I am working with wireguard and network manager. When i tested it on ubuntu server with network manager apt package, it works fine.
i run
“sudo nmcli c add type wireguard ifname nm-tur con-name nm-tur”
My goal is to get it to work on ubuntu core.
So, i used network manager snap. But i am not able to add any wireguard interface connection using the snap package. I keep getting
" failure adding connection: keyfile writer produces an invalid connection: cannot access file: No such file or directory"
One of the main issues with wireguard and network-manager snap is that, when wireguard creates a new connection using "wg-quick up " it create a yaml file in /etc/netplan.
This config file generated is produced is in wrong format. Since network manager snap works with netplan yaml files, upon reboot it fails to convert these yaml files in /etc/netplan to key files. So, it removes all of its connections from /etc/netplan folder . So, when i reboots i am left with no wifi connections or ethernet connections.
Yes, this sounds a lot like LP: #1962297, which should be fixed In Jammy and Focal. So I’m wondering which version of Ubuntu Server (and which version of netplan.io) is being used here?
Hi @slyon@abeato,
I did try it with the latest release of network manager 1.22.10.-11, but i still get the same error after i create a wireguard interface and when i run netplan generate i get:
Error in network definition: nm-name: missing ‘mode’ property for tunnel
renderer: NetworkManager
@rahul-tt could you please check your netplan version using apt list *netplan* to check if you’re on >= 0.103-0ubuntu5~20.04.6 already? Phased updates could potentialy have delayed this update, as it’s still pretty fresh.
Hmm… interesting. And are you sure this broken YAML file was actually produced by netplan 0.103-0ubuntu5~20.04.6 ? Or could it be that this was generated during some earlier testing and is a left-over in /etc/netplan/ ?
As with the fix/changes from https://github.com/canonical/netplan/pull/247 this version of netplan should not create any tunnel: definitions anymore using the NM snap, but instead put it into a nm-devices: section.
Can you try deleting the broken YAML file from /etc/netplan/ (or clear all of /etc/netplan/*.yaml) and try again? If that doesn’t work, could you please report a bug with all the details and steps how to reproduce at https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/netplan.io/+filebug so I can try to reproduce once I find some time?
Hi,
The way this netplan is generated is using wireguard, using:
wg-quick up file.conf
This basically does:
ip link add dev type wireguard
…and some more steps
This creates a netplan yaml, which is shown above.
I have deleted all the netplan in /etc/netplan folder and tried it again. But it keeps generating the same netplan.
The NM snap i am using is on arm64 cm4 is that a issue?
I will send you a setup file with which you can reproduce the issue i have and i will report a bug.
- Install network manager snap:
sudo snap install network-manager
- Remove network manager that is installed as apt package(if any):
sudo apt remove network-manager
- Install wireguard and wireguard tools:
sudo apt install wireguard wireguard-tools
- Create a wiregurad conf file in /etc/wireguard in the format:
Ref: https://www.wireguard.com/quickstart/
#########
[Interface]
Address = 10.0.0.5/32
PrivateKey = <private key>
[Peer]
PublicKey = <public key>
AllowedIPs = 10.0.0.0/24
Endpoint = < end point>
PersistentKeepalive = 20
##########
- bring up this connection:
sudo wg-quick up <conf file name>
This would perform the following steps:
[#] ip link add <conf file name> type wireguard
[#] wg setconf <conf file name> /dev/fd/63
[#] ip -4 address add 10.0.0.5/32 dev <conf file name>
[#] ip link set mtu 1420 up dev <conf file name>
[#] ip -4 route add 10.0.0.0/24 dev <conf file name>
- This creates a NM snap connection which would be active and also creates a netplan in /etc/netplan:
- Run netplan generate, this would fail because the netplan generated is in wrong format:
sudo netplan generate
- Reboot the system:
- Upon reboot you will observe that the wifi is down:
nmcli d
nmcli c
- To recover remove the files related to wireguard at : /etc/netplan
sudo wg-quick down <conf file name>
- reload Nm connections:
sudo nmcli c reload
Thank you very much for the detailed information in LP: #1966047@rahul-tt this is much appreciated!
I have been thinking about this a lot as I cannot understand how it would still create a tunnels: stanza on the latest version of netplan. But I think I found an explanation now:
The NM snap is not actually using the netplan version installed on your Focal Server system, but rather the netplan version in the “core20” base snap (which lacks behind focal-updates a bit). netplan v0.103-0ubuntu5~20.04.6 already landed in focal-updates, but not yet in core20’s latest/stable channel.
Could you please try to refresh your “core20” base snap to version “20220318” that is currently in the “latest/candidate” channel and try to reproduce again? This should fix the issue IMO!
I moved core20 to candidate channel and now it creates the right netplan with nm-devices.
Thanks for the help. Do you know hen this would be pushed into stable?
Sweet!
I cannot say for sure when it is being pushed into the stable channel. AFAIK this is a manual process. It apparently just moved to candidate today, so I assume they’re running a bunch of tests and it should land in stable within the next 1-2 weeks.
I encountered a new issue yet again
When wireguard creates a new interface, the netplan.io creates a new netplan with a new uuid, right?
But when it creates the same interface again, shouldnt the netplan.io say that it already exists? and not create a new connection?
But it creates a new network-manager connection everytime. So the /etc/netplan is piled up with netplans. Do you knwo how this can be fixed.
This is my “nmcli c” output:
NAME UUID TYPE DEVICE
Turf Tank Dev f2030c26-2bc2-4ba7-a20c-03a3766c56c1 wifi wlan0
nm-bLjAroHd b2134dd5-c51e-4200-afb5-6350b1bda893 wireguard nm-bLjAroHd
nm-turftank c3f9ff2f-cc3f-407d-b564-2dc4cfcd0e7b wireguard nm-turftank
Wired connection 1 0da86665-c11b-39a2-95c7-0d638b64b62c ethernet –
nm-bLjAroHd eac018d7-9acc-429e-87df-dc1488aaa3ec wireguard –
nm-bLjAroHd aae1a1a5-b800-4934-98d2-994f008dcb1a wireguard –
nm-bLjAroHd a823f35a-25ed-4675-b213-97c7bca36cb0 wireguard –
nm-turftank ff4937f3-28f3-46f5-bb7f-1529b5510a66 wireguard –
Also, when the wireguard interfaces are deleted the netplans in the /etc/netplan folders are not removed. This is also one the reasons for piling up of netplans
Could you give the exact steps/commands of how to reproduce this (i.e. how to instructe WireGuard to create those new interfaces)? So I can try to reproduce.
. This is the repo: 
When wireguard creates a new interface, the