Network UTilities

Nut manages your network devices (dhcp, static, zeroconf); currently only supports IPv4 on Linux.

Support for wpa_assistant is included in the client.

Requires:

• Qt5
• resolvconf / openresolv
• libnl (server) >= 1.1
• libiw (client)

Components:

• nuts: Server
• libnutcommon: Library needed from server and client
• libnutclient: Client library
• libnutwireless: Client library for wpa_supplicant
• qnut: Qt Client
• cnut: Command line client

Example config in the source:

• /docs/config.example

Config syntax

The config consists of nested statements; each statement is terminated by either a semicolon (;) or a block ({ ... }); additional semicolons at the end of a statement can be added (for example after a block).

An empty block can always be replaced by a ;; if a block contains only a single statement the curly braces can be omitted. Below only the block variants will be listed.

In the syntax descriptions below:

• [ ... ] means that the parts between the square brackets is optional.
• << ... >> stands for a (possibly empty) set of statements which can occur in the given context.
• < ... > is a placeholder

The global context can only contain device statements.

device

Only devices listed in the config are managed; but if they are managed, they shouldn't be managed by something else - nuts won't cooperate well with other network managers on the same device.

The device statement can only occur in global context.

Syntax:

• device [ regexp ] <name> { <<device context, environment context>> }

<name> is a string containing the name of the device to be managed. If regexp is specified, the name of the device needs to be exactly matched by the regular expression in <name>; if regexp is not specified but <name> contains one of ?, [, ] or * an exact wildcard match is used.

Environment context statements in the block will apply to the default environment.

Examples:

• device "usb*" ... matches usb, usb0 and usb1 but not eusb
• device regexp "usb.*" ... - the same as device "usb*" ...
• device "eno1" ... only matches eno1

no-auto-start

This statement can only occur in device context; it tells nuts to not start a device automatically (which it would by default).

Syntax:

• no-auto-start;

For example you might want to enable wireless devices manually to save power:

device "wlp3s0" {
	no-auto-start;
}

metric (aka priority)

The metric option specifies which device should be preferred when there are multiple routes for the same target address. For example you might want to prefer your wired device over the wireless device if both have a default gateway.

The environment metric (by default the device metric) is used to set the metric on all (IPv4 + IPv6) routes (unless the metric is -1, the default device metric). IPv4 routes use metric 0 by kernel default, IPv6 have (different) non-zero metrics by default.

If multiple routes with the same destination exist, the route with the lowest metric is preferred.

The metric statement can only occur in device or environment context, but it might also occur as option after static, dhcp and zeroconf (see those statements for the syntax), overwriting the environment metric for the default route of a specific address configuration.

Syntax:

• metric <metric>;

Example:

device "eno1" {
	metric 10;
}

device "wlp3s0" {
	metric 20;
	environment "superfast" {
		dhcp metric 5;
	}
}

wpa-supplicant

When wpa-supplicant is configured for a device, nuts starts the wpa_supplicant when a device gets activated (and stops it on turning it off).

The wpa-supplicant statement can only occur in device context, and must not be given more than once per device.

Syntax:

• wpa-supplicant config <configfile> [ driver <driver> ];
• wpa-supplicant [ driver <driver> ] config <configfile>;

<configfile> is a string containing the location of the wpa_supplicant config file, <driver> defaults to "wext" and is forwarded to wpa_supplicant after the -D option (nl80211, wext, wired, ...)

Example:

device "wlp3s0" {
	wpa-supplicant config "/etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf" driver "wext";
}

In order to be able to control the wpa_supplicant as normal user you probably want to have something like this in your wpa_supplicant.conf:

ctrl_interface=/run/wpa_supplicant
ctrl_interface_group=netdev
update_config=1

environment

The environment option can only occur in device context; if an environment name is given it starts a new environment with that name.

If no name is given it appends to the default environment; these statements could also simply be given in device context.

For now environment names don't need to be unique, although that might change in the future. The default environment has an empty name. (Internally environments are identified by their position in the list; the default environment is always at index 0.)

By default an environment:

• will use DHCP unless some way of configuring an IPv4 address is given or no-dhcp is specified
• will be user selectable (select user;) unless explicit select rules are given.

Syntax:

• environment { <<environment context>> }
• environment <name> { <<environment context>> }

Example:

device "eno1" {
	environment {
		dhcp fallback 10 zeroconf;
	}
	environment "static" {
		static user;
	}
}

which is the same as:

device "eno1" {
	dhcp fallback 10 zeroconf;
	environment "static" static user;
}

dhcp

Explicitly enables DHCP in an environment context; can only be given once per environment.

Syntax:

• dhcp [metric <metric>];
• dhcp [metric <metric>] fallback [<timeout in seconds>] static ...
• dhcp [metric <metric>] fallback [<timeout in seconds>] zeroconf ...
• dhcp [metric <metric>] fallback { <<fallback context>> }

static and zeroconf are parsed like they normally would be in environment context (but static user is not allowed).

In the fallback context one of the static or zeroconf statements can be given (otherwise fallback isn't used), also there are two special statements:

• timeout <timeout in seconds>;
• continue-dhcp true; or continue-dhcp false;

If the timeout is 0 or not specified, continue-dhcp is activated by default and cannot be turned off. For other timeout values continue- dhcp is not enabled by default.

If continue-dhcp is enabled, DHCP continues to search for an address after the timeout has been reached and switches to the DHCP address if it finds one, otherwise it disables DHCP after reaching the timeout.

no-dhcp

Disables the DHCP default configuration in an environment context; only needed if no other configuration is specified (like static or zeroconf) and you really don't want an IPv4 address.

Syntax:

• no-dhcp;

static

Configures a static IP address in an environment context.

Syntax:

• static [metric <metric>] user;
• static [metric <metric>] { <<static context>> }

static user requires the configuration to be entered at runtime by the user.

In the static context at least the IP address must be configured; the available statements in static context are:

• ip <address>;
• netmask <address>;
• gateway <address>;
• dns-server <address>;

Apart from dns-server each statement must not be given more than once.

zeroconf

Configures an IP address in an environment context using using zeroconf (RFC 3927); can only be given once per environment.

Syntax:

• zeroconf [metric <metric>];

select

nuts can select an environment on certain conditions automatically. The select statement must occur in environment context and can only be given once per environment.

Syntax:

• select <condition>

Where <condition> can be any of the following:

• user; - user can select this environment manually
• arp <ipv4 address> [<mac address>]; - checks IPv4 address is present in local network (and optionally whether it has the expected MAC address).
• essid <essid>;
• and { <condition list> }
• or { <condition list> }

Example:

device "eno1" {
	environment "home" select or {
		arp 192.168.0.1 00:11:22:33:44:55;
		user;
	}
}

device "wlp3s0" {
	wpa-supplicant config "/etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf" driver "wext";
	environment "home" select or {
		essid "my-home-wifi";
		user;
	}
}