NetworkManager developers nmcli 1 NetworkManager General Commands Manual 1.2 nmcli command-line tool for controlling NetworkManager nmcli OPTIONS help general networking radio connection device agent monitor COMMAND ARGUMENTS nmcli is a command-line tool for controlling NetworkManager and reporting network status. It can be utilized as a replacement for nm-applet or other graphical clients. nmcli is used to create, display, edit, delete, activate, and deactivate network connections, as well as control and display network device status. Typical uses include: Scripts: Utilize NetworkManager via nmcli instead of managing network connections manually. nmcli supports a terse output format which is better suited for script processing. Note that NetworkManager can also execute scripts, called "dispatcher scripts", in response to network events. See NetworkManager8 for details about these dispatcher scripts. Servers, headless machines, and terminals: nmcli can be used to control NetworkManager without a GUI, including creating, editing, starting and stopping network connections and viewing network status. -t --terse Output is terse. This mode is designed and suitable for computer (script) processing. -p --pretty Output is pretty. This causes nmcli to produce easily readable outputs for humans, i.e. values are aligned, headers are printed, etc. -m --mode tabular multiline Switch between tabular and multiline output: tabular Output is a table where each line describes a single entry. Columns define particular properties of the entry. multiline Each entry comprises multiple lines, each property on its own line. The values are prefixed with the property name. If omitted, default is tabular for most commands. For the commands producing more structured information, that cannot be displayed on a single line, default is multiline. Currently, they are: nmcli connection show ID nmcli device show -c --colors yes no auto This option controls color output (using terminal escape sequences). yes enables colors, no disables them, auto only produces colors when standard output is directed to a terminal. The default value is auto. -f --fields field all common This option is used to specify what fields (column names) should be printed. Valid field names differ for specific commands. List available fields by providing an invalid value to the --fields option. all is used to print all valid field values of the command. common is used to print common field values of the command. If omitted, default is common. The option is mandatory when --terse is used. In this case, generic values all and common cannot be used. This is to maintain compatibility when new fields are added in the future. -e --escape yes no Whether to escape : and \ characters in terse tabular mode. The escape character is \. If omitted, default is yes. -n --nocheck This option can be used to force nmcli to skip checking nmcli and NetworkManager version compatibility. Use it with care, because using incompatible versions may produce incorrect results. -a --ask When using this option nmcli will stop and ask for any missing required arguments, so do not use this option for non-interactive purposes like scripts. This option controls, for example, whether you will be prompted for a password if it is required for connecting to a network. -s --show-secrets When using this option nmcli will display passwords and secrets that might be present in an output of an operation. This option also influences echoing passwords typed by user as an input. -w --wait seconds This option sets a timeout period for which nmcli will wait for NetworkManager to finish operations. It is especially useful for commands that may take a longer time to complete, e.g. connection activation. Specifying a value of 0 instructs nmcli not to wait but to exit immediately with a status of success. The default value depends on the executed command. -v --version Show nmcli version. -h --help Print help information. nmcli general status hostname permissions logging ARGUMENTS Use this command to show NetworkManager status and permissions. You can also get and change system hostname, as well as NetworkManager logging level and domains. status Show overall status of NetworkManager. This is the default action, when no additional command is provided for nmcli general. hostname hostname Get and change system hostname. With no arguments, this prints currently configured hostname. When you pass a hostname, it will be handed over to NetworkManager to be set as a new system hostname. Note that the term "system" hostname may also be referred to as "persistent" or "static" by other programs or tools. The hostname is stored in /etc/hostname file in most distributions. For example, systemd-hostnamed service uses the