networkmanager: allow `iwd` as Wi-Fi backend #51803

eliasp · 2018-12-09T23:04:45Z

Motivation for this change

I wanted to make use of iwd as wireless backend for NetworkManager.

Things done

Couldn't fully test it locally yet due to the number of packages having to be rebuilt in my local KF5/Plasma-based environment.

flokli · 2018-12-10T07:13:30Z

Really excited to see iwd being used, thanks for your work!

I gave this a try, cherry-picked your commit on top of release-18.09 applied, and tried switching my system to it, Nix complains about wpa_supplicant-nl80211@.service existing twice now:

these derivations will be built:
  /nix/store/jh8hmdmb9ciqjz7675gh22i12qn4q55c-system-units.drv
  /nix/store/mr4nbpkbm1360ly4azxnvsz69qgbxjrw-etc.drv
  /nix/store/w87jzhg454glgmxvv7s8bg8hwj7gzyd1-nixos-system-tp.flokli.de-18.09.git.722868e20caM.drv
building '/nix/store/jh8hmdmb9ciqjz7675gh22i12qn4q55c-system-units.drv'...
ln: failed to create symbolic link '/nix/store/jhv1q8nznmwfyqg2ysjwnxwfy58aj52g-system-units/wpa_supplicant-nl80211@.service': File exists
builder for '/nix/store/jh8hmdmb9ciqjz7675gh22i12qn4q55c-system-units.drv' failed with exit code 1
cannot build derivation '/nix/store/mr4nbpkbm1360ly4azxnvsz69qgbxjrw-etc.drv': 1 dependencies couldn't be built
cannot build derivation '/nix/store/w87jzhg454glgmxvv7s8bg8hwj7gzyd1-nixos-system-tp.flokli.de-18.09.git.722868e20caM.drv': 1 dependencies couldn't be built
error: build of '/nix/store/w87jzhg454glgmxvv7s8bg8hwj7gzyd1-nixos-system-tp.flokli.de-18.09.git.722868e20caM.drv' failed

reverting your commit gets it to build again, so this gets introduced by your commit :-/

eliasp · 2018-12-10T07:23:04Z

This looks like the same collision like the one I'm trying to prevent using the assertion for making sure config.networking.wireless.iwd.enable isn't enabled, just with wpa_supplicant in this case.

Does anyone have an idea how to tackle this properly?

jtojnar · 2018-12-10T11:54:48Z

Duplicate of #48851

flokli · 2018-12-14T10:27:11Z

@eliasp can you look at the linked PR, see if some of your changes need to be incorporated there?

eadwu · 2018-12-22T19:42:07Z

nixos/modules/services/networking/networkmanager.nix

@@ -400,6 +408,12 @@ in {
          networking.networkmanager.dns = "dnsmasq"
        '';
      }
+      { assertion = !config.networking.wireless.iwd.enable;


Would it be better to combine this assertion with the first one, since they're both trying to do the same thing albeit for different packages.

Also, if I'm not wrong, using iwd as the backend still requires iwd.service to be started as well?

@eadwu How can the service be started? I booted this in a VM and the daemon wasn't started.

Since enabling networking.wireless.iwd.enable would trigger the assertion, you can try just manually applying the configuration [1]. I don't know whether or not NetworkManager uses the DBus implementation though.

[1] https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/blob/master/nixos/modules/services/networking/iwd.nix#L18

I'm not actually 100% sure the assertion should be there in the first place. I'll see if I have time to dig deeper.

infinisil · 2018-12-27T18:29:44Z

nixos/modules/services/networking/networkmanager.nix

@@ -34,6 +34,8 @@ let

    [device]
    wifi.scan-rand-mac-address=${if cfg.wifi.scanRandMacAddress then "yes" else "no"}
+    ${optionalString (cfg.wifi.backend != null)
+      ''wifi.backend=${cfg.wifi.backend}''}


As far as I can see, backend is never null, so this can be simplified.

nixos-discourse · 2019-02-17T00:44:54Z

This pull request has been mentioned on Nix community. There might be relevant details there:

https://discourse.nixos.org/t/iwd-service-not-started/2154/2

Moredread · 2019-02-17T08:05:39Z

Is there a chance to get it merged for 19.03?

Cc @lheckemann @samueldr

samueldr · 2019-02-17T17:20:36Z

@eliasp assuming I'm extremely lazy, is there anything missing, unfinished or unresolved here? At a glance I see change requests are still open.

