Re: how to disable WiFi / wpa-supplicant so hostapd can be used ?

[Jason Vas Dias <jason vas dias gmail com>]

Thank You so much, Thomas, for the most useful info !

RE: > Patch welcome to properly handle the release of a device
      > by setting it unmanaged.

I will investigate this and see what I can do to improve
management of wpa_supplicant (W_S) & wireless interfaces.

I'd also like to develop a patch to make NM fully hostapd aware ,
so that the code realizes that use of W_S and hostapd are
mutually exclusive for an interface , and which add settings
for fully setting up & managing hostapd as well as W_S .
And to allow switching between hostpd & W_S modes.

hostapd probably needs its own module to manage things
like providing dhcp service to connecting usits - I've been
using static IP because I only have a few connecting
devices - happily Android phones do allow connections to
WEP APs with a static IP . But full Address Pool & DHCP
server mgmt is needed for arbitrarily large numbers of
 connecting  units.  And the NM GUIs / applets would need
changes to support the new hostapd settings .



On 21/07/2021, Thomas Haller <thaller redhat com> wrote:
> On Tue, 2021-07-20 at 22:04 +0100, Jason Vas Dias via networkmanager-
> list wrote:
> > If I do :
> >   # nmcli radio wifi off
> > , it disassociates the PHY for the device and I have to
> >   'rfkill $id unblock' .
> >   If I reenable wireless, and  do
> >   # systemctl stop wpa_supplicant
> >   # mv /usr/sbin/wpa_supplicant /usr/sbin/wpa_supplicant.bin
> >  after starting NM, then I can run hostapd .
> > I have to remember to move wpa_supplicant back after I stop
> > using hostapd .
> > Please add support for enabling either hostapd or wpa_supplicant,
> > not both, to NM = or is there some way of disabling running the
> > wpa_supplicant service only, without rfkill ?
>
> Hi,
>
>
> configure the device as unmanaged.
>
> Temporarily, with `nmcli device set wlan0 managed no`
>
>
> Permanently, there are several means (udev rules, config files). the
> best seems to be a file
>
>   /etc/NetworkManager/conf.d/90-wlan-unmanaged.conf
>
> with
>
>   [device-90-wlan-unmanaged]
>   match-device=interface-name:wlan0
>   managed=0
>
> see `man NetworkManager.conf`.
>
>
> If you do it that way, you can still override it at runtime with `nmcli
> device set wlan0 managed yes`.
>
>
>
> I think `nmcli device set wlan0 managed yes` may not sufficiently
> instruct wpa_supplicant to let go of the device. That means, you still
> might need `systemctl stop wpa_supplicant.service`. Patch welcome to
> properly handle the release of a device by setting it unmanaged.
>
>
>
> best,
> Thomas
>
>
> > On 20/07/2021, Jason Vas Dias <jason vas dias gmail com> wrote:
> > > Good day -
> > >
> > >  Whenever I try to run hostapd, NM still runs wpa-supplicant,
> > >  which periodically tries to put the WiFi interface into scanning
> > >  mode, which messes up the hostapd session .
> > >
> > >  Please is there a config file setting or applet interaction
> > >  to disable wpa-supplicant (and maybe configure & run hostapd) ?
> > >
> > >  I'd like NM to start dhclient on my Wired interface, and
> > >  be able to bring up my L2TP VPN, but leave the Wireless
> > >  interface entirely alone.
> > >
> > >  Any way to do this in NetworkManager.conf or GUI ?
> > >
> > > Thanks in advance for any replies,
> > > Best Regards,
> > > Jason
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