term "static" hostname and it only reads the /etc/hostname file when it starts. permissions Show the permissions a caller has for various authenticated operations that NetworkManager provides, like enable and disable networking, changing Wi-Fi and WWAN state, modifying connections, etc. logging level level domain domains Get and change NetworkManager logging level and domains. Without any argument current logging level and domains are shown. In order to change logging state, provide level and, or, domain parameters. See NetworkManager.conf5 for available level and domain values. nmcli networking on off connectivity ARGUMENTS Query NetworkManager networking status, enable and disable networking. on off Enable enable or disable networking control by NetworkManager. All interfaces managed by NetworkManager are deactivated when networking is disabled. connectivity check Get network connectivity state. The optional check argument tells NetworkManager to re-check the connectivity, else the most recent known connectivity state is displayed without re-checking. Possible states are: none the host is not connected to any network. portal the host is behind a captive portal and cannot reach the full Internet. limited the host is connected to a network, but it has no access to the Internet. full the host is connected to a network and has full access to the Internet. unknown the connectivity status cannot be found out. nmcli radio all wifi wwan ARGUMENTS Show radio switches status, or enable and disable the switches. wifi on off Show or set status of Wi-Fi in NetworkManager. If no arguments are supplied, Wi-Fi status is printed; on enables Wi-Fi; off disables Wi-Fi. wwan on off Show or set status of WWAN (mobile broadband) in NetworkManager. If no arguments are supplied, mobile broadband status is printed; on enables mobile broadband, off disables it. all on off Show or set all previously mentioned radio switches at the same time. nmcli monitor Observe NetworkManager activity. Watches for changes in connectivity state, devices or connection profiles. See also nmcli connection monitor and nmcli device monitor to watch for changes in certain devices or connections. nmcli connection show up down add edit modify delete monitor reload load ARGUMENTS NetworkManager stores all network configuration as "connections", which are collections of data (Layer2 details, IP addressing, etc.) that describe how to create or connect to a network. A connection is "active" when a device uses that connection's configuration to create or connect to a network. There may be multiple connections that apply to a device, but only one of them can be active on that device at any given time. The additional connections can be used to allow quick switching between different networks and configurations. Consider a machine which is usually connected to a DHCP-enabled network, but sometimes connected to a testing network which uses static IP addressing. Instead of manually reconfiguring eth0 each time the network is changed, the settings can be saved as two connections which both apply to eth0, one for DHCP (called default) and one with the static addressing details (called testing). When connected to the DHCP-enabled network the user would run nmcli con up default , and when connected to the static network the user would run nmcli con up testing. show --active --order [+-]category: List in-memory and on-disk connection profiles, some of which may also be active if a device is using that connection profile. Without a parameter, all profiles are listed. When --active option is specified, only the active profiles are shown. The --order option can be used to get custom ordering of connections. The connections can be ordered by active status (active), name (name), type (type) or D-Bus path (path). If connections are equal according to a sort order category, an additional category can be specified. The default sorting order is equivalent to --order active:name:path. + or no prefix means sorting in ascending order (alphabetically or in numbers), - means reverse (descending) order. The category names can be abbreviated (e.g. --order -a:na). show --active id uuid path apath ID Show details for specified connections. By default, both static configuration and active connection data are displayed. When --active option is specified, only the active profiles are taken into account. Use global --show-secrets option to display secrets associated with the profile. id, uuid, path and apath keywords can be used if ID is ambiguous. Optional ID-specifying keywords are: id the ID denotes a connection name. uuid the ID denotes a connection UUID. path the ID denotes a D-Bus static connection path in the format of /org/freedesktop/NetworkManager/Settings/num or