For those having tested the PR, does it work fine? Anything particular to note?

nixos-discourse · 2019-02-22T12:26:44Z

This pull request has been mentioned on Nix community. There might be relevant details there:

https://discourse.nixos.org/t/nixos-19-03-feature-freeze/1950/33

leotaku · 2019-02-25T19:25:44Z

@samueldr I have been using this PR on a nixos-unstable-based system for the last 2 days and have found some problems with it:

Networkmanager fails to scan for/connect to any acess points after boot. Restarting the network-manager.service immediately fixes this problem.
Networkmanager starts the iwd.service itself via dbus, however its full name is "net.connman.iwd"
Putting my laptop/machine to sleep causes the network-manager.services to spit out various errors. Reconnecting to any network after wake then also takes much longer than just using iwd without networkmanager.

(1.) should probably be fixably with some systemd trickery
(2.) might not actually be a problem (I just found it strange that networkmanager would start a service with "connman" in its name as they seem to be completly different projects)
(3.) is likely an issue with networkmanagers iwd integration itself, but maybe it is related to how the module configures/starts the service

Please query me for any additional logs/settings/etc. I'd be happy to help.

asymmetric · 2019-02-25T19:36:16Z

I just found it strange that networkmanager would start a service with "connman" in its name as they seem to be completly different projects

This is coming from upstream.

leotaku · 2019-02-25T20:24:53Z

@asymmetric I knew the service file was provided by iwd but still found it notable that networkmanager would start a service specifically named "net.connman.iwd".

Are iwd and connman related projects? If so then the "default" service just being named this way would of course make sense.

asymmetric · 2019-02-25T20:42:26Z

Are iwd and connman related projects? If so then the "default" service just being named this way would of course make sense.

Yes, both are built by Intel.

flokli · 2019-03-09T13:48:05Z

Commenting on the confusion about the assertion, but also on the introduced options:

From what I read, networkmanager needs, iwd service to be running when using iwd backend, and wpa_supplicant to be running when using wpa_supplicant backend.

Currently, in the NixOS module system, it's networking.wireless.enable triggering wpa_supplicant to be enabled, and networking.wireless.iwd.enable triggering iwd to be enabled.

This is a bit of a mess, as iwd and wpa_supplicant are mutually exclusive (at least per interface), but the NixOS configuration hierarchy doesn't really reflect that.

Option 1

We might want to either rename the networking.wireless module to networking.wpa_supplicant, as it has a lot of wpa_supplicant specific configuration, and then have the networkmanager module enable either networking.wpa_supplicant or networking.iwd, depending on the selected backend.

Option 2

I also thought about keeping networking.wireless as a generic way of describing wifi networks. (with networking.wireless.enable and networking.wireless.backend options).
This would imply moving most of the wpa_supplicant specific things from networking.wireless to networking.wireless.wpa_supplicant, and keeping parts of networking.wireless.networks.<name>, which will be read by either the iwd or wpa_supplicant module.

However, the iwd config file format doesn't seem to be that well documented, and there's a lot of wpa_supplicant specific code, so I don't really think we can properly add generic support for describing wifi networks.

teto · 2019-05-09T15:28:11Z

could you rebase please ? wouldl ike to try as my wifi has gone crazy recently :s

asymmetric · 2019-05-09T15:43:46Z

FWIW I'm using this without NetworkManager (nor connman), and it works great.

teto · 2019-05-09T15:47:20Z

I tried to use iwd as a standalone (well with Network manager in background too) and it crashed.

asymmetric · 2019-05-09T16:01:53Z

Maybe get rid of/stop NM and try again?

colemickens · 2019-08-29T15:02:09Z

I'm using this PR, rebased, to much success. It is incredible how much better (read: faster) this seems to work for me than networkmanager+wpa_supplicant.

teto · 2019-08-29T15:40:19Z

@colemickens where is the fork ? would like to try again, the wifi experience with networkmanager is not great as far as I am concerned.

colemickens · 2019-08-29T15:48:29Z

@teto I'm using it on my fork with my cmpkgs branch, but I pulled off the one rebased commit onto a new branch: https://github.com/colemickens/nixpkgs/commits/nixpkgs-nm-iwd

dtzWill · 2019-09-05T02:09:42Z

Maybe new PR with that commit, @colemickens?

