+ On startup, NetworkManager tries to not interfere with + interfaces that are already configured. It does so by + generating a in-memory connection based on the interface + current configuration. +

+ If this generated connection matches one of the existing + persistent connections, the persistent connection gets + activated. If there is no match, the generated + connection gets activated as "external", which means + that the connection is considered as active, but + NetworkManager doesn't actually touch the interface. +

+ It is possible to disable this behavior by setting + keep-configuration to + no. In this way, on startup + NetworkManager always tries to activate the most + suitable persistent connection (the one with highest + autoconnect-priority or, in case of a tie, the one + activated most recently). +

+ Note that when NetworkManager gets restarted, it stores + the previous state in + /run/NetworkManager; in particular + it saves the UUID of the connection that was previously + active so that it can be activated again after the + restart. Therefore, + keep-configuration does not have + any effect on service restart. +

+ A list of connections that can be activated on the + device. See the section called “Connection List Format” for the + syntax to specify a connection. If this option is not + specified, all connections can be potentially activated + on the device, provided that the connection type and + other settings match. +

+ A notable use case for this is to filter which + connections can be activated based on how they were + created; see the origin keyword in + the section called “Connection List Format”. +

Configures MAC address randomization of a Wi-Fi device during @@ -1644,6 +1709,66 @@ interface-name:vboxnet*,except:interface-name:vboxnet2

Connection List Format

+ Connections can be specified using the following format: +

++++ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +

*	Matches every connection.
uuid:UUID	Match the connection by UUID, for example + `"uuid:83037490-1d17-4986-a397-01f1db3a7fc2"`
id=ID	Match the connection by name.
origin:ORIGIN	Match the connection by origin, stored in the + `org.freedesktop.NetworkManager.origin` tag of the user setting. For example, use + `"except:origin:nm-initrd-generator"` to forbid activation of connections created by the + initrd generator.
except:SPEC	+ Negative match of a connection. A negative match has higher priority then the positive + matches above. + If there is a list consisting only of negative matches, the behavior is the same as if there is also + match-all. That means, if none of all the negative matches is satisfied, the overall result is still a + positive match. +
SPEC[,;]SPEC	+ Multiple specs can be concatenated with commas or semicolons. The order does not matter as + matches are either inclusive or negative (`except:`), with negative matches having higher + priority. + Backslash is supported to escape the separators ';' and ',', and to express special characters such as + newline ('\n'), tabulator ('\t'), whitespace ('\s') and backslash ('\\'). Whitespace is not a separator but + will be trimmed between two specs (unless escaped as '\s'). +

Connection List Format

See Also