just num. apath the ID denotes a D-Bus active connection path in the format of /org/freedesktop/NetworkManager/ActiveConnection/num or just num. It is possible to filter the output using the global --fields option. Use the following values: profile only shows static profile configuration. active only shows active connection data (when the profile is active). You can also specify particular fields. For static configuration, use setting and property names as described in nm-settings5 manual page. For active data use GENERAL, IP4, DHCP4, IP6, DHCP6, VPN. When no command is given to the nmcli connection, the default action is nmcli connection show. up id uuid path ID ifname ifname ap BSSID passwd-file file Activate a connection. The connection is identified by its name, UUID or D-Bus path. If ID is ambiguous, a keyword id, uuid or path can be used. When requiring a particular device to activate the connection on, the ifname option with interface name should be given. If the ID is not given an ifname is required, and NetworkManager will activate the best available connection for the given ifname. In case of a VPN connection, the ifname option specifies the device of the base connection. The ap option specify what particular AP should be used in case of a Wi-Fi connection. If --wait option is not specified, the default timeout will be 90 seconds. See connection show above for the description of the ID-specifying keywords. Available options are: ifname interface that will be used for activation. ap BSSID of the AP which the command should connect to (for Wi-Fi connections). passwd-file some networks may require credentials during activation. You can give these credentials using this option. Each line of the file should contain one password in the form: setting_name.property_name:the password For example, for WPA Wi-Fi with PSK, the line would be 802-11-wireless-security.psk:secret12345 For 802.1X password, the line would be 802-1x.password:my 1X password nmcli also accepts wifi-sec and wifi strings instead of 802-11-wireless-security. When NetworkManager requires a password and it is not given, nmcli will ask for it when run with --ask. If --ask was not passed, NetworkManager can ask another secret agent that may be running (typically a GUI secret agent, such as nm-applet or gnome-shell). down id uuid path apath ID Deactivate a connection from a device without preventing the device from further auto-activation. Multiple connections can be passed to the command. Be aware that this command deactivates the specified active connection, but the device on which the connection was active, is still ready to connect and will perform auto-activation by looking for a suitable connection that has the 'autoconnect' flag set. This includes the just deactivated connection. So if the connection is set to auto-connect, it will be automatically started on the disconnected device again. In most cases you may want to use device disconnect command instead. The connection is identified by its name, UUID or D-Bus path. If ID is ambiguous, a keyword id, uuid, path or apath can be used. See connection show above for the description of the ID-specifying keywords. If --wait option is not specified, the default timeout will be 10 seconds. add ifname ifname con-name name autoconnect yes no save yes no master master slave-type type type type ARGUMENTS ip4 addr gw4 addr ip6 addr gw6 addr -- [+|-]setting.property value Add a connection for NetworkManager. Arguments differ according to connection types, see below. ifname interface to bind the connection to. The connection will only be applicable to this interface name. A special value of * can be used for interface-independent connections. The ifname argument is mandatory for all connection types except bond, team, bridge and vlan. Note: use quotes around * to suppress shell expansion. con-name connection name (when not provided a default name is generated: <type>[-<ifname>][-<num>]). autoconnect whether the connection profile can be automatically activated (default: yes). save whether the connection should be persistent, i.e. NetworkManager should store it on disk (default: yes). master master interface name, or connection UUID or ID of master connection profile. The value can be prefixed with ifname/, uuid/ or id/ to disambiguate it. slave-type type of master connection. Only required when it can not be inferred (i.e. the master connection does not exist yet). type connection type; see below for allowed values. Note that types bond-slave, team-slave and bridge-slave create ethernet connection profiles. Their use is discouraged in favor of using a specific type with master option. type ethernet mac addr cloned-mac addr mtu mtu mac MAC address of the device this connection is locked