Install instructions for virt-manager missing networking configuration

[opensiriusfox]

Feedback

The instructions for virt-manager on https://www.home-assistant.io/installation/alternative/ skip the rather important step of setting up a bridge device from within the virt-manager UI. Without this information any installation lacks network connectivity and cannot proceed through initial setup.

URL

https://www.home-assistant.io/help/

Version

2025.7.3

Additional information

No response

[edent]

Yup! I'm stuck on this now. Is there an official guide to setting up a bridge? I'm using the CLI install.

[opensiriusfox]

Bump because I know this repo uses StaleBot.

[github-actions[bot]]

There hasn't been any activity on this issue recently. Due to the high number of incoming GitHub notifications, we have to clean some of the old issues, as many of them have already been resolved. If this issue is still relevant, please let us know by leaving a comment 👍 This issue has now has been marked as stale and will be closed if no further activity occurs. Thank you for your contributions.

[opensiriusfox]

Clarification would still be appreciated with the death of existing installations pending.

[opensiriusfox]

Issue still present in the documentation today. Bumping to avoid the impending stalebot.

[giskarda]

I'm going leave what worked for me here:

I'm running HA on a debian stable mini pc. My primary internet comes from a wired devices but I also have a wifi network device. Both of them are connected to the same router hence share the same network (192.168.1.0/24)

if I understood correctly you can't have a bridge device on a wifi card because of some 802.11 broadcast reason I don't fully comprehend. My understanding is that you can't create such bridge with systemd-networkd as you would with a wired device.

So instead of creating a layer2 bridge, I've created a Nat/Masquerade network through a virtual network using a vi(rtual)br(idge) bridge.

start with creating an xml file that will contain the definition of the virtual network:

<network>
  <name>wifi-nat-net</name>
  <bridge name='virbr1'/>
  <forward mode='nat'>
    <interface dev='wlp2s0'/> 
  </forward>
  <ip address='192.168.100.1' netmask='255.255.255.0'>
    <dhcp>
      <range start='192.168.100.10' end='192.168.100.254'/>
    </dhcp>
  </ip>
</network>

Update the interface dev with your wifi device.

Then issue the following commands:

• virsh net-define wifi-nat.xml
• virsh net-autostart wifi-nat-net
• virsh net-start wifi-nat-net

then update your HA vm definition virsh edit haos adding

<interface type='network'>
  <source network='wifi-nat-net'/> 
  <model type='virtio'/>
</interface>

in the devices stanza of the vm xml.

If you restart your VM it should pick up an IP in the range described above (run ip a s in the ha console)

YMMV but that allowed me to connect via wifi to the VM (simply use ssh port forwarding)

hope this helps