14 DAY TRIAL // The developers of the popular NetworkManager software, which is used in numerous GNU/Linux operating systems as the default network connection manager solution, have announced a new stable release, NetworkManager 1.0.8.
According to the internal changelog, which we've attached at the end of the article for reference, NetworkManager 1.0.8 is a massive release that introduces a great number of new features. Among these, we can mention support for IPv6-only VPN connections, support for setting PPP and IPv6 options for CDMA and GDM connections, as well as support for adding ADSL connections through nmcli.
Additionally, the support for Bluetooth DUN devices using the next-generation Bluez 5 framework has been improved, it is now possible to build the software using older toolchains, s390 CTC devices are now correctly detected, automatically configured routes are now ignored by nmtui, and NetworkManager is capable of accurately applying MTUs indicated by VPN gateways.
Default routes are now being properly restored after the device is disconnected, it is now possible to enslave team devices to bridges, HUP signals are now used for reloading the configuration of the systemd service, non-static connections will no longer be affected by the GATEWAY property in /etc/sysconfig/network, and the Wi-Fi Access Point (AP) list is correctly updated when using the AP mode.
There are numerous other new features in NetworkManager 1.0.8
In addition to the changes mentioned above, NetworkManager 1.0.8 includes numerous other new features. Worth mentioning are the following: the ability to propagate the changes of an enslaved VLAN's MAC address to the master device, support for creating a default Wired network connection immediate after the device was registered with udev, and it is now possible to override name servers that have been automatically obtained.
Last but not least, NetworkManager 1.0.8 will no longer attempt to manage a network device before it is registered with udev. Of course, numerous crashes and bugs reported by users since NetworkManager 1.0.6 have been fixed in this new stable release, along with updates to various language translations and several other under-the-hood improvements.
All users of GNU/Linux distributions are urged to update to NetworkManager 1.0.8 as soon as the package becomes available in the default software repositories of their operating system. Alternatively, you can download the NetworkManager 1.0.8 sources right now from Softpedia and start compiling the software by hand, which is not recommended for beginners.