to. cloned-mac cloned MAC. mtu MTU. type wifi ssid SSID mac addr cloned-mac addr mode infrastructure ap adhoc mtu mtu ssid SSID. mac MAC address of the device this connection is locked to. cloned-mac cloned MAC. mode Wi-Fi network mode. If blank, infrastructure is assumed. mtu MTU. type wimax mac addr nsp nsp mac MAC address of the device this connection is locked to. nsp Network Service Provider name. type pppoe username user password passwd service name mtu mtu mac addr username PPPoE username. password Password for the PPPoE username. service PPPoE service name (if required by concentrator). mtu MTU. mac MAC address of the device this connection is locked to. type gsm apn APN username user password passwd apn APN - GSM Access Point Name. user user name. password password. type cdma username user password passwd user user name. password password. type infiniband mac addr mtu mtu transport-mode datagram connected parent device p-key key mac MAC address of the device this connection is locked to (InfiniBand MAC is 20 bytes). mtu MTU. transport-mode InfiniBand transport mode. parent the interface name of the parent device (if any). p-key the InfiniBand P_Key (16-bit unsigned integer). type bluetooth addr addr bt-type panu dun-gsm dun-cdma addr Bluetooth device address (MAC). bt-type Bluetooth connection type. type vlan dev device id id flags flags ingress mapping egress mapping mtu mtu dev parent device this VLAN is on. id VLAN ID in range 0-4095. flags flags. ingress VLAN ingress priority mapping. egress VLAN egress priority mapping. mtu MTU. type bond mode active-backup balance-xor broadcast 802.3ad balance-tlb balance-alb num primary ifname miimon num downdelay num updelay num arp-interval num arp-ip-target num mode bonding mode (default: balance-rr). primary primary interface name (for active-backup mode). miimon miimon (default: 100). downdelay downdelay (default: 0). updelay updelay (default: 0). arp-interval ARP interval (default: 0). arp-ip-target ARP IP target. type bond-slave master master master master bond interface name, or connection UUID or ID of bond master connection profile. The value can be prefixed with ifname/, uuid/ or id/ to disambiguate it. type team config file JSON config JSON configuration for team. type team-slave config JSON master master team interface name, or connection UUID or ID of team master connection profile. The value can be prefixed with ifname/, uuid/ or id/to disambiguate it. config JSON configuration for team. type bridge stp yes no priority num forward-delay 2-30 hello-time 1-10 max-age 6-42 ageing-time 0-1000000 multicast-snooping yes no mac addr stp controls whether Spanning Tree Protocol (STP) is enabled for this bridge (default: yes). priority sets STP priority (default: 128). forward-delay STP forwarding delay, in seconds (default: 15). hello-time STP hello time, in seconds (default: 2). max-age STP maximum message age, in seconds (default: 20). ageing-time the Ethernet MAC address aging time, in seconds (default: 300). multicast-snooping controls whether IGMP snooping is enabled (default: yes). mac MAC address of the bridge (note: this requires a recent kernel feature, originally introduced in 3.15 upstream kernel). type bridge-slave master master priority num path-cost 1-65535 hairpin yes no master master bridge interface name, or connection UUID or ID of bridge master connection profile. The value can be prefixed with ifname/, uuid/ or id/ to disambiguate it. priority STP priority of this slave (default: 32). path-cost STP port cost for destinations via this slave (default: 100). hairpin 'hairpin mode' for the slave, which allows frames to be sent back out through the slave the frame was received on (default: yes). type vpn type type user username vpn-type VPN type. user VPN username. type olpc-mesh ssid SSID channel 1-13 dhcp-anycast MAC ssid SSID. channel channel to use for the network. dhcp-anycast anycast DHCP MAC address used when requesting an IP address via DHCP. type adsl username username protocol pppoa pppoe ipoatm password passwd encapsulation vcmux llc username ADSL user name. protocol ADSL protocol. password ADSL password. encapsulation ADSL encapsulation. type tun mode tun tap owner UID group GID pi yes no vnet-hdr yes no multi-queue yes no mode Mode for the device. owner UID of the owner. group GID of the group. pi include packet information (~IFF_NO_PI flag). vnet-hdr send and receive large (i.e. GSO) packets and packets with partial checksums (IFF_VNET_HDR flag). multi-queue multi-queue support for tun/tap device (IFF_MULTI_QUEUE flag). type ip-tunnel mode ipip gre sit isatap vti ip6ip6 ipip6 ip6gre vti6 tun remote addr local addr dev device mode tunnel mode. remote IPv4 or IPv6 address of the remote tunnel endpoint. local