The network configuration abstraction renderer

Netplan is a utility for easily configuring networking on a linux system. You simply create a YAML description of the required network interfaces and what each should be configured to do. From this description Netplan will generate all the necessary configuration for your chosen renderer tool.

How do I use it?

Configuration

Without configuration, Netplan will not do anything. The simplest configuration snippet (to bring up things via DHCP on workstations) is as follows:

network:
  version: 2
  renderer: NetworkManager

This will make Netplan hand over control to NetworkManager, which will manage all devices in its default way (i.e. any ethernet device will come up with DHCP once carrier is detected).

When individual interface configurations are given, it will not let devices automatically come up using DHCP, but each interface needs to be specified in a file in /etc/netplan/ with its explicit YAML settings for the networkd or NetworkManager backend renderers.

Commands

Netplan uses a set of subcommands to drive its behavior:

netplan generate: Use /etc/netplan to generate the required configuration for the renderers.
netplan apply: Apply all configuration for the renderers, restarting them as necessary.
netplan try: Apply configuration and wait for user confirmation; will roll back if network is broken or no confirmation is given.