Arch Linux

quikhedster

Member

Registered: 2024-07-14

Posts: 5

[SOLVED] NetworkManager iwd backend wiki discrepancy

Hello, this is my first time posting here, if this is not the correct place for this please direct me to the right place.

I recently was switching my network service from iwd to NetworkManager with the iwd backend. I followed the wiki here https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Networ … Fi_backend and restarted the service, rebooted, etc. but my systemctl was still saying that wpa_supplicant was active and being used, and iwd wasn't. It wasn't until I found this https://iwd.wiki.kernel.org/networkmana … figuration which said to put it into the file `/etc/NetworkManager/conf.d/nm.conf` instead of `/etc/NetworkManager/conf.d/wifi_backend.conf`. Once I did this and restarted NetworkManager, everything was working as intended with iwd.service running in systemctl and working as the backend. I could then mask wpa_supplicant and still connect to everything like normal.

I want to assume the wiki is correct, so I want to know why having the file name wifi_backend.conf didn't work in my case, and hopefully if anyone runs into this in the future to try what I did.

Last edited by quikhedster (2024-07-20 22:17:07)

ua4000

Member

Registered: 2015-10-14

Posts: 558

Re: [SOLVED] NetworkManager iwd backend wiki discrepancy

Strange, the name of a drop-in config file does not need to have a specific name.
Relevant is in fact the order of the files, manpage:

...you can add additional .conf files to the /etc/NetworkManager/conf.d directory. These will be read in order, with later files overriding earlier ones. Packages might install further configuration snippets to /usr/lib/NetworkManager/conf.d. This directory is parsed first, even before NetworkManager.conf.

Do you have other files in those folders ?

quikhedster

Member

Registered: 2024-07-14

Posts: 5

Re: [SOLVED] NetworkManager iwd backend wiki discrepancy

I didn't have any other files in my /etc/NetworkManager/conf.d directory, and the only file I had in /usr/lib/NetworkManager/conf.d was a 20-connectivity.conf which was autogenerated and only contained
```
[connectivity]
uri=http://ping.archlinux.org/nm-check.txt
```

seth

Member

From: Won't reply 2 private help req

Registered: 2012-09-03

Posts: 75,939

Re: [SOLVED] NetworkManager iwd backend wiki discrepancy

The names don't matter.

sudo NetworkManager --print-config

move the file back to /etc/NetworkManager/conf.d/wifi_backend.conf (again, doesn't matter - nm.conf is fine, this is just for investiagtion) restart NM, see whether it applies and re-run

sudo NetworkManager --print-config

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quikhedster

Member

Registered: 2024-07-14

Posts: 5

Re: [SOLVED] NetworkManager iwd backend wiki discrepancy

Moving the file back to /etc/NetworkManager/conf.d/wifi_backend.conf, restarting NetworkManager, and then doing

 sudo NetworkManager --print-config 

seemed to pick up the change. I truly have no idea what happened the first time, maybe I didn't properly restart my NetworkManager or something. I'll mark this as solved as I can get it to pick up iwd as a backend the same way as it says in the wiki. Thanks all!

ua4000

Member

Registered: 2015-10-14

Posts: 558

Re: [SOLVED] NetworkManager iwd backend wiki discrepancy

Thanks too for the test !