IPv4 or IPv6 address of the local tunnel endpoint. dev device to use for tunnel endpoint communication. type macvlan dev device mode vepa bridge private passthru source tap yes no dev parent device this MACVLAN is on. mode MACVLAN mode, which specifies the communication mechanism between multiple MACVLANs on the same lower device. tap controls the device type. If set to 'yes' a MACVTAP will be created (default: no). type vxlan id id remote addr dev parent device (ifname or connection UUID) local addr source-port-min 0-65535 source-port-max 0-65535 destination-port 0-65535 id VXLAN Network Identifer to use. remote unicast destination IP address or multicast IP address to join. dev device to use for tunnel endpoint communication. local source IP address. source-port-min minimum UDP source port to communicate to the remote VXLAN tunnel endpoint. source-port-max maximum UDP source port to communicate to the remote VXLAN tunnel endpoint. destination-port UDP destination port to communicate to the remote VXLAN tunnel endpoint. ip4 gw4 IPv4 addresses. ip6 gw6 IPv6 addresses. -- If a -- argument is encountered, the rest of command line is interpreted as property list in the same format as connection modify command accepts. This makes it possible to adjust the connection properties before it's added. edit id uuid path ID type type con-name name Edit an existing connection or add a new one, using an interactive editor. The existing connection is identified by its name, UUID or D-Bus path. If ID is ambiguous, a keyword id, uuid, or path can be used. See connection show above for the description of the ID-specifying keywords. Not providing an ID means that a new connection will be added. The interactive editor will guide you through the connection editing and allow you to change connection parameters according to your needs by means of a simple menu-driven interface. The editor indicates what settings and properties can be modified and provides in-line help. Available options: type type of the new connection; valid types are the same as for connection add command. con-name name for the new connection. It can be changed later in the editor. See also nm-settings5 for all NetworkManager settings and property names, and their descriptions; and nmcli-examples5 for sample editor sessions. modify --temporary id uuid path ID [+|-]setting.property value Modify one or more properties in the connection profile. The connection is identified by its name, UUID or D-Bus path. If ID is ambiguous, a keyword id, uuid or path can be used. See nm-settings5 for setting and property names, their descriptions and default values. This command supports abbreviations for setting and property provided they are unique. Empty value ("") removes the property value (sets the property to the default value). The provided value overwrites the existing property value. If you want to append an item to the existing value, use + prefix for the property name. If you want to remove just one item from container-type property, use - prefix for the property name and specify a value or an zero-based index of the item to remove (or option name for properties with named options) as value. Of course, + and - only have a real effect for multi-value (container) properties like ipv4.dns, ipv4.addresses, bond.options, etc. clone --temporary id uuid path ID new name Clone a connection. The connection to be cloned is identified by its name, UUID or D-Bus path. If ID is ambiguous, a keyword id, uuid or path can be used. See connection show above for the description of the ID-specifying keywords. name is the name of the new cloned connection. The new connection will be the exact copy except the connection.id (name) and connection.uuid (generated) properties. The new connection profile will be saved as persistent unless --temporary option is specified, in which case the new profile won't exist after NetworkManager restart. delete id uuid path ID Delete a configured connection. The connection to be deleted is identified by its name, UUID or D-Bus path. If ID is ambiguous, a keyword id, uuid or path can be used. See connection show above for the description of the ID-specifying keywords. If --wait option is not specified, the default timeout will be 10 seconds. monitor id uuid path ID Monitor connection profile activity. This command prints a line whenever the specified connection changes. The connection to be monitored is identified by its name, UUID or D-Bus path. If ID is ambiguous, a keyword id, uuid or path can be used. See connection show above for the description of the ID-specifying keywords. Monitors all connection profiles in case none is specified. The command terminates when all monitored connections disappear. If you want to monitor connection