eliasp · 2019-09-05T20:26:11Z

@colemickens Thanks for picking it up, rebasing it etc. - I simply didn't find any time recently to take care of the PR.
Closing this PR in favor of #68147

networkmanager: allow iwd as Wi-Fi backend

353a2b8

eliasp requested a review from infinisil as a code owner December 9, 2018 23:04

GrahamcOfBorg added 6.topic: nixos 8.has: module (update) 10.rebuild-darwin: 0 10.rebuild-linux: 501+ labels Dec 9, 2018

jtojnar marked this as a duplicate of #48851 Dec 10, 2018

eadwu reviewed Dec 22, 2018

View reviewed changes

eadwu mentioned this pull request Dec 22, 2018

networkmanager: include option for iwd backend #48851

Closed

9 tasks

infinisil reviewed Dec 27, 2018

View reviewed changes

dtzWill mentioned this pull request Jan 17, 2019

iwd: 0.12 -> 0.14 #54125

Merged

10 tasks

samueldr added this to the 19.03 milestone Feb 17, 2019

lheckemann removed this from the 19.03 milestone Feb 25, 2019

worldofpeace mentioned this pull request Feb 27, 2019

networkmanager: enable iwd support #56445

Closed

10 tasks

stellarhoof mentioned this pull request Mar 31, 2019

Using connman with iwd is impossible due to incorrect assertion #56125

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colemickens mentioned this pull request Sep 5, 2019

nixos/networkmanager: allow iwd as Wi-Fi backend #68147

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eliasp closed this Sep 5, 2019

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networkmanager: allow `iwd` as Wi-Fi backend #51803

networkmanager: allow `iwd` as Wi-Fi backend #51803

eliasp commented Dec 9, 2018

flokli commented Dec 10, 2018

eliasp commented Dec 10, 2018 •

edited

jtojnar commented Dec 10, 2018

flokli commented Dec 14, 2018

eadwu Dec 22, 2018

asymmetric Feb 22, 2019 •

edited

eadwu Feb 22, 2019

asymmetric Feb 23, 2019

infinisil Dec 27, 2018

nixos-discourse commented Feb 17, 2019

Moredread commented Feb 17, 2019

samueldr commented Feb 17, 2019

nixos-discourse commented Feb 22, 2019

leotaku commented Feb 25, 2019 •

edited

asymmetric commented Feb 25, 2019 •

edited

leotaku commented Feb 25, 2019

asymmetric commented Feb 25, 2019

flokli commented Mar 9, 2019

teto commented May 9, 2019

asymmetric commented May 9, 2019

teto commented May 9, 2019

asymmetric commented May 9, 2019

colemickens commented Aug 29, 2019

teto commented Aug 29, 2019

colemickens commented Aug 29, 2019

dtzWill commented Sep 5, 2019

eliasp commented Sep 5, 2019

networkmanager: allow iwd as Wi-Fi backend #51803

networkmanager: allow iwd as Wi-Fi backend #51803

Conversation

eliasp commented Dec 9, 2018

Motivation for this change

Things done

flokli commented Dec 10, 2018

eliasp commented Dec 10, 2018 • edited

jtojnar commented Dec 10, 2018

flokli commented Dec 14, 2018

eadwu Dec 22, 2018

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asymmetric Feb 22, 2019 • edited

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nixos-discourse commented Feb 17, 2019

Moredread commented Feb 17, 2019

samueldr commented Feb 17, 2019

nixos-discourse commented Feb 22, 2019

leotaku commented Feb 25, 2019 • edited

asymmetric commented Feb 25, 2019 • edited

leotaku commented Feb 25, 2019

asymmetric commented Feb 25, 2019

flokli commented Mar 9, 2019

Option 1

Option 2

teto commented May 9, 2019

asymmetric commented May 9, 2019

teto commented May 9, 2019

asymmetric commented May 9, 2019

colemickens commented Aug 29, 2019

teto commented Aug 29, 2019

colemickens commented Aug 29, 2019

dtzWill commented Sep 5, 2019

eliasp commented Sep 5, 2019

networkmanager: allow `iwd` as Wi-Fi backend #51803

networkmanager: allow `iwd` as Wi-Fi backend #51803

eliasp commented Dec 10, 2018 •

edited

asymmetric Feb 22, 2019 •

edited

leotaku commented Feb 25, 2019 •

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asymmetric commented Feb 25, 2019 •

edited