) – since 0.104

(SR-IOV devices only) Delay rebinding of SR-IOV virtual functions to its
driver after changing the embedded-switch-mode setting to a later stage.
Can be enabled when bonding/VF LAG is in use. Defaults to false.

Requires feature: eswitch-mode

Properties for device type `modems:`

GSM/CDMA modem configuration is only supported for the NetworkManager
backend. systemd-networkd does not support modems.

Requires feature: modems

apn (scalar) – since 0.99: Set the carrier APN (Access Point Name). This can be omitted if
auto-config is enabled.
auto-config (bool) – since 0.99: Specify whether to try and autoconfigure the modem by doing a lookup of
the carrier against the Mobile Broadband Provider database. This may not
work for all carriers.
device-id (scalar) – since 0.99: Specify the device ID (as given by the WWAN management service) of the
modem to match. This can be found using mmcli.
network-id (scalar) – since 0.99: Specify the Network ID (GSM LAI format). If this is specified, the device
will not roam networks.
number (scalar) – since 0.99: The number to dial to establish the connection to the mobile broadband
network. (Deprecated for GSM)
password (scalar) – since 0.99: Specify the password used to authenticate with the carrier network. This
can be omitted if auto-config is enabled.
pin (scalar) – since 0.99: Specify the SIM PIN to allow it to operate if a PIN is set.
sim-id (scalar) – since 0.99: Specify the SIM unique identifier (as given by the WWAN management service)
which this connection applies to. If given, the connection will apply to
any device also allowed by device-id which contains a SIM card matching
the given identifier.
sim-operator-id (scalar) – since 0.99: Specify the MCC/MNC string (such as “310260” or “21601”) which identifies
the carrier that this connection should apply to. If given, the connection
will apply to any device also allowed by device-id and sim-id
which contains a SIM card provisioned by the given operator.
username (scalar) – since 0.99: Specify the username used to authentiate with the carrier network. This
can be omitted if auto-config is enabled.

Properties for device type `wifis:`

Note that systemd-networkd does not natively support wifi, so you need
wpasupplicant installed if you let the networkd renderer handle wifi.

access-points (mapping)

This provides pre-configured connections to NetworkManager. Note that
users can of course select other access points/SSIDs. The keys of the
mapping are the SSIDs, and the values are mappings with the following
supported properties:

password (scalar)

Enable WPA2 authentication and set the passphrase for it. If neither
this nor an auth block are given, the network is assumed to be
open. The setting

   password: "S3kr1t"

is equivalent to

   auth:
     key-management: psk
     password: "S3kr1t"

mode (scalar)

Possible access point modes are infrastructure (the default),
ap (create an access point to which other devices can connect),
and adhoc (peer to peer networks without a central access point).
ap is only supported with NetworkManager.

bssid (scalar) – since 0.99

If specified, directs the device to only associate with the given
access point.

band (scalar) – since 0.99

Possible bands are 5GHz (for 5GHz 802.11a) and 2.4GHz
(for 2.4GHz 802.11), do not restrict the 802.11 frequency band of the
network if unset (the default).

channel (scalar) – since 0.99

Wireless channel to use for the Wi-Fi connection. Because channel
numbers overlap between bands, this property takes effect only if
the band property is also set.

hidden (bool) – since 0.100

Set to true to change the SSID scan technique for connecting to
hidden WiFi networks. Note this may have slower performance compared
to false (the default) when connecting to publicly broadcast
SSIDs.

wakeonwlan (sequence of scalars) – since 0.99

This enables WakeOnWLan on supported devices. Not all drivers support all
options. May be any combination of any, disconnect, magic_pkt,
gtk_rekey_failure, eap_identity_req, four_way_handshake,
rfkill_release or tcp (NetworkManager only). Or the exclusive
default flag (the default).

Properties for device type `bridges:`

interfaces (sequence of scalars)

All devices matching this ID list will be added to the bridge. This may
be an empty list, in which case the bridge will be brought online with
no member interfaces.