creation consider using the global monitor with nmcli monitor command. reload Reload all connection files from disk. NetworkManager does not monitor changes to connection files by default. So you need to use this command in order to tell NetworkManager to re-read the connection profiles from disk when a change was made to them. However, the auto-loading feature can be enabled and then NetworkManager will reload connection files any time they change (monitor-connection-files=true in NetworkManager.conf5). load filename Load/reload one or more connection files from disk. Use this after manually editing a connection file to ensure that NetworkManager is aware of its latest state. import --temporary type type file file Import an external/foreign configuration as a NetworkManager connection profile. The type of the input file is specified by type option. Only VPN configurations are supported at the moment. The configuration is imported by NetworkManager VPN plugins. type values are the same as for vpn-type option in nmcli connection add. VPN configurations are imported by VPN plugins. Therefore the proper VPN plugin has to be installed so that nmcli could import the data. The imported connection profile will be saved as persistent unless --temporary option is specified, in which case the new profile won't exist after NetworkManager restart. export id uuid path ID file Export a connection. Only VPN connections are supported at the moment. A proper VPN plugin has to be installed so that nmcli could export a connection. If no file is provided, the VPN configuration data will be printed to standard output. nmcli device status show set connect reapply disconnect delete monitor wifi lldp ARGUMENTS Show and manage network interfaces. status Print status of devices. This is the default action if no command is specified to nmcli device. show ifname Show detailed information about devices. Without an argument, all devices are examined. To get information for a specific device, the interface name has to be provided. set ifname ifname autoconnect yes no managed yes no Set device properties. connect ifname Connect the device. NetworkManager will try to find a suitable connection that will be activated. It will also consider connections that are not set to auto connect. If --wait option is not specified, the default timeout will be 90 seconds. reapply ifname Attempt to update device with changes to the currently active connection made since it was last applied. disconnect ifname Disconnect a device and prevent the device from automatically activating further connections without user/manual intervention. Note that disconnecting software devices may mean that the devices will disappear. If --wait option is not specified, the default timeout will be 10 seconds. delete ifname Delete a device. The command removes the interface from the system. Note that this only works for software devices like bonds, bridges, teams, etc. Hardware devices (like Ethernet) cannot be deleted by the command. If --wait option is not specified, the default timeout will be 10 seconds. monitor ifname Monitor device activity. This command prints a line whenever the specified devices change state. Monitors all devices in case no interface is specified. The monitor terminates when all specified devices disappear. If you want to monitor device addition consider using the global monitor with nmcli monitor command. wifi list ifname ifname bssid BSSID List available Wi-Fi access points. The ifname and bssid options can be used to list APs for a particular interface or with a specific BSSID, respectively. wifi connect (B)SSID password password wep-key-type key phrase ifname ifname bssid BSSID name name private yes no hidden yes no Connect to a Wi-Fi network specified by SSID or BSSID. The command creates a new connection and then activates it on a device. This is a command-line counterpart of clicking an SSID in a GUI client. The command always creates a new connection and thus it is mainly useful for connecting to new Wi-Fi networks. If a connection for the network already exists, it is better to bring up (activate) the existing connection as follows: nmcli con up id name. Note that only open, WEP and WPA-PSK networks are supported at the moment. It is also supposed that IP configuration is obtained via DHCP. If --wait option is not specified, the default timeout will be 90 seconds. Available options are: password password for secured networks (WEP or WPA). wep-key-type type of WEP secret, either key for ASCII/HEX key or phrase for passphrase. ifname interface that will be used for activation. bssid if specified, the created connection will be restricted just for the BSSID. name if specified, the connection will use the name (else NM creates a name