The described technology is generally directed to over-the-air configuration and management of new radio smart repeaters. To facilitate data forwarding, a smart repeater is configured to generate a forwarding layer that is logically above a physical layer of a mobile termination function (corresponding to a repeater link) and a physical layer of distributed unit function of the repeater equipment (corresponding to an access link). Via the forwarding layer, when traffic is received from a parent node, the traffic is forwarded via the access link to user equipment, and when traffic is received from a user equipment, the traffic is forwarded via the access link to a parent node. A smart repeater control management function/interface manages control plane signaling and configurations for the mobile termination function and distributed unit function.