Example:

    ethernets:
      switchports:
        match: {name: "enp2*"}
    [...]
    bridges:
      br0:
        interfaces: [switchports]

parameters (mapping)

Customization parameters for special bridging options. Time intervals
may need to be expressed as a number of seconds or milliseconds: the
default value type is specified below. If necessary, time intervals can
be qualified using a time suffix (such as “s” for seconds, “ms” for
milliseconds) to allow for more control over its behavior.

ageing-time (scalar): Set the period of time to keep a MAC address in the forwarding
database after a packet is received. This maps to the AgeingTimeSec=
property when the networkd renderer is used. If no time suffix is
specified, the value will be interpreted as seconds.
priority (scalar): Set the priority value for the bridge. This value should be a
number between 0 and 65535. Lower values mean higher
priority. The bridge with the higher priority will be elected as
the root bridge.
port-priority (scalar): Set the port priority to . The priority value is
a number between 0 and 63. This metric is used in the
designated port and root port selection algorithms.
forward-delay (scalar): Specify the period of time the bridge will remain in Listening and
Learning states before getting to the Forwarding state. This field
maps to the ForwardDelaySec= property for the networkd renderer.
If no time suffix is specified, the value will be interpreted as
seconds.
hello-time (scalar): Specify the interval between two hello packets being sent out from
the root and designated bridges. Hello packets communicate
information about the network topology. When the networkd renderer
is used, this maps to the HelloTimeSec= property. If no time suffix
is specified, the value will be interpreted as seconds.
max-age (scalar): Set the maximum age of a hello packet. If the last hello packet is
older than that value, the bridge will attempt to become the root
bridge. This maps to the MaxAgeSec= property when the networkd
renderer is used. If no time suffix is specified, the value will be
interpreted as seconds.
path-cost (scalar): Set the cost of a path on the bridge. Faster interfaces should have
a lower cost. This allows a finer control on the network topology
so that the fastest paths are available whenever possible.
stp (bool): Define whether the bridge should use Spanning Tree Protocol. The
default value is “true”, which means that Spanning Tree should be
used.

Properties for device type `bonds:`

interfaces (sequence of scalars)

All devices matching this ID list will be added to the bond.

Example:

    ethernets:
      switchports:
        match: {name: "enp2*"}
    [...]
    bonds:
      bond0:
        interfaces: [switchports]

parameters (mapping)

Customization parameters for special bonding options. Time intervals
may need to be expressed as a number of seconds or milliseconds: the
default value type is specified below. If necessary, time intervals can
be qualified using a time suffix (such as “s” for seconds, “ms” for
milliseconds) to allow for more control over its behavior.

mode (scalar)

Set the bonding mode used for the interfaces. The default is
balance-rr (round robin). Possible values are balance-rr,
active-backup, balance-xor, broadcast, 802.3ad,
balance-tlb, and balance-alb.
For OpenVSwitch active-backup and the additional modes
balance-tcp and balance-slb are supported.

lacp-rate (scalar)

Set the rate at which LACPDUs are transmitted. This is only useful
in 802.3ad mode. Possible values are slow (30 seconds, default),
and fast (every second).

mii-monitor-interval (scalar)

Specifies the interval for MII monitoring (verifying if an interface
of the bond has carrier). The default is 0; which disables MII
monitoring. This is equivalent to the MIIMonitorSec= field for the
networkd backend. If no time suffix is specified, the value will be
interpreted as milliseconds.

min-links (scalar)

The minimum number of links up in a bond to consider the bond
interface to be up.

transmit-hash-policy (scalar)

Specifies the transmit hash policy for the selection of slaves. This
is only useful in balance-xor, 802.3ad and balance-tlb modes.
Possible values are layer2, layer3+4, layer2+3,
encap2+3, and encap3+4.

ad-select (scalar)

Set the aggregation selection mode. Possible values are stable,
bandwidth, and count. This option is only used in 802.3ad
mode.

all-slaves-active (bool)

If the bond should drop duplicate frames received on inactive ports,
set this option to false. If they should be delivered, set this
option to true. The default value is false, and is the desirable
behavior in most situations.

arp-interval (scalar)

Set the interval value for how frequently ARP link monitoring should
happen. The default value is 0, which disables ARP monitoring.
For the networkd backend, this maps to the ARPIntervalSec= property.
If no time suffix is specified, the value will be interpreted as
milliseconds.

arp-ip-targets (sequence of scalars)

IPs of other hosts on the link which should be sent ARP requests in
order to validate that a slave is up. This option is only used when
arp-interval is set to a value other than 0. At least one IP
address must be given for ARP link monitoring to function. Only IPv4
addresses are supported. You can specify up to 16 IP addresses. The
default value is an empty list.

arp-validate (scalar)