itself). private if set to yes, the connection will only be visible to the user who created it. Otherwise the connection is system-wide, which is the default. hidden set to yes when connecting for the first time to an AP not broadcasting its SSID. Otherwise the SSID would not be found and the connection attempt would fail. wifi hotspot ifname ifname con-name name ssid SSID band a bg channel channel password password Create a Wi-Fi hotspot. The command creates a hotspot connection profile according to Wi-Fi device capabilities and activates it on the device. The hotspot is secured with WPA if device/driver supports that, otherwise WEP is used. Use connection down or device disconnect to stop the hotspot. Parameters of the hotspot can be influenced by the optional parameters: ifname what Wi-Fi device is used. con-name name of the created hotspot connection profile. ssid SSID of the hotspot. band Wi-Fi band to use. channel Wi-Fi channel to use. password password to use for the created hotspot. If not provided, nmcli will generate a password. The password is either WPA pre-shared key or WEP key. Note that --show-secrets global option can be used to print the hotspot password. It is useful especially when the password was generated. wifi rescan ifname ifname ssid SSID Request that NetworkManager immediately re-scan for available access points. NetworkManager scans Wi-Fi networks periodically, but in some cases it can be useful to start scanning manually (e.g. after resuming the computer). By using ssid, it is possible to scan for a specific SSID, which is useful for APs with hidden SSIDs. You can provide multiple ssid parameters in order to scan more SSIDs. This command does not show the APs, use nmcli device wifi list for that. lldp list ifname ifname Display information about neighboring devices learned through the Link Layer Discovery Protocol (LLDP). The ifname option can be used to list neighbors only for a given interface. The protocol must be enabled in the connection settings. nmcli agent secret polkit all Run nmcli as a NetworkManager secret agent, or polkit agent. secret Register nmcli as a NetworkManager secret agent and listen for secret requests. You do usually not need this command, because nmcli can handle secrets when connecting to networks. However, you may find the command useful when you use another tool for activating connections and you do not have a secret agent available (like nm-applet). polkit Register nmcli as a polkit agent for the user session and listen for authorization requests. You do not usually need this command, because nmcli can handle polkit actions related to NetworkManager operations (when run with --ask). However, you may find the command useful when you want to run a simple text based polkit agent and you do not have an agent of a desktop environment. Note that running this command makes nmcli handle all polkit requests, not only NetworkManager related ones, because only one polkit agent can run for the session. all Runs nmcli as both NetworkManager secret and a polkit agent. nmcli's behavior is affected by the following environment variables. LC_ALL If set to a non-empty string value, it overrides the values of all the other internationalization variables. LC_MESSAGES Determines the locale to be used for internationalized messages. LANG Provides a default value for the internationalization variables that are unset or null. Be aware that nmcli is localized and that is why the output depends on your environment. This is important to realize especially when you parse the output. Call nmcli as LC_ALL=C nmcli to be sure the locale is set to C while executing in a script. LC_ALL, LC_MESSAGES, LANG variables specify the LC_MESSAGES locale category (in that order), which determines the language that nmcli uses for messages. The C locale is used if none of these variables are set, and this locale uses English messages. nmcli exits with status 0 if it succeeds, a value greater than 0 is returned if an error occurs. 0 Success – indicates the operation succeeded. 1 Unknown or unspecified error. 2 Invalid user input, wrong nmcli invocation. 3 Timeout expired (see --wait option). 4 Connection activation failed. 5 Connection deactivation failed. 6 Disconnecting device failed. 7 Connection deletion failed. 8 NetworkManager is not running. 9 nmcli and NetworkManager versions mismatch. 