network manager says "device not managed"

Question

enter image description here I used to be able to share my network connection by editing the Auto Eth0 to share with other computers in the Ipv4 section and now I upgraded my laptop to 11.10 .

Now are there no wired connections in the network manager. When I click my connections applet at the top of the tray it also says wired device not managed!

when I type ifconfig -a

daniella@daniella-1001HA:~$ ifconfig -a
eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 90:e6:ba:83:d6:fc  
          UP BROADCAST MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 
          RX bytes:0 (0.0 B)  TX bytes:0 (0.0 B)
          Interrupt:45 

eth0:avahi Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 90:e6:ba:83:d6:fc  
          inet addr:169.254.13.40  Bcast:169.254.255.255  Mask:255.255.0.0
          UP BROADCAST MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          Interrupt:45 

lo        Link encap:Local Loopback  
          inet addr:127.0.0.1  Mask:255.0.0.0
          inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
          UP LOOPBACK RUNNING  MTU:16436  Metric:1
          RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0 
          RX bytes:0 (0.0 B)  TX bytes:0 (0.0 B)

wlan0     Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:25:d3:90:43:41  
          inet addr:192.168.0.6  Bcast:192.168.0.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
          inet6 addr: fe80::225:d3ff:fe90:4341/64 Scope:Link
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:12881 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:12867 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 
          RX bytes:8851081 (8.8 MB)  TX bytes:2343199 (2.3 MB)

The following answer from a similar question resolved this issue for me: https://askubuntu.com/a/893614/321971 — Edward Moffett, Apr 21 '17 at 22:56
@EdwardMoffett thanks! Adding the empty file named "10-globally-managed-devices.conf" to the directory "/etc/NetworkManager/conf.d/" fixed it for me! — dontbyteme, Sep 21 '17 at 08:12

fossfreedom · Accepted Answer · 2012-05-20T11:18:21.313

282

wired device not managed

Most probably your interface appears in /etc/network/interfaces. By default, NetworkManager does not manage interfaces that appear in /etc/network/interfaces. You can change this behaviour.

To do this - in a terminal:

sudo nano /etc/NetworkManager/NetworkManager.conf

change the line managed=false to managed=true

Save, stop and start network manager:

sudo service network-manager restart

Alternatively, you can remove the interface from /etc/network/interfaces.

backup the current interfaces file:

sudo cp /etc/network/interfaces /etc/network_interfaces_backup

Then open the file:

sudo nano /etc/network/interfaces

Delete everything in that file and copy and paste the following:

auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

Save, stop and start network manager:

sudo service network-manager restart

enter image description here

Double check in network manager (click on the indicator) that you have Enabled Networking ticked and you should also force deletion of old "wired connections" and selecting the new wired connection shown in the network manager indicator.

edited May 20 '12 at 11:18

answered Oct 23 '11 at 23:01

fossfreedom

172,746

1

Glad to hear it's working. But you also might check out wicd if you have more network troubles. It's in the repo, but you prolly need to do sudo service network-manager stop for wicd to work properly – Matt Oct 24 '11 at 05:29
3

I like the "alternative" method better because it allows you to later edit the network connection from network manager's UI, to specify additional nameservers, DHCP client ID, and 802.1x security settings, etc... – Simón May 23 '14 at 23:56
Thank you! but i needed to execute sudo service networking restart to make your explanation work. – eifersucht Nov 22 '16 at 09:19
1

I tried all this, but the second option in https://askubuntu.com/a/882812/682596 is what for fixed it for me. – Roel Van de Paar Jan 12 '18 at 23:30
NetworkManager also has the option to specify unmanaged devices, commenting out that also works – Wilf Sep 11 '18 at 20:54
Thanks a lot for this. I had once misconfigured something in my Ubuntu system and since then I can no longer connect to any WiFi network. But now it is working perfectly. – Puspam Aug 29 '20 at 06:51
Thanks, but I had to delete the unmanaged-devices line too in the NetworkManager.conf file. – Puspam Aug 29 '20 at 06:53
The right command to restart network-manager may be sudo service NetworkManager restart – a3nm Feb 18 '24 at 12:34

score 56 · Answer 2 · edited Apr 06 '22 at 15:44

56

Ubuntu installs a config file that sets most devices unmanaged:

/usr/lib/NetworkManager/conf.d/10-globally-managed-devices.conf:

[keyfile]
unmanaged-devices=*,except:type:wifi,except:type:gsm,except:type:cdma

To disable this, You can create a blank file with the same name in /etc:

sudo touch /etc/NetworkManager/conf.d/10-globally-managed-devices.conf
sudo systemctl restart NetworkManager

edited Apr 06 '22 at 15:44

Gary van der Merwe

358

answered Sep 14 '18 at 00:09

David Baucum

1,024

4

Thank you! Your solution worked for me on 18.04. – Carlos López-Camey Oct 04 '18 at 19:42
3