Configure how ARP replies are to be validated when using ARP link
monitoring. Possible values are none, active, backup,
and all.

arp-all-targets (scalar)

Specify whether to use any ARP IP target being up as sufficient for
a slave to be considered up; or if all the targets must be up. This
is only used for active-backup mode when arp-validate is
enabled. Possible values are any and all.

up-delay (scalar)

Specify the delay before enabling a link once the link is physically
up. The default value is 0. This maps to the UpDelaySec= property
for the networkd renderer. This option is only valid for the miimon
link monitor. If no time suffix is specified, the value will be
interpreted as milliseconds.

down-delay (scalar)

Specify the delay before disabling a link once the link has been
lost. The default value is 0. This maps to the DownDelaySec=
property for the networkd renderer. This option is only valid for the
miimon link monitor. If no time suffix is specified, the value will
be interpreted as milliseconds.

fail-over-mac-policy (scalar)

Set whether to set all slaves to the same MAC address when adding
them to the bond, or how else the system should handle MAC addresses.
The possible values are none, active, and follow.

gratuitous-arp (scalar)

Specify how many ARP packets to send after failover. Once a link is
up on a new slave, a notification is sent and possibly repeated if
this value is set to a number greater than 1. The default value
is 1 and valid values are between 1 and 255. This only
affects active-backup mode.

For historical reasons, the misspelling gratuitious-arp is also
accepted and has the same function.

packets-per-slave (scalar)

In balance-rr mode, specifies the number of packets to transmit
on a slave before switching to the next. When this value is set to
0, slaves are chosen at random. Allowable values are between
0 and 65535. The default value is 1. This setting is
only used in balance-rr mode.

primary-reselect-policy (scalar)

Set the reselection policy for the primary slave. On failure of the
active slave, the system will use this policy to decide how the new
active slave will be chosen and how recovery will be handled. The
possible values are always, better, and failure.

resend-igmp (scalar)

In modes balance-rr, active-backup, balance-tlb and
balance-alb, a failover can switch IGMP traffic from one
slave to another.

This parameter specifies how many IGMP membership reports
are issued on a failover event. Values range from 0 to 255. 0
disables sending membership reports. Otherwise, the first
membership report is sent on failover and subsequent reports
are sent at 200ms intervals.

learn-packet-interval (scalar)

Specify the interval between sending learning packets to
each slave. The value range is between 1 and 0x7fffffff.
The default value is 1. This option only affects balance-tlb
and balance-alb modes. Using the networkd renderer, this field
maps to the LearnPacketIntervalSec= property. If no time suffix is
specified, the value will be interpreted as seconds.

primary (scalar)

Specify a device to be used as a primary slave, or preferred device
to use as a slave for the bond (ie. the preferred device to send
data through), whenever it is available. This only affects
active-backup, balance-alb, and balance-tlb modes.

Properties for device type `tunnels:`

Tunnels allow traffic to pass as if it was between systems on the same local
network, although systems may be far from each other but reachable via the
Internet. They may be used to support IPv6 traffic on a network where the ISP
does not provide the service, or to extend and “connect” separate local
networks. Please see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunneling_protocol for
more general information about tunnels.

mode (scalar)

Defines the tunnel mode. Valid options are sit, gre, ip6gre,
ipip, ipip6, ip6ip6, vti, vti6 and wireguard.
Additionally, the networkd backend also supports gretap and
ip6gretap modes.
In addition, the NetworkManager backend supports isatap tunnels.

local (scalar)

Defines the address of the local endpoint of the tunnel.

remote (scalar)

Defines the address of the remote endpoint of the tunnel.

ttl (scalar) – since 0.103

Defines the TTL of the tunnel.

key (scalar or mapping)

Define keys to use for the tunnel. The key can be a number or a dotted
quad (an IPv4 address). For wireguard it can be a base64-encoded
private key or (as of networkd v242+) an absolute path to a file,
containing the private key (since 0.100).
It is used for identification of IP transforms. This is only required
for vti and vti6 when using the networkd backend, and for
gre or ip6gre tunnels when using the NetworkManager backend.

This field may be used as a scalar (meaning that a single key is
specified and to be used for input, output and private key), or as a
mapping, where you can further specify input/output/private.

input (scalar): The input key for the tunnel
output (scalar): The output key for the tunnel
private (scalar) – since 0.100: A base64-encoded private key required for WireGuard tunnels. When the
systemd-networkd backend (v242+) is used, this can also be an
absolute path to a file containing the private key.

keys (scalar or mapping)

Alternate name for the key field. See above.

