To facilitate network configuration, some desktop environments use NetworkManager. You can enable NetworkManager by setting: networking.networkmanager.enable = true; some desktop managers (e.g., GNOME) enable NetworkManager automatically for you. All users that should have permission to change network settings must belong to the networkmanager group: users.users.alice.extraGroups = [ "networkmanager" ]; NetworkManager is controlled using either nmcli or nmtui (curses-based terminal user interface). See their manual pages for details on their usage. Some desktop environments (GNOME, KDE) have their own configuration tools for NetworkManager. On XFCE, there is no configuration tool for NetworkManager by default: by enabling , the graphical applet will be installed and will launch automatically when the graphical session is started. networking.networkmanager and networking.wireless (WPA Supplicant) can be used together if desired. To do this you need to instruct NetworkManager to ignore those interfaces like: networking.networkmanager.unmanaged = [ "*" "except:type:wwan" "except:type:gsm" ]; Refer to the option description for the exact syntax and references to external documentation.