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.extraUsers.youruser.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 adding networkmanagerapplet to the list of system packages, the graphical applet will be installed and will launch automatically when XFCE is starting (and will show in the status tray). networking.networkmanager and networking.wireless (WPA Supplicant) cannot be enabled at the same time: you can still connect to the wireless networks using NetworkManager.