https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=464245
Íñigo changed:
What|Removed |Added
CC||inigohug...@hotmail.com
--- Comment #2 from Íñigo ---
NetworkManager developer here. I was filling a bug and I saw this one.
SUMMARY
NetworkManager allows to manually specify a MAC address to do MAC-spoofing. It
also support some special values that allows to automatically generate the MAC
address according to different criteria. For example, "random" creates a random
MAC address each time that the profile is activated, "stable" creates a MAC
address when the profile is created and it's always used for that profile, and
"stable-ssid" creates a different MAC for each WiFi's SSID.
Plasma-nm doesn't support these special values, and it only allows to introduce
manually an address.
In order to increase user's privacy, setting "stable-ssid" as system-wide
default value is being discussed in Fedora:
https://discussion.fedoraproject.org/t/f40-change-proposal-wifi-mac-randomization-system-wide/99856
It would be nice that plasma-nm understand these values:
1. A user without much knowledge, that doesn't know what a MAC address it,
could select a value from a combobox, for example, with more hints about what
do they mean (example: "no privacy", "some privacy", etc.)
2. If one of the special values is selected in a profile, either via nmcli or
because it's the default value, the GUI would reflect that. If plasma-nm
doesn't understand them, it won't be able to show the real current value to the
user.
Note that in some cases, not being able to understand and/or configure this
will lead to the user not being able to connect to some networks. I mean,
connecting to networks that do MAC address filtering (this is why we are
proposing "stable-ssid" as default in Fedora, and not "random", for example).
STEPS TO REPRODUCE
1. Change the MAC address: `nmcli connection modify CON_NAME wifi.cloned-mac
random` (with devel version of NM you can select stable-ssid)
2. Open plasma-nm
OBSERVED RESULT
A different MAC address is shown each time, the user doesn't know that "random"
is configured
EXPECTED RESULT
Plasma-nm reflects these special values so the user understand them and can
change between them.
SOFTWARE/OS VERSIONS
KDE Plasma Version: all
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
I don't have a clear idea/proposal about what the best UI would be regarding
UX.
I also have some doubts about the convenience of showing all the possible
values to the user. For example, "stable" can be confusing because a casual
user might not know what a "connection profile" is in NetworkManager. However,
if not all values are available in the GUI, what happens if the value is
selected via CLI or distro's default?
The special values that NM supports are:
- preserve: NM doesn't modify the current MAC
- permanent: use the hw's permanent MAC
- random: different MAC each time that you connect
- stable: different MAC for each connection profile, use it always you connect
that profile
- stable-ssid (wifi only): different MAC for each WiFi SSID, use it always for
the same SSID, even if you delete and create again the connection profile.
As I say, the last one is being proposed as default in Fedora.
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