NetworkManager 1.48 improves detection of 6 GHz band capabilities for Wi-Fi devices

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The open source NetworkManager 1.48 tool for managing network connections on the Linux-based operating system is now available for download as a major update with new features and improvements.

NetworkManager 1.48 is available after more than three months Network Manager 1.46 and introduces new features such as the ability to allow SLAAC IPv6 and static IPv6 DNS server assignment for a broadband modem when the IPv6 device address is not explicitly passed by ModemManager.

It also adds support for changing OpenSSL ciphers for 802.1X authentication via 802-1x.openssl-ciphers connection properties, improves detection of 6 GHz band capabilities for Wi-Fi devices, and properly restores connection profiles in memory during checkpoint rollback.

Starting with this release, NetworkManager now correctly sets the “StateReason” property of the D-Bus “Device” object when the device is unmanaged. The property can be seen in the NetworkManager CLI with nmcli -f all device show $DEV Command.

Among other notable changes, NetworkManager 1.48 fixes a performance issue leading to 100% CPU usage if external programs were performing a large number of route updates and replaces mac-address-blacklist property for 802-11 wireless and 802-11 wired networks mac-address-denylist property.

Finally, this release discontinues building with GNU Autotools. The developers recommend using Meson to build NetworkManager. If you still want to build it with GNU Autotools, you can specify the file --disable-autotools-deprecation argument during configuration.

NetworkManager 1.48 is available for download as a source tarpack Here, which requires manual compilation. If this is not your idea, you should wait until the new version of NetworkManager reaches the stable software repositories of your favorite GNU/Linux distribution.