Joshua Powers
on 1 December 2017
Netplan
For this week’s Bionic test blitz I am looking at Netplan! Netplan enables easily configuring networking on a system via YAML files. Netplan processes the YAML and generates the required configurations for either NetworkManager or systemd-network the system’s renderer. Netplan replaced ifupdown as the default configuration utility starting with Ubuntu 17.10 Artful.Configuration
Initial Setup in Bionic
When you install Bionic or use a cloud image of Bionic a file will appear in/etc/netplan depending on the renderer in use. Here is a breakdown of the various types:
| Install Type | Renderer | File |
|---|---|---|
| Server ISO | systemd-networkd | /etc/netplan/01-netcfg.yaml |
| Cloud Image | systemd-networkd | /etc/netplan/50-cloud-init.yaml |
| Desktop ISO | NetworkManager | /etc/netplan/01-network-manager-all.yaml |
/run/netplan/*.yaml/etc/netplan/*.yaml/lib/netplan/*.yaml
Examples
The best method for demonstrating what netplan can do is by showing some examples. Keep in mind that these are very simple examples that do not demonstrate complex situations that netplan can handle.Static and DHCP Addressing
The following configures four devices:- enp3s0 setup with IPv4 DHCP
- enp4s0 setup with IPv4 static with custom MTU
- IPv6 static tied to a specific MAC address
- IPv4 and IPv6 DHCP with jumbo frames tied to a specific MAC address
ethernets:
enp3s0:
dhcp4: true
enp4s0:
addresses:
- 192.168.0.10/24
gateway4: 192.168.0.1
mtu: 1480
nameservers:
addresses:
- 8.8.8.8
- 9.9.9.9
net1:
addresses:
- fe80::a00:10a/120
gateway6: fe80::a00:101
match:
macaddress: 52:54:00:12:34:06
net2:
dhcp4: true
dhcp6: true
match:
macaddress: 52:54:00:12:34:07
mtu: 9000
Bonding
Bonding can easily be configured with the required interfaces list and by specifying the mode. The mode can be any of the valid types: balance-rr, active-backup, balance-xor, broadcast, 802.3ad, balance-tlb, balance-alb. See the bonding wiki page for more details.bonds:
bond0:
dhcp4: yes
interfaces:
- enp3s0
- enp4s0
parameters:
mode: active-backup
primary: enp3s0
Bridges
Here is a very simple example of a bridge using DHCP:bridges:
br0:
dhcp4: yes
interfaces:
- enp3s0
Vlans
Similarly, vlans only require a name as the key and then an id and link to use for the vlan:vlans:
vdev:
id: 101
link: net1
addresses:
- 10.0.1.10/24
vprod:
id: 102
link: net2
addresses:
- 10.0.2.10/24
vtest:
id: 103
link: net3
addresses:
- 10.0.3.10/24
vmgmt:
id: 104
link: net4
addresses:
- 10.0.4.10/24