Examples:

tunnels:
  tun0:
    mode: gre
    local: ...
    remote: ...
    keys:
      input: 1234
      output: 5678

tunnels:
  tun0:
    mode: vti6
    local: ...
    remote: ...
    key: 59568549

tunnels:
  wg0:
    mode: wireguard
    addresses: [...]
    peers:
      - keys:
          public: rlbInAj0qV69CysWPQY7KEBnKxpYCpaWqOs/dLevdWc=
          shared: /path/to/shared.key
        ...
    key: mNb7OIIXTdgW4khM7OFlzJ+UPs7lmcWHV7xjPgakMkQ=

tunnels:
  wg0:
    mode: wireguard
    addresses: [...]
    peers:
      - keys:
          public: rlbInAj0qV69CysWPQY7KEBnKxpYCpaWqOs/dLevdWc=
        ...
    keys:
      private: /path/to/priv.key

WireGuard specific keys:

mark (scalar) – since 0.100: Firewall mark for outgoing WireGuard packets from this interface,
optional.
port (scalar) – since 0.100: UDP port to listen at or auto. Optional, defaults to auto.
peers (sequence of mappings) – since 0.100: A list of peers, each having keys documented below.

Example:

tunnels:
    wg0:
        mode: wireguard
        key: /path/to/private.key
        mark: 42
        port: 5182
        peers:
            - keys:
                  public: rlbInAj0qV69CysWPQY7KEBnKxpYCpaWqOs/dLevdWc=
              allowed-ips: [0.0.0.0/0, "2001:fe:ad:de:ad:be:ef:1/24"]
              keepalive: 23
              endpoint: 1.2.3.4:5
            - keys:
                  public: M9nt4YujIOmNrRmpIRTmYSfMdrpvE7u6WkG8FY8WjG4=
                  shared: /some/shared.key
              allowed-ips: [10.10.10.20/24]
              keepalive: 22
              endpoint: 5.4.3.2:1

endpoint (scalar) – since 0.100

Remote endpoint IPv4/IPv6 address or a hostname, followed by a colon
and a port number.

allowed-ips (sequence of scalars) – since 0.100

A list of IP (v4 or v6) addresses with CIDR masks from which this peer
is allowed to send incoming traffic and to which outgoing traffic for
this peer is directed. The catch-all 0.0.0.0/0 may be specified for
matching all IPv4 addresses, and ::/0 may be specified for matching
all IPv6 addresses.

keepalive (scalar) – since 0.100

An interval in seconds, between 1 and 65535 inclusive, of how often to
send an authenticated empty packet to the peer for the purpose of
keeping a stateful firewall or NAT mapping valid persistently. Optional.

keys (mapping) – since 0.100

Define keys to use for the WireGuard peers.

This field can be used as a mapping, where you can further specify the
public and shared keys.

public (scalar) – since 0.100: A base64-encoded public key, required for WireGuard peers.
shared (scalar) – since 0.100: A base64-encoded preshared key. Optional for WireGuard peers.
When the systemd-networkd backend (v242+) is used, this can
also be an absolute path to a file containing the preshared key.

Properties for device type `vlans:`

id (scalar): VLAN ID, a number between 0 and 4094.
link (scalar): netplan ID of the underlying device definition on which this VLAN gets
created.

Example:

ethernets:
  eno1: {...}
vlans:
  en-intra:
    id: 1
    link: eno1
    dhcp4: yes
  en-vpn:
    id: 2
    link: eno1
    addresses: ...

Properties for device type `nm-devices:`

The nm-devices device type is for internal use only and should not be used in normal configuration files. It enables a fallback mode for unsupported settings, using the passthrough mapping.

Backend-specific configuration parameters

In addition to the other fields available to configure interfaces, some
backends may require to record some of their own parameters in netplan,
especially if the netplan definitions are generated automatically by the
consumer of that backend. Currently, this is only used with NetworkManager.

networkmanager (mapping) – since 0.99

Keeps the NetworkManager-specific configuration parameters used by the
daemon to recognize connections.

name (scalar) – since 0.99: Set the display name for the connection.
uuid (scalar) – since 0.99: Defines the UUID (unique identifier) for this connection, as
generated by NetworkManager itself.
stable-id (scalar) – since 0.99: Defines the stable ID (a different form of a connection name) used
by NetworkManager in case the name of the connection might otherwise
change, such as when sharing connections between users.
device (scalar) – since 0.99: Defines the interface name for which this connection applies.
passthrough (mapping) – since 0.102: Can be used as a fallback mechanism to missing keyfile settings.