10 Connection, device, or access point does not exist. This section presents various examples of nmcli usage. If you want even more, please refer to nmcli-examples5 manual page. nmcli -t -f RUNNING general tells you whether NetworkManager is running or not. nmcli -t -f STATE general shows the overall status of NetworkManager. nmcli radio wifi off switches Wi-Fi off. nmcli connection show lists all connections NetworkManager has. nmcli -p -m multiline -f all con show shows all configured connections in multi-line mode. nmcli connection show --active lists all currently active connections. nmcli -f name,autoconnect c s shows all connection profile names and their auto-connect property. nmcli -p connection show "My default em1" shows details for "My default em1" connection profile. nmcli --show-secrets connection show "My Home WiFi" shows details for "My Home WiFi" connection profile with all passwords. Without --show-secrets option, secrets would not be displayed. nmcli -f active connection show "My default em1" shows details for "My default em1" active connection, like IP, DHCP information, etc. nmcli -f profile con s "My wired connection" shows static configuration details of the connection profile with "My wired connection" name. nmcli -p con up "My wired connection" ifname eth0 activates the connection profile with name "My wired connection" on interface eth0. The -p option makes nmcli show progress of the activation. nmcli con up 6b028a27-6dc9-4411-9886-e9ad1dd43761 ap 00:3A:98:7C:42:D3 connects the Wi-Fi connection with UUID 6b028a27-6dc9-4411-9886-e9ad1dd43761 to the AP with BSSID 00:3A:98:7C:42:D3. nmcli device status shows the status for all devices. nmcli dev disconnect em2 disconnects a connection on interface em2 and marks the device as unavailable for auto-connecting. As a result, no connection will automatically be activated on the device until the device's 'autoconnect' is set to TRUE or the user manually activates a connection. nmcli -f GENERAL,WIFI-PROPERTIES dev show wlan0 shows details for wlan0 interface; only GENERAL and WIFI-PROPERTIES sections will be shown. nmcli -f CONNECTIONS device show wlp3s0 shows all available connection profiles for your Wi-Fi interface wlp3s0. nmcli dev wifi lists available Wi-Fi access points known to NetworkManager. nmcli dev wifi con "Cafe Hotspot 1" password caffeine name "My cafe" creates a new connection named "My cafe" and then connects it to "Cafe Hotspot 1" SSID using password "caffeine". This is mainly useful when connecting to "Cafe Hotspot 1" for the first time. Next time, it is better to use nmcli con up id "My cafe" so that the existing connection profile can be used and no additional is created. nmcli -s dev wifi hotspot con-name QuickHotspot creates a hotspot profile and connects it. Prints the hotspot password the user should use to connect to the hotspot from other devices. nmcli connection add type ethernet autoconnect no ifname eth0 non-interactively adds an Ethernet connection tied to eth0 interface with automatic IP configuration (DHCP), and disables the connection's autoconnect flag. nmcli c a ifname Maxipes-fik type vlan dev eth0 id 55 non-interactively adds a VLAN connection with ID 55. The connection will use eth0 and the VLAN interface will be named Maxipes-fik. nmcli c a ifname eth0 type ethernet -- ipv4.method disabled ipv6.method link-local non-interactively adds a connection that will use eth0 Ethernet interface and only have an IPv6 link-local address configured. nmcli connection edit ethernet-em1-2 edits existing "ethernet-em1-2" connection in the interactive editor. nmcli connection edit type ethernet con-name "yet another Ethernet connection" adds a new Ethernet connection in the interactive editor. nmcli con mod ethernet-2 connection.autoconnect no modifies 'autoconnect' property in the 'connection' setting of 'ethernet-2' connection. nmcli con mod "Home Wi-Fi" wifi.mtu 1350 modifies 'mtu' property in the 'wifi' setting of 'Home Wi-Fi' connection. nmcli con mod em1-1 ipv4.method manual ipv4.addr "192.168.1.23/24 192.168.1.1, 10.10.1.5/8, 10.0.0.11" sets manual addressing and the addresses in em1-1 profile. nmcli con modify ABC +ipv4.dns 8.8.8.8 appends a Google public DNS server to DNS servers in ABC profile. nmcli con modify ABC -ipv4.addresses "192.168.100.25/24 192.168.1.1" removes the specified IP address from (static) profile ABC. nmcli con import type openvpn file ~/Downloads/frootvpn.ovpn imports an OpenVPN configuration to NetworkManager. nmcli con export corp-vpnc /home/joe/corpvpn.conf exports NetworkManager VPN profile corp-vpnc as standard Cisco (vpnc) configuration. nmcli accepts abbreviations, as long as they are a unique prefix in the set of possible options. As new options get added, these abbreviations are not guaranteed to stay unique. For scripting and long term compatibility it is therefore strongly advised to spell out the full option names. There are probably some bugs. If you find a bug, please report it to https://bugzilla.gnome.org/ — product NetworkManager. nmcli-examples5, nm-online1, NetworkManager8, NetworkManager.conf5, nm-settings5, nm-applet1, nm-connection-editor1.