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seekawan

Member

Registered: 2026-05-25

Posts: 16

[MOTHBALLED] Can't connect with IWD and WPA2 Enterprise

Hi there,
Got an issue some of you might be familiar to, connecting Network Manager with IWD to a eduroam-like education network.
As it is an already discussed subject, i'll do my best to explain the specificity of this particular issue and the material I found related to it.
In particular https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=276106 which is very similar.

Config is the following:
Network Manager with IWD as backend, config below. For services IWD is disabled - NM is enabled - wpa_supplicant is disabled and dead, only there as a NM dependency.

[device]
wifi.backend=iwd

# Configuration file for NetworkManager.
# See "man 5 NetworkManager.conf" for details.

[device]
wifi.scan-rand-mac-address=no

As for the network config it is using wlan0, WPA & WPA2 Enterprise with TTLS and inner PAP with my credentials.

It used to be PEAP, but the institution does not provide certificates. I similarly have issues connecting even with android.

I used this config in var/lib/iwd, it is the only ".8021x" file. I have to say that previous networks I used were in ".psk" and never experienced issues whatsoever.

[Security]
EAP-Method=TTLS
EAP-Identity=anonymous@tld
EAP-TTLS-Phase2-Method=Tunneled-PAP
EAP-TTLS-Phase2-Identity=username@tld
EAP-TTLS-Phase2-Password=password

[Settings]
AutoConnect=true

Now journalctl -r -u NetworkManager yields :

[1788786152.0904] manager: NetworkManager state is now CONNECTING
[1788786152.0905] device (wlan0): state change: prepare -> config (reason 'none', managed-type: 'full')
[1788786152.0911] device (wlan0): new IWD device state is connecting
[1788786152.4671] device (wlan0): Activation: (wifi) Network.Connect failed: GDBus.Error:net.connman.iwd.Failed: Operation failed
[1788786152.4675] device (wlan0): state change: config -> failed (reason 'no-secrets', managed-type: 'full')
[1788786152.4678] manager: NetworkManager state is now DISCONNECTED
[1788786152.4680] device (wlan0): Activation: failed for connection 'thisNetwork'
[1788786152.4680] device (wlan0): new IWD device state is disconnected
[1788786152.4683] device (wlan0): state change: failed -> disconnected (reason 'none', managed-type: 'full')
[1788786153.8600] device (wlan0): new IWD device state is connecting
[1788786153.8608] device (wlan0): Activation: starting connection 'thisNetwork' (ad3f4d3a-dc29-424a-84c7-9c92bd06c584)
[1788786153.8609] device (wlan0): state change: disconnected -> prepare (reason 'none', managed-type: 'full')
[1788786153.8610] manager: NetworkManager state is now CONNECTING
[1788786153.8611] device (wlan0): state change: prepare -> config (reason 'none', managed-type: 'full')
[1788786155.8667] device (wlan0): new IWD device state is connecting
[1788786155.8668] device (wlan0): IWD is connecting to the wrong AP, replacing activation
[1788786155.8669] device (wlan0): state change: config -> disconnected (reason 'supplicant-disconnect', managed-type: 'full')
[1788786155.8675] manager: NetworkManager state is now DISCONNECTED
[1788786155.8682] device (wlan0): Activation: starting connection 'aOneThatWorks' 

and then it connects successfully to this other network using WPA2 personal

So as you see I have the "no secrets" error, previously with PEAP it was the "supplicant failed" error.
I tried best practices from https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Iwd#WPA_Enterprise and https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Networ … n_with_iwd but to no avail.

Please ask me more details if needed

Last edited by seekawan (Yesterday 08:11:41)

seekawan

Member

Registered: 2026-05-25

Posts: 16

Re: [MOTHBALLED] Can't connect with IWD and WPA2 Enterprise

Tried steps in https://www.math.cmu.edu/~gautam/sj/blo … m-iwd.html that were recommended in the arch iwd wiki section "eduroam".
It did not work unfortunately, it prompts for credentials but nm still gives the "no secrets" error

seth

Member

From: Won't reply 2 private help req

Registered: 2012-09-03

Posts: 77,791

Re: [MOTHBALLED] Can't connect with IWD and WPA2 Enterprise

a) does wpa_supplicant work?
b) please post the entire journal covering failure, inc. kernel and iwd messages
c) do you *know* the the network uses https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Iwd#TTLS-PAP ?

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seekawan

Member

Registered: 2026-05-25

Posts: 16

Re: [MOTHBALLED] Can't connect with IWD and WPA2 Enterprise

a) does wpa_supplicant work?
b) please post the entire journal covering failure, inc. kernel and iwd messages
c) do you *know* the the network uses https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Iwd#TTLS-PAP ?

Hi thanks for your answer.

a) Last time I managed to connect to it, I was using KDE, and they still use wpa as NM backend. So yes I guess so
c) I do not think so, thats why i reverted to PEAP. The thing is that I originally thought I needed certificates beforehand for PEAP hence why I tried TTLS

I'll share the complete log asap

mithrial

Member

Registered: 2017-03-05

Posts: 166

Re: [MOTHBALLED] Can't connect with IWD and WPA2 Enterprise

For the certificate, either your university should provide one or it's signed by trusted anyway and included in ca-cert=/etc/ca-certificates/extracted/tls-ca-bundle.pem