Photon Network Config Manager Command-line Interface (nmctl)

You can use network-config-manager (nmctl) to configure and introspect the state of the network links as seen by systemd-networkd. nmctl can be used to query and configure devices for Addresses, Routes, Gateways, DNS, NTP, Domain, and hostname. You can also use nmctl to create virtual NetDevs (VLAN, VXLAN, Bridge, Bond, and so on). You can configure various configuration of links such as WakeOnLanPassword, Port, BitsPerSecond, Duplex and Advertise, and so on. nmctl uses sd-bus, sd-device APIs to interact with systemd, systemd-networkd, systemd-resolved, systemd-hostnamed, and systemd-timesyncd via dbus. nmctl uses networkd verbs to explain output. nmctl can generate configurations that persist between reboots.

The following example shows the system status:

❯ nmctl
         System Name: zeus
              Kernel: Linux (5.10.152-3.ph4)
     systemd version: v252-1
        Architecture: x86-64
      Virtualization: vmware
    Operating System: VMware Photon OS/Linux
          Machine ID: aa6e4cb92bee4c1aa8b304eafe28166c
        System State: routable
        Online State: partial
           Addresses: fe80::982e:b0ff:fe07:cc12/64   on device cni-podman0
                      fe80::20c:29ff:fe64:cb18/64    on device eth0
                      172.16.130.145/24              on device eth1
                      172.16.130.144/24              on device eth0
                      127.0.0.1/8                    on device lo
                      fe80::20c:29ff:fe5f:d143/64    on device eth1
                      ::1/128                        on device lo
                      fe80::c027:acff:fe19:d741/64   on device vethe8dc6ac9
                      10.88.0.1/16                   on device cni-podman0
             Gateway: 172.16.130.2	                 on device eth1
                      172.16.130.2	                 on device eth0
                 DNS: 172.16.130.2 172.16.130.1 172.16.130.126
                 NTP: 10.128.152.81 10.166.1.120 10.188.26.119 10.84.55.42`

The following example shows the network status:

❯ nmctl status eth0
           Alternative names: eno1 enp11s0 ens192
                       Flags: UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST LOWERUP
                        Type: ether
                        Path: pci-0000:0b:00.0
                      Driver: vmxnet3
                      Vendor: VMware
                       Model: VMXNET3 Ethernet Controller
                   Link File: /usr/lib/systemd/network/99-default.link
                Network File: /etc/systemd/network/99-dhcp-en.network
                       State: routable (configured)
               Address State: routable
          IPv4 Address State: routable
          IPv6 Address State: degraded
                Online State: online
         Required for Online: yes
           Activation Policy: up
                  HW Address: 00:0c:29:64:cb:18 (VMware, Inc.)
                         MTU: 1500 (min: 60 max: 9000)
                      Duplex: full
                       Speed: 10000
                       QDISC: mq
              Queues (Tx/Rx): 2/2
             Tx Queue Length: 1000
IPv6 Address Generation Mode: eui64
                GSO Max Size: 65536 GSO Max Segments: 65535
                     Address: 10.197.103.228/23 (DHCPv4 via 10.142.7.86) lease time: 7200 seconds T1: 3600 seconds T2: 6300 seconds
                              fe80::20c:29ff:fe64:cb18/64
                     Gateway: 172.16.130.2
                         DNS: 172.16.130.3 172.16.130.4 172.16.130.5
                         NTP: 172.16.130.6 172.16.130.7 172.16.130.8 172.16.130.9
           DHCP6 Client DUID: DUID-EN/Vendor:0000ab119a69db91b911f3180000

To add DNS, use the following command:

nmctl add-dns dev eth0 dns 192.168.1.45 192.168.1.46

To set mtu, use the following command:

nmctl set-mtu dev eth0 mtu 1400

To set mac, use the following command:

nmctl set-mac dev eth0 mac 00:0c:29:3a:bc:11

To set link options, use the following command:

nmctl set-link-option dev eth0 arp yes mc yes amc no pcs no

To add a static address, use the following command:

nmctl add-addr dev eth0 a 192.168.1.45/24

To add a default gateway, use the following command:

nmctl add-default-gw dev eth0 gw 192.168.1.1 onlink  yes

The following example shows how to create VLAN via nmctl The following command creates .netdev and .network and assigns them to the underlying device. It sets all these file permissions to systemd-network automatically.

❯ nmctl create-vlan [VLAN name] dev [MASTER DEVICE] id [ID INTEGER] proto [PROTOCOL {802.1q|802.1ad}] Creates vlan netdev and network file

❯ sudo nmctl create-vlan vlan-95 dev eth0 id 19

The following example shows how to create VXLAN via nmctl:

❯ sudo nmctl create-vxlan vxlan-98 vni 32 local 192.168.1.2 remote 192.168.1.3 port 7777 independent yes

The following example shows how to create virtual routing and forwarding (VRF):

❯ sudo nmctl create-vrf test-vrf table 555                                                                                               
❯ ip -d link show test-vrf
4: test-vrf: <NOARP,MASTER,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 65575 qdisc noqueue state UP mode DEFAULT group default qlen 1000
    link/ether 86:ad:9b:50:83:1f brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff promiscuity 0 minmtu 1280 maxmtu 65575 
    vrf table 555 addrgenmode none numtxqueues 1 numrxqueues 1 gso_max_size 65536 gso_max_segs 65535  

The following example shows how to remove a virtual netdev:

❯ sudo nmctl remove-netdev vlan-95                                                                                         
❯ ip -d link show vlan-95 
Device "vlan-95" does not exist.

Note: nmctl not only removes the .netdev and .network files but also removes the virtual netdev.