Re: [PATCH 3/4] devices/wifi: Add the wifi-backend config option

[Andrew Zaborowski <andrew zaborowski intel com>]

Hi Dan,

On 5 December 2017 at 17:47, Dan Williams <dcbw redhat com> wrote:
> On Tue, 2017-12-05 at 16:26 +0100, Andrew Zaborowski wrote:
> > Let the config file select between creating classes of NMDeviceWifi
> > (for the usual wpa_supplicant based devices) and NMDeviceIwd
> > depending
> > on the new NetworkManager.conf setting.
>
> This seems wrong to me.  We usually try to keep things runtime enabled
> rather than add config options like this.  Is there any reason you
> would have both wpa_supplicant and iwd running on the same system at
> the same time?

No, you'd want to avoid that for wifi devices.  That's why I think
even separate (conflicting) plugins would be fine in this case but I'm
not sure if this is possible with NM's current plugin system.

> Could we check whether the iwd dbus service is claimed
> and just use iwd if it's running?

We could do that but it'd rely on iwd running before NetworkManager
starts, maybe that's not an issue.  I seem to remember a DBus design
guideline according to which clients should tolerate services coming
up and going away.

Best regards