Since beginning of this year (2016), two beta releases for the upcoming NetworkManager version 1.2 were released [beta1] [beta2] [git-beta1] [git-beta2].

These lead us towards the next stable version which will bring many new features and improvements. Without going into detail, the improvements and fixes are vast [NEWS].

• A lot of code was refactored and cleaned up. For example the platform code was for large parts rewritten and now implements netlink-route parsing without relying on libnl3-route library. I think it is fair to say, that the code keeps improving.
•  We also significantly improved our testing. With the help from Red Hat’s QA team we have an extensive suite of integration tests that help us immensely to be confident about the stability of the code. Currently those tests require internal infrastructure and are thus not yet upstream. But that is on our todo list. Also Coverity and valgrind help us to discover bugs.
• The previous version 1.0 already introduced the new libnm library to replace the legacy libnm-util/libnm-glib pair. The main reason was to move away from the long deprecated dbus-glib library which NetworkManager was using since the early days. This was not really fixable without introducing a new library. Note that the legacy libraries are still there and continue to be available as long as there are users.
  Now with 1.2, we also ported most VPN plugins and nm-applet to the new library. The VPN plugins contain a shared library which can be loaded by clients to import/export VPN configurations. Those VPN libraries are now available in two flavors, for users of libnm and libnm-glib.

Backward compatibility is of the highest priority for us. Optimally, you can update from an older version without running into any regressions. If you happen to encounter a problem it is likely an issue we want to hear about and fix it.

What about 1.0?

The first release of the current stable branch 1.0 happened more than a year ago. Indeed, NetworkManager’s upstream project makes new major releases very infrequently and the project might not look very active. Well, that is not the case.

NetworkManager’s stable branch 1.0 continues to be heavily maintained in parallel. The last minor release 1.0.10 was cut end of December 2015 [1.0.10] [git-1.0.10].

These stable releases contain much more than mere bug fixes for the 1.0 branch. During the past year more than 1400 commits were backported from the development branch, including new features and major refactorings. This was done to let users and downstream benefit from the work on master and to provide important improvements while waiting for version 1.2.

In fact, some of the new features for 1.2 already found their way back to the stable branch and if you are using a recent distribution like Fedora 23, you already have a small taste of what’s coming.

Where and How?

There are still a few things that need to be fixed. Then the first release candidate 1.2-rc1 will happen and the final 1.2.0 release should happen soon after. I think by mid April 2016 NetworkManager 1.2.0 will be out.

If you want to give it a try, you can build it from source [master] [beta2]. Our master branch is in a good shape and close to the final state. Alternatively, a beta is also packaged in Debian testing/unstable and Fedora 24/rawhide.

We love to hear feedback on networkmanager-list@gnome.org or #nm on IRC/freenode.