[Pkg-utopia-maintainers] Bug#879484: Bug#879484: Network-Manager should Default to Non-Random MAC Address on WiFi

[Michael Biebl]

control: clone -1 -2
control: reassign -2 wpassupplicant
control: found -2 2:2.9.0-11
control: affects -2 network-manager
control: retitle -2 activation failure with long interface names

Am 24.03.20 um 11:19 schrieb Alkis Georgopoulos:
> On 3/24/20 11:07 AM, Andrej Shadura wrote:
>> Could you please provide more background? It’s not quite clear to me
>> how this commit fixes the issue.
> 
> 
> Hello Andrej,
> 
> I'm happy to provide the "end user" side of the story, but I can't
> provide the "developer" side, as it's the Realtek engineers that
> pinpointed this, I'm not familiar with the wpa codebase at all, and I
> can't comment why this patch fixes this issue.
> 
> So, the background is:
> 
> MAC address randomization was enabled for all wifi adapters; then users
> reported "keeps asking for a password" problems; the real problem was
> never pinpointed, they blamed "it's an issue with these Realtek drivers,
> tell them to fix them", and the "disable MAC randomization workaround"
> was proposed until the real issue is fixed.
> 
> So I did report this to Realtek, and they came up with the fix, but it
> was not in their drivers as I expected, but in wpasupplicant.
> Nevertheless, I tested it and it indeed solves the issue.
> They also proposed a second workaround, that ifname=0 in the kernel
> cmdline also works around the issue, and I tested it, and indeed that
> works as well.
> 
> Then, realizing that it's not related to Realtek drivers, I tested with
> an atheros-based wifi adapter, and that one was affected as well.
> 
> So, to reproduce the issue, the following are needed (which are the
> default in Debian):
> 
> 1) In /etc/NetworkManager/NetworkManager.conf, to either have the
> following, or leave it undefined (while e.g. Ubuntu has "no" there):
> 
> [device]
> wifi.scan-rand-mac-address=yes
> 
> 2) Make sure that the USB id isn't "blacklisted" in
> /usr/lib/NetworkManager/conf.d/no-mac-addr-change.conf
> 
> 3) Restart network manager if there were changes:
> systemctl stop network-manager
> killall wpa_supplicant
> systemctl start network-manager
> 
> 4) Insert a wifi adapter that produces a name with 15 characters like
> wlx74ee2ae2436a.
> 
> And the result is that without the patch it will keep asking for a
> password,
> while with the patch, it'll work fine.
> 
> So I believe that if this is triaged / fixed, then there won't be any
> need to apply the "disable MAC randomization" workarounds.

Thanks for the additional context, Alkis, this is very helpful.
I've cloned this bug report and reassigned it to wpasupplicant.
This way you don't need to repeat everything you already wrote.

I'll leave it up to Andrej to drop/change the file
/usr/lib/NetworkManager/conf.d/no-mac-addr-change.conf
when cherry-picking this patch.

Michael


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