Category: Networking

Fixing ‘netplan apply’ Failed to start NetworkManager.service: Unit NetworkManager.service not found.

Uli Köhler Linux, Networking

Problem:

You’ve configured a wifi or similar (non-ethernet) network in netplan. Your netplan configuration (e.g. in /etc/netplan/50-cloud-init.yaml) looks similar to this:

network:
    ethernets:
        enp0s25:
            addresses: []
            dhcp4: true
    wifis:
        wlxc04a0013c4ca:
            renderer: NetworkManager
            match: {}
            dhcp4: true
            access-points:
                MyWifi:
                    password: "mywifipassword"
    version: 2

 

But when you run

sudo netplan apply

you see an error message like this:

Failed to start NetworkManager.service: Unit NetworkManager.service not found.
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/sbin/netplan", line 23, in <module>
    netplan.main()
  File "/usr/share/netplan/netplan/cli/core.py", line 50, in main
    self.run_command()
  File "/usr/share/netplan/netplan/cli/utils.py", line 130, in run_command
    self.func()
  File "/usr/share/netplan/netplan/cli/commands/apply.py", line 41, in run
    self.run_command()
  File "/usr/share/netplan/netplan/cli/utils.py", line 130, in run_command
    self.func()
  File "/usr/share/netplan/netplan/cli/commands/apply.py", line 101, in command_apply
    utils.systemctl_network_manager('start', sync=sync)
  File "/usr/share/netplan/netplan/cli/utils.py", line 68, in systemctl_network_manager
    subprocess.check_call(command)
  File "/usr/lib/python3.6/subprocess.py", line 291, in check_call
    raise CalledProcessError(retcode, cmd)
subprocess.CalledProcessError: Command '['systemctl', 'start', '--no-block', 'NetworkManager.service']' returned non-zero exit status 5.

Solution:

The renderer: NetworkManager line tells netplan to use NetworkManager to connect to this network.

The error message tells you that NetworkManager is not installed on your system.

On Ubuntu and Debian, use

sudo apt install network-manager

to install it. On other distributions, try to install network-manager or a similarly named package using your distribution’s package manager.

After than, run

sudo netplan apply

again.

How to SSH to an IPv6 address

Uli Köhler Linux, Networking

If your IPv6 address begins with fe80::

This type of IPv6 address is called link-local and is therefore specific to a network interface on your computer. You can use ifconfig to show information about the network interfaces. You are looking for an identifer like eth0, wlan0, enp3s0, wlp4s0 or tap1. For this example we’re using eth0.

Now you can connect to the IPv6 using:

ssh <username>@<ipv6 address>%<interface>

for example

ssh user@fe80::21b:21ff:fe22:e865%eth0

Replace <interface> by the correct interface (if you don’t know, try out every interface), replace <ipv6 address> by the correct IP address and replace <user> by the correct username.

If your IPv6 address does NOT begin with fe80::

You can just use

ssh <username>@<ipv6 address>

for example

ssh uli@2a01:4f9:c010:278::1

Replace <ipv6 address> by the correct IP address and replace <user> by the correct username.

Routing public IPv6 addresses to your lxc/lxd containers

Uli Köhler Cloud, Container, Linux, Networking

The enormous amount of IPv6 addresses available to most commercially hosted VPS / root servers with a public IPv6 prefix allows you to route a public IPv6 address to every container that is running on your server. This tutorial shows you how to do that, even if you have no prior experience with routing,

Step 0: Create your LXC container

We assume you have already done this – just for reference, here’s how you can create a container:

lxc launch ubuntu:18.04 my-container

Step 1: Which IP address do you want to assign to your container?

First you need to find out what prefix is routed to your host. Usually you can do that by checking in your provider’s control panel. You’re looking for something like 2a01:4f9:c010:278::1/64. Another option would be to run sudo ifconfig

and look for a inet6 line in the section of your primary network interface (this only works if you have configured your server to have an IPv6 address). Note that addresses that start with fe80:: and addresses starting with fd, among others, are not public IPv6 addresses.

