virt-manager 1.5.1-1 (Debian Buster [Testing]) Neither the Connection Details > Network Interfaces window, nor the Virtual Network Interface device configuration in the domain configuration panel in virt-manager allow you to set the virtual link state of a virtual interface, you must use virsh's 'domif-setlink' command to do so. Libvirt manages interface link states using the <link> element in the domain XML, and the state attribute of that link element. [1] This is how 'virsh domif-setlink' works. [2][3] This would be a useful feature to include in the UI, so you can pull a VM off of the network easily if you need to without affecting the host, or other VMs, since this directly affects the virtual NIC rather than a bridge. (Without needing to use virsh) My concept for implementation is to add a "Link state:" label with a toggle button next to it, to the Virtual Network Interface device page in domain info. Activating the button will toggle the link state up or down, similar to domif-setlink. [1][3] I'm not very attached to this implementation concept if you have a better one. [1] (https://libvirt.org/formatdomain.html#elementLink) [2] (https://libvirt.org/git/?p=libvirt.git;a=blob;f=tools/virsh-domain.c;h=24f78520dee1cee8c79e8a80e1c1e5173346977c;hb=e05d8e570b24bc48c083b2c36428f7fca8ff864b#l3060) [3] (https://libvirt.org/git/?p=libvirt.git;a=blob;f=tools/virsh-domain.c;h=24f78520dee1cee8c79e8a80e1c1e5173346977c;hb=e05d8e570b24bc48c083b2c36428f7fca8ff864b#l3180)
I swear, I did do extensive searching of this tracker for any duplicate reports, but alas, I missed bug 1614532. I discovered this after a little bit of research on the github, and finding out my RFE is already complete, just not in Debian Buster yet. Sorry! https://github.com/virt-manager/virt-manager/commit/ef4e0dbc4f29a9439b6941e90e199ef6b19b8ae2 *** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of bug 1614532 ***