Thank you !!! I spent like two hours on this before finally finding your solution. Works as of 18.10. – max Oct 28 '18 at 09:46
1

Also worked for me with a Huawei modem. – ov1d1u Oct 27 '19 at 12:23
2

This should be combined with checked answer. After doing everything above, this file was needed as well. – rickfoosusa Nov 27 '19 at 21:56
1

Yes! Thank you thank you thank you thank you! (As for the others: the other amply documented "solutions" didn't work, this did) – Ketil Malde Jan 21 '20 at 09:21
1

This worked with Sixfab IoT HAT for Raspberry Pi on Ubuntu 18.04 – Jorge Cuevas Apr 16 '20 at 22:36
4

Worked on a minimal install of 20.04. LTS. – taylorthurlow Aug 05 '20 at 06:39
Don't forget tosudo service network-manager restart afterwards :) Worked on Ubuntu 20.04.2 LTS - I already had everything from other answers, this was the final step :-) – jave.web Aug 03 '21 at 08:41
This seemed to have worked and I upvoted the answer, only to find out that it messed up my managed WiFi connection – isapir May 27 '22 at 23:02
This works, but surely that file is there for a reason. I wonder how Ubuntu usually "manages" wired connections. Still, this workaround has let me get networking functional in VMs on more than one occasion, so very thankful for this. – ArrayBolt3 Feb 16 '23 at 06:39
worked on Ubuntu Server 22.04 – alf Jul 17 '23 at 17:41
I accessed the file and commented both lines with # and worked! – Sergio Abreu Aug 11 '23 at 12:46

score 16 · Answer 3 · edited May 20 '12 at 11:18

wired device not managed

I had the same problem with a fresh install on my Asus Eee PC 1005HA. The live environment worked with no problems, but once installed I couldn't get the connection to respond or to not read "device not managed". When I changed the text in this configuration file and restarted Network Manager everything worked!

gksudo gedit /etc/NetworkManager/NetworkManager.conf

for lubuntu:

gksudo leafpad /etc/NetworkManager/NetworkManager.conf

Now the text editor will open. Find the line managed=false and replace false with true and save the file (ctrl+s) and close the file.

Restart your computer or the NetworkManager service (sudo service network-manager restart).

score 12 · Answer 4 · edited May 20 '12 at 11:17

12

wireless device not managed

I've also found this issue after installing the Ubuntu 11.10 alternate version.

In my case, the /etc/network/interfaces was configured during installation to download new packages, and the conflict arose after the NetworkManager was set up during the first session.

The solution I've found was commenting the lines related to the wlan interface in the /etc/network/interfaces (in console, sudo vim /etc/network/interfaces or your editor of choice):

# The primary network interface
#auto wlan0
#iface wlan0 inet dhcp
#    wpa-ssid [your_ssid]
#    wpa-psk [your_wpa_password]

And then, as Joseph VanPelt proposed, set managed=false in the /etc/NetworkManager/NetworkManager.conf and running sudo service network-manager restart.

edited May 20 '12 at 11:17

fossfreedom

172,746

answered Nov 12 '11 at 20:17

José Fernández Ramos

356

Excellent! This worked for me on an Eee PC 701. – oKtosiTe Dec 10 '11 at 17:00
2

Setting managed= is unnecessary (unless it's meant to revert a prior change). – Mathieu Trudel-Lapierre Apr 13 '12 at 17:42
For me, setting managed=true is what solved it eventually. It did not work with managed=false. – Daniel Hershcovich Jun 29 '12 at 18:51

score 9 · Answer 5 · answered Feb 18 '20 at 16:52

All solutions above failed. Here is the solution for Ubuntu 19.10 on minimal install so the odds that this solution works for you are very high.

We are going to edit a file, but you cannot jam everything on one line as this will cause an error. Put [keyfile] on the first line, and the rest of the command on the second line.

sudo nano /etc/NetworkManager/conf.d/10-globally-managed-devices.conf

[keyfile]

unmanaged-devices=*,except:type:wifi,except:type:wwan,except:type:ethernet

ctrl-o to save ctrl-x to close file and nano

Before you reboot, make sure the contents @ /usr/lib/NetworkManager/conf.d/10-globally-managed-devices.conf are empty

Explanation, Please Read So you don't screw up: Network-manager presumably looks at both 10-globally-managed-devices.conf files in the two aforementioned directories. If neither of them have [keyfile] seperated by a new line, network-manager crashes (confirmed). If both of them have [keyfile] separated by a new line, presumably as before network-manager will crash (unconfirmed). Presumably [keyfile] means "use this file as config" hence the aforementioned network-manager behavior. So one of those files should be empty and the other should have [keyfile] followed by new line and the rest of the command. So in Ubuntu the /usr/ file will always be zeroed unless possibly way back like 14.04 or earlier. But for other distros it might be reverse where /etc/ file is zeroed and /usr/ file edited and formatted properly.

