If you're a developer and you're looking to help out, any of item shown here are great places to start. Otherwise, check out bugzilla for more stuff to jump into.

Release Versioning

As of the 0.8.2 release and later, NetworkManager follows an even/odd versioning scheme, where versions with an odd 'micro' number (ie 0.8.3 or 0.7.3) are development releases and are not intended for production use. Versions with an even 'micro' number (ie 0.8.4 or 0.9.0) are production releases and intended for normal use.

0.9

This major new release is planned for March 2011. It's most significant feature is a huge simplification of the configuration model, bringing benefits to both users and developers. The most significant feature for users will be richer and more capable network control and configuration applets for GNOME 3.0's GNOME Shell and Ubuntu's Indicator system, and full support for fast user switching and shared computers.

For developers, the 0.9 release merges the User and System settings services into NetworkManager itself, allowing simpler client applets and streamlined configuration management. As a result NetworkManager's D-Bus API is also much simpler, and further API convenience methods will be provided for common client operations like creating a new connection from a scanned access point, filtering existing connections for a specific device, etc.

For more detailed information on the architectural changes in the 0.9 release, see NetworkManager/ApiSimplify.

0.8.4

This release is scheduled for March 2011, and is primarily a bug-fix release and includes the following changes:

• Preliminary support for Exherbo Linux
• Logging fixes to suppress unnecessary messages
• Ensure removed devices are cleaned up
• Fix potential 64-bit crash updating timestamps
• IPv6 setup, routing, and compliance fixes
• Handle reverse DNS lookups with local caching nameserver configurations
• No longer updates /etc/hosts when hostname changes
• Request WPAD option from DHCP servers
• Shutdown crash fixes
• nmcli support for WWAN connections
• Persistent hostname sent to DHCP servers by default
• Allow disabing PPP support at build time
• Memory leak fixes

0.8.2

This release was tagged on 2010-11-03 and includes the following bug fixes and features:

Fixes & Features

• Local caching nameserver support using dnsmasq
• Seamless handling of VPN plugin addition and removal

• Better enforcement of WiFi control permissions

• Saves and restores WiFi "enabled" state

• Support for s390 network devices
• Applet performance improvements on slower machines
• Better handling of mobile broadband PIN codes

0.8.1

This release was tagged in late July 2010 and includes bug fixes the following features.

New Features

• Bluetooth Dial-Up Networking (DUN) support (bgo #432774)

• Enhanced IPv6 support including DHCPv6 capability (bgo #556915)

• Command-line interface
• Mobile broadband signal strength, status, and roaming display
• Support for restricting mobile broadband roaming behavior
• Enhanced logging and debugging infrastructure
• Better handling of suspend/resume
• Enhancements to the 'keyfile' system connection format
• Ability to suppress periodic scans by locking connection to a BSSID

0.8

The 0.8 release was tagged on 2010-02-18.

New Features

• Improved mobile broadband support using ModemManager for wider hardware support

• Bluetooth Personal Area Networking (PAN) support
• IPv6 autoconf and static IP support
• Allow usage of single-file certificate chains in 802.1x connections

0.7.4

As the 0.8.x branch is the stable branch, there are no major features planned for the 0.7.4 release and the release date is TBD. This release will be composed of minor bug fixes and (if any) security updates. All users are encouraged to update to 0.8.x stable release.

0.7.3

This release was tagged on 2010-07-28, and was bugfix-only release with one major feature: support for OLPC mesh devices.

0.7.2

The 0.7.2 release was tagged on 2009-11-23.

Future 0.8/0.9 Features

These features are planned to be added to NetworkManager in the near future, and will be assigned to a specific release plan when appropriate:

• Interface bonding support (bgo #540995)

• PPPoE over WiFi support (bgo #559134)

• VPN autoconnect (?) (bgo #349151, bgo #560471)

• Connection time and traffic tracking (bgo #601372)

• VPN connections in the top-level applet menu

• Bridge interface support (bgo #546197)