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Kepis

Member

Registered: 2021-12-15

Posts: 82

[Solved]: How to connect to a peap wifi, infinite password loop

Hello,

I'm trying to connect to a peap-secured wifi that I could connect to with Windows after following a tutorial from the (dormitory) provider website. For Linux, I expected I could just copy and modify my settings for another peap wifi (eduroam) that works for me.

I was told to turn off the certificate verification for the wifi, which I did without any success. Currently, NetworkManager tries to connect, takes around 10s and then always asks for username and password (in an infinite loop).
My config:

[connection]
id=sstw
uuid=1211cc99-13da-4e1e-b1ec-104f005d6fcf
type=wifi
permissions=user:kepis:;

[wifi]
mode=infrastructure
ssid=sstw

[wifi-security] 
key-mgmt=wpa-eap

[802-1x]
domain-suffix-match=studentenheim.at
eap=peap;
identity=IDWithout@
password=Passwd
phase2-auth=mschapv2

[ipv4]
method=auto

[ipv6]
addr-gen-mode=stable-privacy
method=auto

[proxy]

I thought maybe I could somehow transfer the config I have on Windows, however in both places I entered the same data, so I'm not so sure anymore.

I'm not sure if this maybe belongs to the Newbie corner, please tell me if so.

Last edited by Kepis (2025-03-07 12:55:03)

seth

Member

Registered: 2012-09-03

Posts: 62,873

Re: [Solved]: How to connect to a peap wifi, infinite password loop

Currently, NetworkManager tries to connect, takes around 10s and then always asks for username and password (in an infinite loop).

Since NM is very chatty, it'll likely explain (in the system journal) what it doesn't like.

identity and password in your post are placeholders, not literal?

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Kepis

Member

Registered: 2021-12-15

Posts: 82

Re: [Solved]: How to connect to a peap wifi, infinite password loop

Yes, they are placeholders.

my journalctl entries don't really help much:

$> journalctl -p 6 -b
bře 07 08:00:43 IP5Pro kernel: ACPI BIOS Error (bug): Could not resolve symbol [\_SB.PCI0.GP18.SATA], AE_NOT_FOUND (20230628/dswload2-162)
bře 07 08:00:43 IP5Pro kernel: ACPI Error: AE_NOT_FOUND, During name lookup/catalog (20230628/psobject-220)
bře 07 08:00:43 IP5Pro systemd-journald[298]: Journal started
bře 07 08:00:43 IP5Pro systemd-journald[298]: Runtime Journal (/run/log/journal/bf8e7937c1bc491ab69652b918e9be5f) is 8M, max 691.3M, 683.3M free.
bře 07 08:00:43 IP5Pro systemd-journald[298]: Time spent on flushing to /var/log/journal/bf8e7937c1bc491ab69652b918e9be5f is 7.007ms for 4 entries.
bře 07 08:00:43 IP5Pro systemd-journald[298]: System Journal (/var/log/journal/bf8e7937c1bc491ab69652b918e9be5f) is 16M, max 4G, 3.9G free.
bře 07 08:00:44 IP5Pro kernel: ucsi_acpi USBC000:00: unknown error 0
bře 07 08:00:44 IP5Pro kernel: ucsi_acpi USBC000:00: UCSI_GET_PDOS failed (-5)
bře 07 08:00:44 IP5Pro kernel: ucsi_acpi USBC000:00: unknown error 0
bře 07 08:00:44 IP5Pro kernel: ucsi_acpi USBC000:00: UCSI_GET_PDOS failed (-5)
bře 07 08:00:49 IP5Pro wpa_supplicant[1038]: bgscan simple: Failed to enable signal strength monitoring
bře 07 08:04:38 IP5Pro wpa_supplicant[1038]: bgscan simple: Failed to enable signal strength monitoring


$> journalctl -u NetworkManager
-- No entries --

Last edited by Kepis (2025-03-07 07:09:28)

-thc

Member

Registered: 2017-03-15

Posts: 853

Re: [Solved]: How to connect to a peap wifi, infinite password loop

$> journalctl -u NetworkManager
-- No entries --

Uh oh.

Take a look at

systemctl status NetworkManager

Kepis

Member

Registered: 2021-12-15

Posts: 82

Re: [Solved]: How to connect to a peap wifi, infinite password loop

Running without issue:

0 @IP5Pro:kepis $ systemctl status NetworkManager
● NetworkManager.service - Network Manager
     Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/NetworkManager.service; enabled; preset: disabled)
     Active: active (running) since Fri 2025-03-07 08:00:45 CET; 1h 30min ago
 Invocation: a6cc6f93f087489bb2bfd7677e26e486
       Docs: man:NetworkManager(8)
   Main PID: 800 (NetworkManager)
      Tasks: 4 (limit: 16549)
     Memory: 27.7M (peak: 29.7M)
        CPU: 2.721s
     CGroup: /system.slice/NetworkManager.service
             └─800 /usr/bin/NetworkManager --no-daemon

seth

Member

Registered: 2012-09-03

Posts: 62,873

Re: [Solved]: How to connect to a peap wifi, infinite password loop

Please post your complete system journal for the boot after failing to connect to the AP

sudo journalctl -b | curl -F 'file=@-' 0x0.st

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Kepis

Member

Registered: 2021-12-15

Posts: 82

Re: [Solved]: How to connect to a peap wifi, infinite password loop

The post above was indeed the complete journal. Now that I think about it, I have loglevel=2 in cmdline, so that may have something to do with it. I will try to reboot without that arg and post all the info after that again

Kepis

Member

Registered: 2021-12-15

Posts: 82

Re: [Solved]: How to connect to a peap wifi, infinite password loop

I found out that at some point I set MaxLevel...=3 in /etc/systemd/journal.conf

Now, with all default settings, this is what I have:

jctl before trying to connect to the "sstw" wifi
jctl after the attempt and connecting back to a working one
jctl -u NetworkManager just after that

From what I noticed, Networkmanager still doesn't create a single entry about the attempts of me connection to the wifi, but neither does wpa_supplicant

I am now trying adding

[wifi-security]
group=ccmp;tkip;
key-mgmt=wpa-eap                                                                                    
pairwise=ccmp;  
proto=rsn; 

but so far also with no success

Last edited by Kepis (2025-03-07 11:04:06)

Kepis

Member

Registered: 2021-12-15

Posts: 82

Re: [Solved]: How to connect to a peap wifi, infinite password loop

After figuring out how to properly read the wpa_supplicant log and where to put the appropriate NM changes, I managed to solve the issue based on arch wiki - outdated wifi openssl