Ubuntu Jedi Master

I'm using Ubuntu 20.04 and I didn't check other solutions. And this one is working fine for me. for the second file in /usr/lib/NetworkManager/conf.d/10-globally-managed-devices.conf, you can put # (hash/pound sign) before the lines, which will make those comments and you won't need to delete the content of that file. — ssi-anik, Oct 23 '22 at 16:23

kiri · Answer 6 · 2013-11-29T21:28:00.800

8

wired device not managed

This is a simple command which does the same as the accepted answer non-interactively.

Run this command in a Terminal to use it:

sudo sed -i 's/^managed=false/managed=true/' /etc/NetworkManager/NetworkManager.conf

You may have to restart the network manager afterwards with this command:

sudo service network-manager restart

edited Nov 29 '13 at 21:28

answered Nov 29 '13 at 21:20

kiri

28,246
16
81
118

score 5 · Answer 7 · edited Jun 08 '12 at 02:02

Situation like this may appear, when one runs pppoeconf or something similar and the command overwrites the setting saved by NetworkManager. Even though the device seems to be working properly, Network Manager shows device status to be unmanaged.

If this a normal user's pc with simple network configuration like connecting via DHCP and automatic configuration, simply out comment the lines and restart network manager.

$ sudo restart network-manager

If situations other than these, please explain.

score 3 · Answer 8 · edited Apr 26 '14 at 07:18

I had the same problem, I solved it by commenting the lines where the unmanaged device was mentioned, by mac address, in /etc/NetworkManager/NetworkManager.conf.

[main]
plugins=ifupdown,keyfile
dns=dnsmasq

[ifupdown]
managed=false

[keyfile]
unmanaged-devices=mac:00:26:2d:fd:5c:e0

changed to

[main]
plugins=ifupdown,keyfile
dns=dnsmasq

[ifupdown]
managed=false

\#[keyfile]

\#unmanaged-devices=mac:00:26:2d:fd:5c:e0

score 1 · Answer 9 · edited May 20 '12 at 11:17

wireless device not managed

This is because the alternate images were for a period of time, configuring the wireless networks in /etc/network/interfaces; which causes NetworkManager to, on purpose, ignore the interface and consider them online.

A good solution if you want to simply use your wireless connection (or wired) with DHCP is to comment out these settings in /etc/network/interfaces for all interfaces except lo, and reboot your system or restart NetworkManager like so:

sudo restart network-manager

Of course, this means you will need to enter your wireless settings into NetworkManager (password, etc) after clicking on the right item from the applet menu.

score 1 · Answer 10 · answered Feb 11 '14 at 17:55

1

Just to add a non-default answer, this can also happen if your computer has a hardware ON/OFF switch for the Wi-Fi interface. If you have such a "killswitch", ensure that you haven't accidentally turned the interface off

answered Feb 11 '14 at 17:55

Hamy

500

Bobhuber · Answer 11 · 2011-10-23T22:46:34.773

1

There are two ways to manage network connections. You either have to do everything thru the network manager and remove everything Except the Loopback entry in /etc/network/interfaces

auto lo

iface lo inet loopback

or totally remove the network manager thru the package manager or terminal and use the /etc/network/interfaces and /etc/resolve.conf file to control your connections. If not you will see the error you are getting. Even with static IP I've found that the network manager makes things easy and you can configure your IPV4 connections thru the menu.

edited Oct 23 '11 at 22:46

answered Oct 23 '11 at 22:36

Bobhuber

11

please put all of that answer into a newbie answer and I dont get any of it :( I just want it to work nothing works! – Daniella Glover Oct 23 '11 at 22:59
there is no Auto eth0 in the menu its blank! how can I edit anything if it isnt there! I need a useful answer! – Daniella Glover Oct 23 '11 at 23:01

score 0 · Answer 12 · answered Oct 23 '11 at 21:47

0

In 11.10 you can go to System Settings and you should see a Network Icon. Run that utility and you should see tabs for your network devices, wired and wireless. Each tab has a slider that allows you to switch the device off. Or in your case switch eth0 or wired connection 1, as it is now called, on. May be. At least check that it not switched to off.

regards.

answered Oct 23 '11 at 21:47

grahammechanical

1,952

sorry but its a no go, there is no slider. I suggest you look at my screenshot. no slider there and I repeat there is nothing in the wired connections tab in my network manager. :( – Daniella Glover Oct 23 '11 at 21:59

network manager says "device not managed"

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