Support for Intel Wireless Daemon (iwd)

[vially]

Are there any plans to add support for the Intel Wireless Daemon?

Recently NetworkManager added initial support for it too.

[joukewitteveen]

All WPA functionality is currently isolated in /src/lib/wpa, so in order to support IWD a compatible rewrite of that file needs to be made. As we are currently a long way still from IWD being common, there is no reason to start working on it. Once it is available in the [core] or [extra] repository of Arch Linux, I might look into it. Before that, you are welcome to propose a patch!

P.S.
While new technology may be cool, the long development of old technology often makes it the better choice. There is no real reason to replace wpa_supplicant with IWD, or iproute2 with systemd-networkd, other than to offer a broad range of options. Currently, wpa_supplicant and iproute2 are simply superior (if not technically, than certainly in their user interface).

[joukewitteveen]

I was made aware of the release of IWD 0.1. However, there is no sign of a command line client. Such a client is on the TODO list (at the bottom) and required for support by netctl.

[dryya]

Version 0.2 from the Arch repos provides a cli (iwctl) to iwd (described at the wiki). Is there still some necessary functionality missing from it? I also am not 100% sure, but believe that the todo list just hasn't been updated in light of iwctl being made available.

[joukewitteveen]

Okay, so there is a sign of a command line client. However I cannot find a manpage. Does it even work non-interactively? The tool feels very unfinished...

[dryya]

Looking into it, it seems that iwctl is for interactive use only, and otherwise the daemon can be managed via dbus, but there isn't much documentation for that case I can find besides the wiki page.

[cosmojg]

Just a heads-up, iwctl is usable non-interactively by simply appending commands (e.g. iwctl station wlp2s0 connect myssid).

[thithib]

I think this should be reopened now, since iwd is finally mature enough to have become the recommended way of managing Wi-Fi connections on Arch Linux instead of wpa_supplicant and to have been included in the archiso.

I love netctl and I've been using it for a very long time now, but to me it's losing much of its appeal for as long as it doesn't support iwd.

[cosmojg]

I agree with the above. I think it makes a lot of sense to start fielding pull requests for iwd support at this point. Is there any reason we can't reopen this?

[joukewitteveen]

While the situation is continually improving, I still think iwd is doing too much and is not a 'do one thing and do it well' tool. This makes integration in netctl hard (see rant below). I am open to patches, though, and willing to help out where needed. However, until iwd has a real advantage over wpa_supplicant, I will not spend my time spearheading support for iwd myself.

Rant:
Despite widespread sentiment, netctl is a capable and effective implementation of systemd-aware profile-based network configuration with maximum flexibility and control. In comparison, iwd is less flexible as it tries to take networking control out of the hands of the user and into its own hands. For many (probably a majority), this will be fine (netctl-auto exists for a reason), but conceptually, these automagic tools do not align well with netctl. A similar situation occurs around the internal dhcp client of systemd. Supporting it in netctl would be easy if only systemd provided a cli. Likewise, everything ifplugd does is implemented in systemd, but it is only hooked up internally and therefore unusable for third party tools.