NetworkManager - wifi autoconnect not working UNLESS "all users may connect to this network" enabled

I've noticed some inconsistencies with NetworkManager auto-connecting on my 3 Slackware64-current boxes that are running NetworkManager as their primary means of managing network and wifi connections.

None of these 3 machines is making use of rc.inet1 to connect to an internet connection or any other tools such as wicd.

Essentially, some connections were auto-connecting and auto-reconnecting (eg, upon resume from suspend) and some were not.

I searched the forum and found this old topic:

https://www.linuxquestions.org/quest...ng-4175606533/

in which it was recommended to enable the option "All users may connect to this network" (using the nm-applet nomenclature).

Turns out for me this WAS the solution, and the connections that were autoconnecting did have that option enabled, and those that were not did not.

However, I do not think this is the intended behaviour of NetworkManager.

Looking at what the GUI is doing, essentially it changes the applicable .nmconnection file in /etc/NetworkManager/system-connections/. If "All users may connect" is enabled, it changes the line from "permissions=user:username_that_created_the_connection:;" to "permissions=".

I think NetworkManager is intended to autoconnect for that particular user, while logged in, and I don't think "all users may connect" is meant to be mandatory to be enabled for autoconnect to work.

I've seen some reports from some distros that they used to have the same issue a few years ago, but have possibly fixed the issue since then.

See e.g. this bug report from Ubuntu from a few years ago:

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+s...r/+bug/1354924

... not particularly helpful since it just says "fixed in 17.04" and doesn't say why, and doesn't say what the fix was.

Anybody have any clues here? I'm wondering if it may be a PolicyKit, dbus or other sort of configuration issue. Or maybe a function of the fact that we're not using systemd.

Originally Posted by Poprocks See e.g. this bug report from Ubuntu from a few years ago: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+s...r/+bug/1354924 ... not particularly helpful since it just says "fixed in 17.04" and doesn't say why, and doesn't say what the fix was.

If it was "fixed in 17.04", then it must have been "unfixed" later on, because I still keep running into this issue under Ubuntu 18.04. I have simply gotten into the habit of allowing all users to connect to the wireless network and everything works fine.

Originally Posted by luvr If it was "fixed in 17.04", then it must have been "unfixed" later on, because I still keep running into this issue under Ubuntu 18.04. I have simply gotten into the habit of allowing all users to connect to the wireless network and everything works fine.

Well, that's interesting, because I thought I also saw some reports from around 2017 indicating that Ubuntu had patched nm-applet (or equivalent) to enable the checkbox for "all users may connect" by default.

So if that's the "fix" that's kind of silly. Maybe I'll report this upstream and see what, if anything, the devs have to say about it.

Originally Posted by Poprocks So if that's the "fix" that's kind of silly.

Agreed. I ran into this too when Networkmanager upgraded. I enable all users.