Allow configuring Wi-Fi MAC Randomization feature from GUI
| Affects | Status | Importance | Assigned to | Milestone | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| NetworkManager |
Confirmed
|
Wishlist
|
|||
| gnome-control-center |
Confirmed
|
Wishlist
|
|||
| gnome-control-center (Ubuntu) |
Triaged
|
Wishlist
|
Unassigned | ||
| network-manager (Ubuntu) |
Triaged
|
Wishlist
|
Unassigned | ||
Bug Description
Recent versions of NetworkManager have a feature enabled by default to use a random MAC address when scanning for available Wi-Fi networks for privacy. My understanding is that the spoofed MAC address is not used when actually connecting to a network.
This feature was disabled in Ubuntu 17.10 because it broke scanning with some Wi-Fi drivers. My understanding is that there is a bug in some drivers when attempting to change the MAC address. See LP: #1681513.
The bug might not be as big of an issue with the latest version of NetworkManager because
1) There are helpful commits like this (it was not backported to 17.04):
https:/
2) It is also possible now to selectively disable Wi-Fi MAC Randomization for specific drivers.
https:/
However, I'm really hesitant to re-enable this feature as long as
A) we don't know for sure which drivers are affected,
B) and more importantly, there is no GUI way to turn the feature on or off. Asking users to edit config files isn't very nice.
The MAC Address Randomization feature is really nice (Windows 10 has a similar feature) but I think we need a GUI on/off switch in Settings > Wi-Fi or Settings > Privacy.
| Changed in gnome-control-center (Ubuntu): | |
| importance: | Undecided → Wishlist |
| status: | New → Triaged |
| tags: | added: bionic |
| Changed in gnome-control-center: | |
| importance: | Unknown → Wishlist |
| status: | Unknown → Confirmed |
| Changed in network-manager: | |
| importance: | Unknown → Wishlist |
| status: | Unknown → Confirmed |
| tags: | added: focal jammy kinetic lunar |
| wontfix (wontfix) wrote | #1 |
| Jeremy Bícha (jbicha) wrote | #2 |
Has the non-GUI part of issue not been solved through blacklists, configuration or internal NM bugfixes yet? Most other distributions and NM themselves have scan randomization enabled as a default.