Hi Jonas, On 10/02/2025 18:56, Matthieu Baerts wrote: > Hi Jonas, > > On 10/02/2025 18:23, Jonas Smedegaard wrote: >> Quoting Matthieu Baerts (2025-02-09 23:49:37) >>> 9 Feb 2025 22:15:50 Jonas Smedegaard <d...@jones.dk>: >>>> Quoting Matthieu Baerts (NGI0) (2025-02-09 19:56:27) >>>>> iwd doesn't provide all the same features as the ones from >>>>> wpa_supplicant, especially everything not related to the Wireless world, >>>>> e.g. Ethernet authentication (bug#956457), or some more specific >>>>> features like MACsec. >>>>> >>>>> wpa_supplicant and iwd can then be used in parallel, for different >>>>> purposes. >>>> >>>> When you install only the iwd package, then you can also install the >>>> wpasupplicant package, and carefully configure them to not step on each >>>> others' toes. >>>> >>>> What the package network-manager-iwd offers is relieving the user of >>>> manual configuration: It is ensured that iwd works together with >>>> network-manager, but since network-manager recommends wpasupplicant, >>>> it is not adequate to provide a network-manager config snippet, because >>>> wpasupplicant will still be installed and will in its default >>>> configuration interfere with the default configuration of iwd. >>> >>> I see, but in fact, thanks to the config file provided by this package, >>> at the next reboot, NM will use iwd and leave wpasupplicant alone. >>> So no conflicts. >>> >>> iwd is just one WiFi backend that is loaded after having read the config. >>> NM will not try to use both at the same time. >> >> I might be wrong, but my understanding (and as I recall my personal >> experience as well) is not a problem of which helper tool >> network-manager interacts with, but instead that wpasupplicant by >> default loads itself as a daemon which somehow (listening to same >> socket, I guess) causes iwd to fail to load or operate reliably. >> >> See https://wiki.debian.org/NetworkManager/iwd for related info. > > I guess you can have the conflict if you set IWD as the new backend, > then restart NM without stopping wpasupplicant that was already launched > from a previous instance. (I don't know if it can still be an issue today.) > > If there is a reboot, the issue will not occur (that's what I had on my > side) because wpasupplicant will not be used as backend by NM. > > In other words, there is a risk of issues only during the session where > IWD has just been installed, when the NM service is restarted but the > wpasupplicant one is left running. If someone wants to use IWD right > away, it will have to stop wpasupplicant as mentioned in the wiki. Do we > need to cover this case? > > I don't think it is needed, but then a post-install script could also > stop wpasupplicant and restart NM. > > Now that I'm thinking about that, with the conflict, wpasupplicant will > be removed, but NM will not be restarted and will try to continue using > it. I don't think it is a good situation. Keeping wpasupplicant seems > safer. (Or a post-install script is needed.) > >>>> Thanks for the proposal, but I disagree with this one. >>> >>> (I think there is a small mixed-up in the changelog file, because it is >>> saying the opposite, but that's a detail :) ) >> >> What mixup, more specifically? I like perfect changelogs. :-) > The changelog for the last version mentioned this: > > * relax binary package network-manager-iwd > to not conflict with wpasupplicant; > update long description; > closes: bug#1094603, thanks to Matthieu Baerts > > Did you not remove the entry for the bug#1095606 instead of this one?
Is it OK for you if I close #1095606 (signature in debian/watch) and re-open #1094603 (avoid uninstalling wpasupplicant while being used)? Cheers, Matt -- Sponsored by the NGI0 Core fund.
