Hi

I'm a long time Slackware user and lurker on here but never had anything to say until now

I'm running Slackware 14.2 64bit and using NetworkManager to handle networking. Following the security update to wpa_supplicant 2.6 on the 18th October WIFI stopped working. For some reason NetworkManager can't to detect my WIFI card.

Looking at /var/log/wpa_supplicant.logs shows the following when NetworkManager starts, this keeps repeating and it never makes a connection.

Compared to this when reverting to wpa_supplicant 2.5
I found this blog post which might explain what's going on https://blogs.gnome.org/thaller/2016...manager-1-4-0/

Here's the relevant bit "(NetWorkManager)...1.2.0 relies on support from wpa_supplicant to configure a random MAC address. The problem is that it requires API which will only be part of the next major release 2.6 of the supplicant. Such a release does not yet exist to this date and thus virtually nobody is using this feature."

I tried the configuration change mentioned there and some others to try and stop NetworkManager trying to assign a random MAC address but they didn't work. I think they apply to later versions.

The WIFI card is a broadcom 43142 using the broadcom-sta driver from SBo, so I'm guessing the problem is driver/card specific, otherwise someone else would have reported the problem.

Building and installing NetworkManager 1.8.4 from current has fixed the problem so I'm happy to mark this as solved but if anyone has any other suggestions to fix it I'd be happy to try them.

Small aside: you might want to consider swapping to CCMP(AES) for the cipher if your hardware supports it. TKIP has known weaknesses and has long since been deprecated (though it still seems to be in common use judging by the results of a scan of APs in range of my home).

Personally, I avoid NetworkManager like the plague and just let wpa_supplicant handle everything.

1 members found this post helpful.

I know this is simplistic, but did you restart wpa-supplicant and/or networkmanager?

After installing the patched wpa-supplicant, networkmanager didn't show any available wifi connections, none.
Not knowing enough (and not really wanting to know enough) to track down the problem, I rebooted the machine and wifi has been working perfectly since. Just a thought.

2 members found this post helpful.

Cheers for the replies. Yeah I tried rebooting and stopping and restarting networkmananger and that didn't help.

You're right, unfortunately I've got a Now TV streaming box and with certain routers, unluckily including mine, they only work using TKIP, won't work in AES or mixed TKIP/AES mode.

I have the same issue when using the broadcom-STA driver.

To recap/expand on your research:
It appears that wpa_supplicant 2.6 has the ability to randomize the mac address used during a scan.
NetworkManager 1.2.2 will use this ability by default if available, unfortunately this doesn't work for all chipsets/drivers.

Later versions of NetworkManager made this "feature" configurable by setting wifi.scan-rand-mac-address=no in NetworkManager.conf as well as implementing the randomization internally rather than using wpa_supplicant.

So...
I built a NetworkManager 1.8.4 package using the sources from -current and it solved my issues with no need to set wifi.scan-rand-mac-address=no

Not my favorite solution, but if we're lucky maybe NetworkManager will get upgraded in /patches for 14.2.

1 members found this post helpful.

Thanks for the confirmation, yeah 1.8.4 worked for me without having to set wifi.scan-rand-mac-address=no.

1.8.4 works for me too.