[Pkg-utopia-maintainers] Bug#375302: network-manager: runs wpa_supplicant in a too verbose mode

[Trevor Caira]

> This is intentional. NetworkManager is still a young project and these
> additional information helps to fix remaining issues because they make
> bug reports more valuable.

There are two main issues with this.

1) It is self-defeating. To the average sysadmin who seeks to debug
NetworkManager issues, it rapidly becomes impossible to hone in the
actual problem itself, as one must wade through thousands of useless
debug messages. Most of the messages logged by NetworkManager are
completely orthogonal to its operation, at least in my case, so any
claim that they might enhance bug reports is specious.

2) It masks real issues on the system. If your log is 75% full of debug
messages, it becomes difficult to spot real problems that arise and
report to syslog.

Additionally, especially in the case where NetworkManager ends up in a
workstation image, those who monitor logs via logcheck may end up with
MB of spam in their log report emails.

Debug modes are good. But they should not be enabled by default, and
they should certainly be able to be turned off.

This error in nm goes beyond bad coding style; it is dangerous to system
security as it obscures actual problems.

Trevor