Unable to manage Network via GUI in Ubuntu

Document Scope

The Ubuntu LTS installation method typically defaults to using NetworkManager for network management but does not automatically create the 10-globally-managed-devices.conf file. This file may need to be manually created or modified to manage network devices via GUI. If you encounter issues managing your network ports via the GUI (Settings) on your Ubuntu LTS server installation, you can use steps below to try and troubleshoot one method for resolving the issue.

Step 1: Check for Existing Configuration File

Open a terminal as root  and run the following command to check if the file "10-globally-managed-devices.conf" exists in the NetworkManager configuration directory.

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

Step 2: Rename and Recreate the Configuration File

If the above command shows that the file exists, rename it and recreate the file to resolve potential configuration issues. If the file doesn't exist, just run the touch command to create the file

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

or

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

Step 3: Reboot or restart NetworkManager service

Depending on your version of Ubuntu one of the two below commands should restart your networking service. Alternately you can simply reboot your system.

sudo systemctl restart NetworkManager

or

sudo service network-manager restart