[Pkg-utopia-maintainers] Bug#871532: NetworkManager forgot passphrases for certificate-based networks

[Josh Triplett]

Package: network-manager-gnome
Version: 1.8.2-1
Severity: normal

I don't know if this bug lies in NetworkManager, gnome-settings-daemon,
gsettings-desktop-schemas, or some other package.

I rebooted my laptop today, which had previously been running since July
18. After rebooting, NetworkManager no longer knew the certificate
passphrases for my certificate-based wireless networks. It *did*
remember the passphrases for passphrase-based wireless networks.

NetworkManager remembered everything else about these networks,
exceptfor the passphrases. The logs showed messages like these:

Aug 08 12:06:14 jtriplet-mobl2 NetworkManager[409]: <info>  [1502219174.4772] device (wlp4s0): Activation: (wifi) access point 'TSNOfficeWLAN' has security, but secrets are required.
Aug 08 12:06:14 jtriplet-mobl2 NetworkManager[409]: <info>  [1502219174.4772] device (wlp4s0): state change: config -> need-auth (reason 'none', internal state 'managed')
Aug 08 12:06:14 jtriplet-mobl2 NetworkManager[409]: <warn>  [1502219174.4799] device (wlp4s0): No agents were available for this request.
Aug 08 12:06:14 jtriplet-mobl2 NetworkManager[409]: <info>  [1502219174.4799] device (wlp4s0): state change: need-auth -> failed (reason 'no-secrets', internal state 'managed')
Aug 08 12:06:14 jtriplet-mobl2 NetworkManager[409]: <info>  [1502219174.4801] manager: NetworkManager state is now DISCONNECTED

Aug 08 12:06:18 jtriplet-mobl2 gnome-shell[603]: received an invalid or unencryptable secret

The settings dialog for the network showed all the certificates and other
configuration, but had the empty passphrase box highlighted. Looking at the
network definition in /etc/NetworkManager/system-connections/ also did not show
the passphrase, where it previously did; in place of the passphrase field, it
had a new field "private-key-password-flags".

After I filled in the passphrases again, and selected the option to make them
available to "all users" (AKA make them part of the system connection), they
appeared in the system-connections file once more, and the flags field no
longer appeared.

I would guess that something changed in the interfaces between the
components involved in providing the necessary secrets, but the result
was that NetworkManager forgot all of these secrets.

-- System Information:
Debian Release: buster/sid
  APT prefers unstable
  APT policy: (500, 'unstable'), (1, 'experimental')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)
Foreign Architectures: i386

Kernel: Linux 4.11.0-2-amd64 (SMP w/4 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=C.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=C.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8), LANGUAGE=C.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash
Init: systemd (via /run/systemd/system)

Versions of packages network-manager-gnome depends on:
ii  dbus-x11 [dbus-session-bus]                  1.11.16+really1.10.22-1
ii  dconf-gsettings-backend [gsettings-backend]  0.26.0-2+b1
ii  gnome-shell [polkit-1-auth-agent]            3.22.3-3
ii  libatk1.0-0                                  2.24.0-1
ii  libc6                                        2.24-14
ii  libcairo2                                    1.14.10-1
ii  libgdk-pixbuf2.0-0                           2.36.5-2
ii  libglib2.0-0                                 2.53.4-3
ii  libgtk-3-0                                   3.22.17-1
ii  libjansson4                                  2.10-1
ii  libmm-glib0                                  1.6.8-1
ii  libnm0                                       1.8.2-1
ii  libnma0                                      1.8.2-1
ii  libnotify4                                   0.7.7-2
ii  libpango-1.0-0                               1.40.6-1
ii  libpangocairo-1.0-0                          1.40.6-1
ii  libsecret-1-0                                0.18.5-3.1
ii  libselinux1                                  2.6-3+b2
ii  network-manager                              1.8.2-1
ii  policykit-1-gnome [polkit-1-auth-agent]      0.105-6

Versions of packages network-manager-gnome recommends:
ii  gnome-keyring                      3.20.1-1
ii  gnome-shell [notification-daemon]  3.22.3-3
ii  iso-codes                          3.75-1
pn  mobile-broadband-provider-info     <none>

Versions of packages network-manager-gnome suggests:
ii  network-manager-openconnect-gnome  1.2.4-1
pn  network-manager-openvpn-gnome      <none>
pn  network-manager-pptp-gnome         <none>
pn  network-manager-vpnc-gnome         <none>

-- no debconf information