Apparently NetworkManager recently gained support for macvlan interfaces.  I notice it also supports macvtap, and the patch shows it already had some support for tun/tap devices.I thought tap interfaces are normally created by VM software.  Then the interface can be joined to a bridge.  Or either of tun/tap can have an IP address assigned, again often done by VM software like virt-manager/libvirt.  For macvtap, there isn't even anything that NetworkManager could configure!  I just can't make sense of it.Question: Can anyone think of a reason to create tun/tap/macvtap devices using NetworkManager?Glossarymacvlan is an alternative to bridging for networking Virtual Machines.  Apparently it avoids some overhead.  I haven't worked out the corresponding limitations.tun/tap network interfaces provide a corresponding character device, which allows virtual machine implementations to read/write network packets from the interface.  tap works at layer 2 (ethernet); tun only works at layer 3 (IP).macvtap provides the same character device, but packets either come out a physical device the macvtap was bound to, or are bridged to a different macvtap/macvlan device on the same physical interface.It can be useful to create a macvlan interface for the host.  It wouldn't make sense to create a macvtap interface for the host though.
Why does NetworkManager explicitly support tun/tap devices?
linux;virtual machine;networkmanager