Changes/NetworkManager18

NetworkManager 1.6

Summary

Update to NetworkManager to version 1.6.

Owner

• Name: Lubomir Rintel
• Email: lkundrak@v3.sk
• Release notes owner:

Current status

• Targeted release: Fedora 26
• Last updated: 2017-01-25
• Tracker bug: none yet

Detailed Description

NetworkManager 1.6 will include significant changes and improvements:

• IPv6 connection sharing (prefix delegation to hotspots)
• Proxy support including autoconfiguration
• Dropped hard dependency on dhclient
• VPN plugins no longer depend on GUI

TODO: Update once 1.6 is actually released.

Benefit to Fedora

A major feature release, brings new features often requested by users.

Scope

• Proposal owners: Update NetworkManager, connection editor and VPN plugin packages.
• Other developers: N/A (not needed for this Change)
• Release engineering: N/A (not needed for this Change)
• Policies and guidelines: N/A (not needed for this Change)
• Trademark approval: N/A (not needed for this Change)

Upgrade/compatibility impact

We're not removing any functionality and keeping the ABI in place (though we add new libraries). The upgrades should be seamless.

How To Test

The usual test cases for NetworkManager will do. It would be great to test these areas:

• IPv6-enabled and legacy-free networks (no IPv4)
• Wireless access points with various security mechanisms (WPA, WEP, ...)
• Multiple links to the same network, wireless & wired
• Server setups, bonding, teaming, bridging, vlans (possibly stacked)
• Other tools that namange networking installed for testing interoperability: libvirt, Docker, VMWare, VirtualBox, systemd-networkd, ...
• A Mobile broadband connectivity dongle
• Bluetooth DUN & PAN enabled dongle or a phone
• VPN servers, concentrators
• Different desktop environemnts installed, to test integration: GNOME, KDE, Xfce, ...

The detailed tes plans:

Wireless

• Wireless
• WiFi
• WEP
• WPA
• GNOME Hotspot
• KDE Hotspot

VPN

• OpenVPN
• vpnc

Mobile connectivity

• Mobile Broadband
• Bluetooth PAN
• Cellular connection provider database

Advanced

• IPv6
• Ethernet
• Bonding
• Command line functionality
• DNS-over-SSL
• DNSSEC-trigger
• Connection assumption

User Experience

The users may notice new features available: IPv6 connectivity with hotspots, smaller dependency chain in server environments.

Dependencies

These are packages directly affected by this change. They will be updated to new major versions:

• NetworkManager
• network-manager-applet
• nm-connection-editor
• NetworkManager-openvpn
• NetworkManager-openswan
• NetworkManager-openconnect
• NetworkManager-vpnc
• NetworkManager-pptp
• NetworkManager-l2tp
• NetworkManager-iodine
• NetworkManager-ssh

Contingency Plan

It would be possible to revert the change by downgrading the affected packages (see "Dependencies" above). All packages would need to be downgraded. However, as the new version is compatible with the previous versions we don't anticipate the need to do this.

• Contingency mechanism: Revert the packages
• Contingency deadline: Beta freeze
• Blocks release? Yes

Documentation

We'll write extensive release notes upstream.

Release Notes

We'll need to digest the upstream NEWS into the Fedora release notes.