Re: WLAN disabled by state file

[Dan Williams <dcbw redhat com>]

On Thu, 2011-02-03 at 13:00 +0200, Ozan Çağlayan wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I have bug reports about some inconsistencies caused by the state file and rfkill
> interactions like when the user kills the radio and then re-enables it, the WLAN can't be enabled
> unless the state file is edited manually as root, etc.
> 
> I think that when the system is booted, NM should ignore the state values in the state file and
> should rely only on the rfkill status. When the user disables the WLAN through nm-applet or another
> GUI, NM can internally remember this without needing that state file.
> 
> Can someone explain how the logic currently works?

In current NM 0.8.x git, if you uncheck "Enable Wireless" from the menu,
NM writes that to the state file.  That will then be in-force until you
re-check "Enable Wireless", even across reboots.  This takes precedence
over rfkill because it was an explicit user choice to disable wifi.
This fix was included in NM 0.8.2.

I don't think we should be relying on rfkill here, because then it's
simply magic what happens on reboot.  Some laptops expose multiple
rfkill "switches" in the kernel, others expose one, some chain them
together, etc.  It's a big mess really, and trying to rely on the kernel
behavior here isn't going to help much.  Instead, I think it's a lot
clearer that "If you turn off wifi it stays disabled til you turn it
back on".  Or?

Dan