Examples

Configure an ethernet device with networkd, identified by its name, and enable
DHCP:

network:
  version: 2
  ethernets:
    eno1:
      dhcp4: true

This is an example of a static-configured interface with multiple IPv4 addresses
and multiple gateways with networkd, with equal route metric levels, and static
DNS nameservers (Google DNS for this example):

network:
  version: 2
  renderer: networkd
  ethernets:
    eno1:
      addresses:
      - 10.0.0.10/24
      - 11.0.0.11/24
      nameservers:
        addresses:
          - 8.8.8.8
          - 8.8.4.4
      routes:
      - to: 0.0.0.0/0
        via: 10.0.0.1
        metric: 100
      - to: 0.0.0.0/0
        via: 11.0.0.1
        metric: 100

This is a complex example which shows most available features:

network:
  version: 2
  # if specified, can only realistically have that value, as networkd cannot
  # render wifi/3G.
  renderer: NetworkManager
  ethernets:
    # opaque ID for physical interfaces, only referred to by other stanzas
    id0:
      match:
        macaddress: 00:11:22:33:44:55
      wakeonlan: true
      dhcp4: true
      addresses:
        - 192.168.14.2/24
        - 192.168.14.3/24
        - "2001:1::1/64"
      nameservers:
        search: [foo.local, bar.local]
        addresses: [8.8.8.8]
      routes:
        - to: default
          via: 192.168.14.1
        - to: default
          via: "2001:1::2"
        - to: 0.0.0.0/0
          via: 11.0.0.1
          table: 70
          on-link: true
          metric: 3
      routing-policy:
        - to: 10.0.0.0/8
          from: 192.168.14.2/24
          table: 70
          priority: 100
        - to: 20.0.0.0/8
          from: 192.168.14.3/24
          table: 70
          priority: 50
      # only networkd can render on-link routes and routing policies
      renderer: networkd
    lom:
      match:
        driver: ixgbe
      # you are responsible for setting tight enough match rules
      # that only match one device if you use set-name
      set-name: lom1
      dhcp6: true
    switchports:
      # all cards on second PCI bus unconfigured by
      # themselves, will be added to br0 below
      match:
        name: enp2*
      mtu: 1280
  wifis:
    all-wlans:
      # useful on a system where you know there is
      # only ever going to be one device
      match: {}
      access-points:
        "Joe's home":
          # mode defaults to "infrastructure" (client)
          password: "s3kr1t"
    # this creates an AP on wlp1s0 using hostapd
    # no match rules, thus the ID is the interface name
    wlp1s0:
      access-points:
        "guest":
           mode: ap
           # no WPA config implies default of open
  bridges:
    # the key name is the name for virtual (created) interfaces
    # no match: and set-name: allowed
    br0:
      # IDs of the components; switchports expands into multiple interfaces
      interfaces: [wlp1s0, switchports]
      dhcp4: true

Netplan reference

Introduction

General structure

Device configuration IDs

Common properties for physical device types

Common properties for all device types

DHCP Overrides

Routing

Default routes

Authentication

Properties for device type `ethernets:`

Properties for device type `modems:`

Properties for device type `wifis:`

Properties for device type `bridges:`

Properties for device type `bonds:`

Properties for device type `tunnels:`

Properties for device type `vlans:`

Properties for device type `nm-devices:`

Backend-specific configuration parameters

Examples

Table of contents

Netplan reference

Introduction

General structure

Device configuration IDs

Common properties for physical device types

Common properties for all device types

DHCP Overrides

Routing

Default routes

Authentication

Properties for device type ethernets:

Properties for device type modems:

Properties for device type wifis:

Properties for device type bridges:

Properties for device type bonds:

Properties for device type tunnels:

Properties for device type vlans:

Properties for device type nm-devices:

Backend-specific configuration parameters

Examples

Table of contents

Properties for device type `ethernets:`

Properties for device type `modems:`

Properties for device type `wifis:`

Properties for device type `bridges:`

Properties for device type `bonds:`

Properties for device type `tunnels:`

Properties for device type `vlans:`

Properties for device type `nm-devices:`