network-manager does not detect changes in the authentication type of an AP

[Alfonso Sanchez-Beato]

If we are using wifi-ap in a host (1), and, say, we initially have wifi.security=wpa2, we see in another host (2) with nmcli:

2$ nmcli d wifi
* SSID MODE CHAN BITRATE SIGNAL BARS SECURITY
   Ubuntu Infra 6 54 Mbit/s 82 ▂▄▆█ WPA2

If we change the security type with:

1$ sudo wifi-ap.config set wifi.security=open

We will still see security WPA2 with "nmcli d wifi" in host (2), regardless of how long we wait, and we get errors when trying to connect to the AP. The workaround for this is re-starting either wpa_supplicant or NetworkManager. After that:

2$ nmcli d wifi
* SSID MODE CHAN BITRATE SIGNAL BARS SECURITY
   Ubuntu Infra 6 54 Mbit/s 82 ▂▄▆█

and we can connect to the AP.

IMPORTANT: This happens when changing authentication from WPA2 to none, but the bug does not happen when switching from no auth to WPA2.

Using an Android phone as client the new authentication is automatically detected.

The issue is probably residing in NM, as re-starting it fixes the problem and it lies upper than wpa_supplicant in the stack (it it was wpa-s, restarting NM probably would have not solved the issue).

This happens both using the NM snap and the debian package in zesty.

EDIT: I have confirmed that wpa_supplicant refreshes the authentication, checked by running:

$ sudo wpa_cli scan_results

(this can take up to twominutes). But, doing "nmcli d wifi" still shows the old authentication, even after 10 minutes. This looks an NM bug.