Support installation of advanced network configuration

[pbronneberg]

Situation

At the moment, Edge Image Builder supports configuring network connections based on the new nmc format. This format supports basic settings to e.g. set static IP addresses, but is not yet feature equivalent to .nmconnection.

For our use-case, we e.g. create a bridge interface, set jumbo-frames, and connect our eth1 interface to the bridge (use-case for the bridge is to connect multiple physical networks to a container using multus-cni)

Current work-around

To work around this, we can create a custom combustion script, that copies .nmconnection files to a desired location. so that they are picked up at first boot. Given that, in our use-case, the network configuration of the 2nd physical network is identical for each device, we don't need node specific adaptations to our configuration.

Request

• EIB support for .nmconnection files
• -or- nmc support for advanced network settings
• -or- document default location of .nmconnection files as os-files/etc/NetworkManager/system-connections

Example configuration we want to set

[connection]
id=br0
uuid={{bridge-uuid}}
type=bridge
interface-name=br0

[ethernet]
mtu=9000

[bridge]
stp=false

[ipv4]
address1={{bridge_network_address}}
method=manual

[ipv6]
addr-gen-mode=default
method=auto

[proxy]

[connection]
id=br0_eth1
uuid={{eth1-bridged-uuid}}
type=ethernet
interface-name=eth1
master=br0
slave-type=bridge

[ethernet]
mtu=9000

[bridge-port]

[pbronneberg]

Apparently, I missed an important bit in the documentation of nmc. Given that it is based on nmstate, it already supports advanced settings.

[hardys]

@pbronneberg as you mention nmc supports the https://nmstate.io/ API (other than the constraint that mac-address must be specified to match the configuration with the target host, except when using a unified configuration)

If there are specific gaps perhaps we can raise an upstream nmstate issue, otherwise can this issue now be closed?

[pbronneberg]

@hardys Indeed, Using nmstate solved it.

These are the steps I followed, to generate nmstate from my existing .nmconnection files.

• Generated  nmstate yaml on a system which has the state desired nmstatectl show -r -s > _all.yaml
• Removed the clutter from the generated YAML

Edge image builder nicely picked up the configuration, and after first boot my system had the desired network settings.

Issue can be closed!