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I have a system with Ubuntu 20.10, kernel 5.11 with the Intel AX-210 Wi-Fi NIC with iwlwifi-ty-59.601f3a66.0.tgz driver.

I've found that Network Manager currently does not support WPA3 and OWE (Enhanced Open) which are required for my application. One suggestion is to try configuring Wi-Fi with wpa_supplicant.

In the default Ubuntu 20.10 installation, wpa_supplicant seems to be not present or disabled:

  • /var/log/wpa_supplicant.log does not exist
  • $ wpa_cli returns with “could not connect to wpa_supplicant”
  • /etc/network/interfaces does not exist

However, wpa_supplicant is present:

$ which wpa_supplicant
/usr/sbin/wpa_supplicant
$ wpa_supplicant -version
wpa_supplicant v2.9
Copyright (c) 2003-2019, Jouni Malinen <j@w1.fi> and contributors

This article notes that wpa_supplicant was deprecated with Ubuntu 17, but doesn't provide any guidance on re-activating it.

Is there any documentation on how to cause the Wi-Fi configuration in Ubuntu to be controlled by wpa_supplicant? Can wpa_supplicant run together with netplan and Network Manager, or must the others be disabled? If they must be disabled, where is that configuration described?

Edit: Network Manager has Enhanced Open and WPA3 options available from connection settings for networks that are not in the 6 GHz band.

enter image description here

However, the 6 GHz network six-e-test-1 does not have the "gear" for accessing settings.

Visible Networks - settings "gear" missing for six-e-test-1

tim11g
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    In my 20.10 install, both seem to be supported by NM: https://i.postimg.cc/9fStXyrY/Screenshot-from-2021-05-06-16-24-59.png – chili555 May 06 '21 at 20:27
  • @chili555, See edits in main post. I have the same options for SSIDs that are not in the 6 GHz band. For 6 GHz, the settings are unavailable. – tim11g May 07 '21 at 14:59
  • I wonder if this is actually a firmware and driver issue. Does this command show that 6 gHz frequencies are supported? `iwlist freq` If so, is *six-e-test-1* broadcasting on an available frequency? – chili555 May 07 '21 at 15:39
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    Well, it's been a while, anyway, I wish [https://medium.com/@barry_wu.me/how-to-connect-wi-fi-6e-ap-over-the-6-ghz-band-with-ubuntu-21-04-2a0b4f071ac2](https://medium.com/@barry_wu.me/how-to-connect-wi-fi-6e-ap-over-the-6-ghz-band-with-ubuntu-21-04-2a0b4f071ac2) could be helpful for you. – irhwang Aug 04 '21 at 01:01

0 Answers0