Then you can define a new IPv6 address to your container. Which one you choose – as long as it’s within the prefix – is entirely your decision.

Often, <prefix>::1 is used for the host itself, therefore you could, for example, choose <prefix>::2. Note that some providers use some IP addresses for other purposes. Check your provider’s documentation for details.

If you don’t want to make it easy to find your container’s public IPv6, don’t choose <prefix>::1, <prefix>::2, <prefix>::3 etc but something more random like <prefix>:af15:99b1:0b05:1, for example2a01:4f9:c010:278:af15:99b1:0b05:0001. Ensure your IPv6 address has 8 groups of 4 hex digits each!

For this example, we choose the IPv6 address 2a01:4f9:c010:278::8.

Step 2: Find out the ULA of your container

We need to find the ULA (unique local address – similar to a private IPv4 address which is not routed on the internet) of the container. Using lxc, this is quite easy:

uli@myserver:~$ lxc list
+--------------+---------+-----------------------+-----------------------------------------------+
|     NAME     |  STATE  |         IPV4          |                     IPV6                      |
+--------------+---------+-----------------------+-----------------------------------------------+
| my-container | RUNNING | 10.144.118.232 (eth0) | fd42:830b:36dc:3691:216:3eff:fed1:9058 (eth0) |
+--------------+---------+-----------------------+-----------------------------------------------+

You need to look in the IPv6 column and copy the address listed there. In this example, the address is fd42:830b:36dc:3691:216:3eff:fed1:9058.

Step 3: Setup IPv6 routing

Now we can tell the host Linux to route your chosen public IPv6 to the container’s private IPv6. This is quite easy:

sudo ip6tables -t nat -A PREROUTING -d <public IPv6> -j DNAT --to-destination <container private IPv6>

In our example, this would be

sudo ip6tables -t nat -A PREROUTING -d 2a01:4f9:c010:278::8 -j DNAT --to-destination fd42:830b:36dc:3691:216:3eff:fed1:9058

First, test the command by running it in a shell. If it works (i.e. if it doesn’t print any error message), you can permanently store it e.g. by adding it to /etc/rc.local (after #!/bin/bash, before exit 0). Advanced users should prefer to add it to /etc/network/interfaces.

Step 4: Connect to your container using SSH on your public IPv6 (optional)

Note: This step requires that you have working IPv6 connectivity at your local computer. If you are unsure, check at ipv6-test.com

First, open a shell on your container:

lxc exec my-container bash

After running this, you should see a root shell prompt inside your container:

root@my-container:~#

The following commands should be entered in the container shell, not the host!

Now we can create a user to login to (in this example, we create the uli user):

root@my-container:~# adduser uli
Adding user `uli' ...
Adding new group `uli' (1001) ...
Adding new user `uli' (1001) with group `uli' ...
Creating home directory `/home/uli' ...
Copying files from `/etc/skel' ...
Enter new UNIX password: 
Retype new UNIX password: 
passwd: password updated successfully
Changing the user information for uli
Enter the new value, or press ENTER for the default
        Full Name []: 
        Room Number []: 
        Work Phone []: 
        Home Phone []: 
        Other []: 
Is the information correct? [Y/n]

You only need to enter a password (you won’t see anything on screen when entering it) twice, for all other lines you can just press enter.

The ubuntu:18.04 lxc image used in this example does not allow SSH password authentication in its default configuration. In order to fix this, change PasswordAuthentication no to PasswordAuthentication yes in /etc/ssh/sshd_config and restart the SSH server by running service sshd restart. Be sure you understand the security implications before you do that!

Now, logout of your container shell by pressing Ctrl+D. The following commands can be entered on your desktop or any other server with IPv6 connectivity.

Now login to your server:

ssh <username>@<public IPv6 address>

in this example:

ssh uli@2a01:4f9:c010:278::8

If you configured everything correctly, you’ll see the shell prompt for your container:

uli@my-container:~$

Note: Don’t forget to configure a firewall for your container, e.g. ufw! Your container’s IPv6 is exposed to the internet and just assuming noone will guess it is not good security practice.