[fixed] MAC Address Randomization breaks WiFi with various drivers

[KrunchTime]

Apparently, recent upgrades to network-manager result in the following error message when I attempt to connect via WiFi on my ASUS AIO desktop:





Found bug report 836351 today via a web search that may explain the above behavior.


Note:  Using BunsenLabs tracking Debian Unstable.

[vilde]

Is there any possibility that this can have anything to do  with my problem with "start job for network manager"

[melmarker]

@KrunchTime - <sarcasm>please consider to use an image hoster with more and nice girls </sarcasm>

[NochEinNeuer]

This is an bug from network-manager.

[KrunchTime]

@melmarker:  LOL...I have no control over what that site posts.

@NochEinNeuer:  I don't know...I've been trying to use /etc/network/interfaces to connect via WiFi, but unless I'm doing something wrong, I can't even connect via that method.

https://wiki.debian.org/WiFi/HowToUse#Command_Line

[hendrikL]

Hi if you want command line, you have to configure systemd networkd and forget /e/n/i

Here some stuff to read

https://beaveris.me/systemd-networkd-with-roaming/
https://blog.volcanis.me/2014/06/01/systemd-networkd/
https://www.joachim-breitner.de/blog/664-Switching_to_systemd-networkd

ah and as gui after setting up a running wireless network you can use wpa_gui to configure more wireless networks

[DeepDayze]

@KrunchTime, not hating but lately have you been visiting sites that depict nice girls??? That may explain the kind of ads on that site. A better image hosting site is Imgur or Tinypic

On topic, I've been bitten by the NM bug as well on an HP 8460p that uses the iwlwifi driver. Disabling NM and using Ceni to manage the WiFi for now works for me. Hopefully that bug will be fixed soon as I liked using NM (as it came a long way from the old days).

[KrunchTime]

@DeepDayze:  No, I don't visit sites depicting nice girls.  I have too many other interests to waste time on stuff like that.


I can use an ethernet cable for now.  I haven't tried Ceni.  I might give it a try as the network-manager bug has gone on for too long now.  Supposedly it has been fixed upstream.  Thank you for the tip.

[DeepDayze]

I find that Windows 10 (ugh!) now has an option to randomize MAC addresses too, and it hides the option when the wifi driver installed doesn't support it. I think there needs to be a way to disable or hide that feature in NM (under Linux) if the wifi card driver AND hardware do not support this feature.

[der_bud]

... I think there needs to be a way to disable or hide that feature in NM (under Linux) if the wifi card driver AND hardware do not support this feature.

Found this yesterday :  WLAN funktioniert unter Manjaro nach Update nicht mehr – Lösung saying that in /etc/NetworkManager/NetworkManager.conf  in section [device]

Code Select Expand

wifi.scan-rand-mac-address=no should work (cannot test it myself).

[DeepDayze]

@der_bud, nice find and will test this when I can.

[musca]

Hi  peeps,
citation from the changelog of network-manager 1.4.0-4 (2016/09/23):

  * Fix MAC address randomization.
    Cherry-pick a couple of upstream commits which work around driver bugs
    when MAC address randomization is used. (Closes: #835822, #835553)

random greetings
musca

[KrunchTime]

Dist-upgraded a few minutes ago and wireless is now working again.

Regarding ceni...checked the packages page on the Debian site recently and ceni was not found when I searched all distributions.

[cas]

Regarding ceni...checked the packages page on the Debian site recently and ceni was not found when I searched all distributions.

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apt-cache policy ceni
       ...
        500 http://ftp.spline.de/pub/siduction/extra unstable/main amd64 Packages
I vaguely remember it was a sidux tool.

2009 someone demanded to include it into debian, which didnt happen obviously.
http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=38702

Would be interesting to know, if it is still developed and by whom.

C

[devil]

CENI was written bei Kel Modderman (kelmo) for sidux and is still in a good working condition. It is a very simple tool and not much to further develop. It is being maintained, as you can see in https://git.siduction.org/extra/ceni. So as long as it works, we keep it in our repos.