[Sugar-devel] Passphrase must be re-entered when XO loses then regains wifi connection

[James Cameron]

Sridhar begins in the bug report by saying that the repeated prompt
for the WPA passphrase is due to losing connection.  Is there other
evidence, other than the repeated passphrase prompt, to suggest that a
connection was lost?  If so, what connection is it that is lost?

When I last looked at this problem, Sugar was being asked by Network
Manager for the passphrase, and Sugar was immediately prompting the
user.

Offhand I don't know what version of Sugar you are planning to ship
with your target version for 12.2, so I didn't bother digging into the
Sugar network model and view code for your version.

But master in git has a SecretAgent in model/network.py that registers
itself with NetworkManager as an agent that can provide passphrases to
NetworkManager.  The SecretAgent does not cache the passphrase, but
instead delegates to __secrets_request_cb and WPAKeyDialog which then
prompts the user.

Perhaps the GNOME equivalent does cache?  I don't know.  It is worth a
test, don't you think?  Look at how they do it.

The problem with caching is that if the passphrase changes, the agent
would somehow have to recognise that the passphrase it had was no
longer valid.  I seem to recall work that was done in that area within
the last few years, possibly relating to inability to connect to an
access point after the passphrase had been changed.

It may be wasteful to speculate further.  You need to determine from
logs what components (NetworkManager, Sugar, driver, firmware) are
causing the symptom.  If you don't have good logs, work to get them.

-- 
James Cameron
http://quozl.linux.org.au/