"A 'wireless' setting is required if no AP path was given."

[Steve Newcomb <srn coolheads com>]

I have 2 hosts that experience interruptions in their
NetworkManager-managed wifi connections.

In an attempt to force the hosts to restore their wifi connections
more promptly than they otherwise would, I have them running a cron
job called "keepWirelessAlive.py" every 3 minutes.  If wifi is
running, the job does nothing.  If not, it attempts to restore the
connection using nmcli:

nmcli device connect wlp3s0

(see below).  The command works fine in tests, but when such an attempt
is made automatically by the cron job, it fails, and NetworkManager's log
messages explain that I've failed to specify a 'wireless' setting (see
below).  Alas, I can't find a 'wireless' setting anywhere in
NetworkManager's documentation, so I suspect the log message could be
clearer.

Everything is OK:

Mar  1 00:18:01 carp CRON[2615]: (root) CMD 
(/usr/local/ch-tools3/keepWirelessAlive.py)
Mar  1 00:21:01 carp CRON[2740]: (root) CMD 
(/usr/local/ch-tools3/keepWirelessAlive.py)

But then the connection is lost:

Mar  1 00:23:36 carp NetworkManager[657]: <warn> [1614576216.8719] 
sup-iface[0x557adf36a8d0,wlp3s0]: connection disconnected (reason -4)
Mar  1 00:23:36 carp NetworkManager[657]: <info> [1614576216.8993] 
device (wlp3s0): supplicant interface state: completed -> disconnected
Mar  1 00:23:36 carp NetworkManager[657]: <info> [1614576216.9775] 
device (wlp3s0): supplicant interface state: disconnected -> scanning
Mar  1 00:23:40 carp NetworkManager[657]: <info> [1614576220.2651] 
device (wlp3s0): supplicant interface state: scanning -> authenticating
Mar  1 00:23:40 carp NetworkManager[657]: <info> [1614576220.3809] 
device (wlp3s0): supplicant interface state: authenticating -> disconnected
Mar  1 00:23:40 carp NetworkManager[657]: <info> [1614576220.8807] 
device (wlp3s0): supplicant interface state: disconnected -> scanning
Mar  1 00:23:52 carp NetworkManager[657]: <warn> [1614576232.5545] 
device (wlp3s0): link timed out.
Mar  1 00:23:52 carp NetworkManager[657]: <info> [1614576232.5567] 
device (wlp3s0): state change: activated -> failed (reason 
'ssid-not-found', sys-iface-state: 'managed')
Mar  1 00:23:52 carp NetworkManager[657]: <info> [1614576232.5667] 
manager: NetworkManager state is now DISCONNECTED
Mar  1 00:23:53 carp NetworkManager[657]: <warn> [1614576233.5961] 
device (wlp3s0): Activation: failed for connection 'XXXXXXXXX'
Mar  1 00:23:53 carp NetworkManager[657]: <info> [1614576233.5997] 
device (wlp3s0): state change: failed -> disconnected (reason 'none', 
sys-iface-state: 'managed')
Mar  1 00:23:53 carp dbus-daemon[655]: [system] Activating via systemd: 
service name='org.freedesktop.nm_dispatcher' 
unit='dbus-org.freedesktop.nm-dispatcher.service' requested by ':1.13' 
(uid=0 pid=657 comm="/usr/sbin/NetworkManager --no-daemon ")
Mar  1 00:23:53 carp NetworkManager[657]: <info> [1614576233.6407] dhcp4 
(wlp3s0): canceled DHCP transaction, DHCP client pid 7824
Mar  1 00:23:53 carp NetworkManager[657]: <info> [1614576233.6407] dhcp4 
(wlp3s0): state changed bound -> done
Mar  1 00:23:53 carp NetworkManager[657]: <info> [1614576233.6571] 
device (wlp3s0): set-hw-addr: set MAC address to 5E:75:AF:F6:6C:E0 
(scanning)
Mar  1 00:23:54 carp NetworkManager[657]: <info> [1614576234.0453] 
dns-mgr: Removing DNS information from /sbin/resolvconf
Mar  1 00:23:54 carp NetworkManager[657]: <info> [1614576234.6754] 
device (wlp3s0): supplicant interface state: scanning -> disabled
Mar  1 00:23:54 carp NetworkManager[657]: <info> [1614576234.6755] 
device (wlp3s0): supplicant interface state: disabled -> inactive

So when the keepWirelessAlive.py cron job tries (repeatedly) to bring 
the interface back online:

Mar  1 00:24:01 carp CRON[3023]: (root) CMD 
(/usr/local/ch-tools3/keepWirelessAlive.py)
Mar  1 00:24:01 carp NetworkManager[657]: <info> [1614576241.2585] 
agent-manager: req[0x557adf45f810, :1.1154236/nmcli-connect/0]: agent 
registered
Mar  1 00:24:01 carp NetworkManager[657]: <info> [1614576241.2871] 
audit: op="connection-add-activate" pid=3053 uid=0 result="fail" 
reason="A 'wireless' setting is required if no AP path was given."
Mar  1 00:24:01 carp /keepWirelessAlive.py: nmcli device connect wlp3s0 
4  Error: Failed to add/activate new connection: A 'wireless' setting is 
required if no AP path was given.
Mar  1 00:24:04 carp systemd[1]: NetworkManager-dispatcher.service: 
Succeeded.
Mar  1 00:27:01 carp CRON[4852]: (root) CMD 
(/usr/local/ch-tools3/keepWirelessAlive.py)
Mar  1 00:27:02 carp NetworkManager[657]: <info> [1614576422.0156] 
agent-manager: req[0x557adf45f8a0, :1.1154256/nmcli-connect/0]: agent 
registered
Mar  1 00:27:02 carp NetworkManager[657]: <info> [1614576422.0184] 
audit: op="connection-add-activate" pid=4868 uid=0 result="fail" 
reason="A 'wireless' setting is required if no AP path was given."
Mar  1 00:27:02 carp /keepWirelessAlive.py: nmcli device connect wlp3s0 
4  Error: Failed to add/activate new connection: A 'wireless' setting is 
required if no AP path was given.
Mar  1 00:29:35 carp NetworkManager[657]: <info> [1614576575.6162] 
device (wlp3s0): set-hw-addr: set MAC address to 9E:33:C8:6D:BC:33 
(scanning)
Mar  1 00:29:36 carp NetworkManager[657]: <info> [1614576576.0081] 
device (wlp3s0): supplicant interface state: inactive -> disabled
Mar  1 00:29:36 carp NetworkManager[657]: <info> [1614576576.0163] 
device (wlp3s0): supplicant interface state: disabled -> inactive
Mar  1 00:30:01 carp CRON[5036]: (root) CMD 
(/usr/local/ch-tools3/keepWirelessAlive.py)

...etc.