NetworkManager, a system service and set of tools for managing network connections, widely adopted by most Linux distributions, is rolling out version 1.54.3 today as the second maintenance update to the 1.54 series.

One change affects private connections that specify a user in the connection.permissions property. NetworkManager now verifies that the designated user actually has access to the 802.1X certificates and private keys configured for that connection.

This additional check prevents situations where a connection profile references credentials that the intended user cannot read, reducing the risk of misconfigurations and unexpected connection failures, especially in multi-user or enterprise setups.

On top of that, the release introduces a new function in libnm for VPN plugins. This API allows plugins to explicitly check whether a user has the required permissions to access certificates and private keys before attempting to establish a VPN connection.

For more information, see the changelog. NetworkManager 1.54.3’s source code is available for download from the project’s GitLab page.

The next major release, NetworkManager 1.56, is still in active development, promising to introduce several important features, such as nmcli support for viewing and managing WireGuard peers, improving SR-IOV handling by allowing the reapplication of sriov.vfs and bond-port VLAN settings, and enhancing hostname resolution by accepting names longer than 64 characters.

Bobby Borisov

Bobby, an editor-in-chief at Linuxiac, is a Linux professional with over 20 years of experience. With a strong focus on Linux and open-source software, he has worked as a Senior Linux System Administrator, Software Developer, and DevOps Engineer for small and large multinational companies.