APs with same SSID and support for the same encryption should be merged into one on the network list

[Oliver Grawert]

as you can see in the "iwlist scan" output below i have two APs in my house, one supporting WPA2 only, the other supporting WPA (enabled for some weird old wifi HW) and WPA2 ... while nm-applet merges these two into one entry in the network list on various ubuntu desktop devices here, the phone shows one entry per AP.
this behavior should be brought in sync (preferably by making indicator-network also only show one entry in this case)

wlan0 Scan completed :
          Cell 01 - Address: 00:23:69:B9:C2:E0
                    ESSID:"grawert.net"
                    Frequency:2.412 GHz (Channel 1)
                    Mode:Managed
                    Signal level=-76 dBm
                    Encryption key:on
                    Bit Rates:54 Mb/s
                    Extra:Rates (Mb/s): 1 2 5.5 11 6 9 12 18 24 36 48 54
                    IE: Unknown: DD770050F204104A0001101044000102103B00010310470010002369B9C2DE002369B9C2DE02313535102100104C696E6B73797320627920436973636F102300085752543136304E4C1024000876312E30302E30311042000231351054000800060050F2040001101100085752543136304E4C100800020084
                    IE: IEEE 802.11i/WPA2 Version 1
                        Group Cipher : CCMP
                        Pairwise Ciphers (1) : CCMP
                        Authentication Suites (1) : PSK
          Cell 02 - Address: C0:3F:0E:CA:36:26
                    ESSID:"grawert.net"
                    Frequency:2.437 GHz (Channel 6)
                    Mode:Managed
                    Signal level=-46 dBm
                    Encryption key:on
                    Bit Rates:54 Mb/s
                    Extra:Rates (Mb/s): 1 2 5.5 11 6 9 12 18 24 36 48 54
                    IE: WPA Version 1
                        Group Cipher : TKIP
                        Pairwise Ciphers (2) : CCMP TKIP
                        Authentication Suites (1) : PSK
                    IE: Unknown: DD0E0050F204104A0001101044000102
                    IE: IEEE 802.11i/WPA2 Version 1
                        Group Cipher : TKIP
                        Pairwise Ciphers (2) : CCMP TKIP
                        Authentication Suites (1) : PSK

[Matthew Paul Thomas (mpt)]

This seems to be in conflict with bug 1258496, where we want to prominently distinguish networks that have the same name but differ in any way, on the grounds that one of them might be an impostor.

[Oliver Grawert (ogra)]

so you want to break roaming behavior that works since more than a decade this way on all OSes ?

WLANs with the same name and same encryption but multiple APs are a pretty standard thing, no OS i know distinguishes between the physical APs in such a setup (and Ubuntu desktop doesn't either today (and never did))

I would find it personally very annoying if i suddenly had multiple entries for my existing wlan show up on my laptop (not knowing which one is the basement or the second floor AP) and would suddenly have to manually pick the right AP while going up and down the stairs ...

i dont get why we need to break established and "quasi stanrdard" behavior all of a sudden ...

[Matthew Paul Thomas (mpt)]

Alleging "you want to break roaming behavior" is unlikely to help solve whatever the problem is. Unfortunately -- as often happens when the word "should" appears in a bug summary -- the exact problem was left unstated. Is it:

(A) That "APs with same SSID and support for the same encryption" are not treated by Network Manager as a single network with a shared password etc? If so, the information here doesn't substantiate the bug: your two APs have the same name but support *different* encryption options, unlike (for example) the set of identical APs you would find at a hotel or conference center. And even if the bug is valid, merely merging the entries in indicator-network probably would not solve the problem; it would need fixing in Network Manager.

(B) Merely that the list in indicator-network is not "in sync" with the list in nm-applet, and the inconsistency is irritating? That would be more likely to be solved by finally shipping indicator-network on PCs than by changing indicator-network to match nm-applet. For example, maybe the evil-twin attack is intractable, but if it is tractable, defending against it will almost certainly mean listing networks even more differently from how they're listed in nm-applet.

(C) "Roaming behavior", that having set Network Manager to connect to both APs automatically, it fails to connect to one after going out of range of the other? If so, that again is a Network Manager bug which probably would not be fixed by UI changes in indicator-network. Maybe the bug would happen even if the APs had different names; have you tried that?

(D) That on your way to the basement or the second floor, you are "not knowing which one is the basement or the second floor AP" and so can't choose which one to connect to? That seems least likely to me, because merging the entries into one would prevent you from choosing one over the other at all.

[Oliver Grawert (ogra)]

well, all i can say is that no OS in my house (and there are a few in use) shows me multiple entires for the multiple APs in range, i have exactly one entry for the whole of the network in all of them.

*NONE* of the other OSes drops off the network if i go up and down the stairs where the tripping point for switching to another AP is ...

if i go from my living room downstairs to my office upstairs, and have my ubuntu phone in my pocket it disconnects on the stairs ...

if i open any network management app in any other OS (and even in ubuntu desktop) i see a single entry for my wlan in all of them ... on the phone i see one entry per AP ... all i'm asking for is that the phone behaves like any other OS (and yes i have an old android phone and checked it, there is exactly one entry for my WLAN in it)

lets please not break behavior, thats all i'm asking for
adding extra annoyances for the user (like disconnecting instead of switching APs, showing multiple entries with identical names you cant tell apart in the network list etc) *just because* isnt really nice IMHO.

[Oliver Grawert (ogra)]

erm ... and with OTA-4 that just hit my phone this bug is actually fixed, my bq only shows one wlan and roams as expected ...
(how embarrasing !) i guess we can close this bug as fix released ...