Network Manager is widely used in Linux distributions and is often the default tool for managing networks. Its modular design and plugin support make it highly adaptable.

This page serves as a central hub for all topics related to Network Manager discussions with Comcast-Sky-LGI-Infosys and the RDKM team.

MoM and action items

•  setHostName api ( to allow setting DHCP host name): It would be a good idea to add an optional parameter to allow flushing the DHCP cache so that DHCP host name change become effective immediately.
  • 10th October : <ActionItem> Brian to check if it can be done through GNOME network manager involving DHCP lease renewal without resulting in IP address change.
  • 17th October : Karuna experiment and didn’t find a way to renew DHCP lease without restarting the physical interface and it may also result in change in IP configs and have impacts on applications which are sending/receiving internet traffic. It can also be achieved by disabling and re-enabling the physical interface.
  • 14th November : Comcast / Sky uses different friendly name (than hostName from DNS/DHCP) for UPnP / Xcast / Airplay scenarios. But they are open to add this optional argument if required.
• LG/Infosys have some STB deployments where the OpCo's requires us to disable 2.4GHz freq for QoE reasons. We would like to discuss how we can bring this as part of GNOME NM thunder plugin.
  • 10th October : <ActionItem> Brian to check if this is possible in a standard way using wpa_supplicant and if we can expose a property/method in network manager thunder plugin to achieve it. And property/method shall allow enabling/disabling of all possible wifi bands e.g 2.4GHZ, 5 GHZ, 6GHZ.
  • 17th October : <ActionItem> Brain proposed to have new API exposed via Thunder plugin and can be implemented to connect only to allowed BSSID / Radio.
  • 14th November : Comcast / SKY will propose API with additional argument for band prefrences in existing WiFiConnect() method. Infosys to have offline conversation to understand how this will be implemented / realized at GNOME NM / wpa_supplicant level.
                        <ActionItem> Ajith to create a new slack group for Network Manager to facilitate such discussions.
• Discussion about if we have can have some way to manage Bandsteering configurations as part of GNOME NM thunder plugin. Main ask from Liberty/Infosys was how we can give preference to 5GHZ as compared to 2.4GHZ.
  • 10th October : As per Brian and Karuna this is the standard behavior of wpa_supplicant. So, no extra functionality is required to support this. <ActionItem> Franciszek and Madhavan to confirm if we have any other requirement for which band steering configuration is required.
  • 17th October : Franciszek and Madhavan explained the bandSteering configuration which LG/Infosys currently implemented. Brain said they have something similar via standard DM, to set the WiFi signal threshold to roam. But this shall be implemented in a seperate agent and not in NM. <ActionItem> Further discussions needed to define if we need to define WiFi HAL to implement bandsteering configurations and which component shall implement this logic.
  • 14th November : Comcast / SKY proposes to manage bandsteering configurations at wpa_supplicant and not at WiFi driver. Infosys raised concerns about limitation of wpa_supplicant bandsteering and roaming managment implementation.
                        Comcast / SKY proposed to study the changes available for android fork of wpa_supplicant. <ActionItem> Infosys to see if it satisfies the requirement of LG. If not, we can maintain a branch for rdk for wpa_supplicant.
•  Currently passphrase is stored in clear on an encrypted storage. For better security shall it not be stored in encrypted form so that if any attacker is able to enter the system, he cannot read it. 
  o    10th October : o    14th November : Karuna reckoned that there is GNOME network manager configuration that shall result in storing passphrase in hashed form. Karuna to check and come back.
  o    17th Ocotber : Karuna confirmed this was by mistake and it will be fixed by configuring the path to an encrypted file system in the next release
• Sky/Comcast/RDK-M are working on replacing usage of wifi hal / direct interfacing with wifi drivers with generic wpa_supplicant based flow.
  • 10th October : <ActionItem> Brian to share the documents / architecture.
• Network Diagnostics
  • 14th November :  <ActionItem> Infosys to schedule a dedicated session to go through the Network dianostics Datamodel and explain the current implementation in LG for potential upstream of the changes to RDK-M
                        WiFi driver interactions for diagnostics shall be fetched from Netlink sockets instead of direct WiFi driver interactions.