Can't rename a wifi interface while also connecting it to a network

[Jason Cipriani]

- The 'match' directive is not supported in 'wifis' interfaces with networkd
- The 'access-points` directive is not supported in 'ethernets' interfaces

Therefore, a wifi interface can't be both renamed *and* used.

This seems like a basic requirement for a network manager.

This also seems silly since networkd's .link files definitely support matching a wifi interface based on at least MAC address (and the match / rename works just fine if I put the interface in the 'ethernets' section). I can write the .link files manually but then there's no point to using netplan.

[Lukas Märdian (slyon)]

This seems to be a historical limitation. As Netplan originally wrote an instantiated netplan-wpa@.service unit, identified by the interface name.

We might be able to work around this today, using the new custom "netplan-wpa-*.service" units and some runtime detection of the interface name, using helpers like "_netplan_enumerate_interfaces()".

Alternatively, we could at least accept the "match" stanza right now, when a "set-name" is configured, so we will only every need to match a single interface in wpa_supplicant.conf (using the "-i IFACE" parameter). Would the latter be sufficient for your usecase?