Unable to connect to wifi with opportunistic wireless encryption

[Extremeadin]

I'm trying to connect my Steam Deck to a wifi with opportunistic wireless encryption, which adds encryption to a wireless network without requiring a wireless password. I have another device which connects fine, however, it seems that the Steam Deck doesn't support this option, as I keep getting an error that "No secrets were provided". dmesg states that it was "deauthenticating by local choice" with reason 1, UNSPECIFIED

In the networking configuration for the wifi in desktop mode, under wifi security, there is no option to select "enhanced open". However, on my laptop running arch, network manager does seem to have this option (different desktop environment, not sure if that matters). It seems like network manager on the Steam Deck doesn't include support for this type of network.

[Extremeadin]

After doing some digging, I found that my laptop utilizes NetworkManager service to handle wifi connections, while my Steam Deck uses iwd. OWE is supported by iwd, so it's not a matter of missing support. The logs for iwd indicate show the following issue:

OWE DH element/RSN not found

Unfortunately searching the internet for that error message only yields the source code of iwd that prints that out.

It seems like I've just run into an unusual wifi setup that iwd just doesn't handle :(

[Extremeadin]

Success! I was able to connect to the hotel wifi. I realized that both the steamdeck and my laptop were using Network Manager. The difference is that my laptop is using wpa_supplicant, not iwd. I Switched the backend of NetworkManager to wpa_supplicant. However, I encountered another bug where nm-applet in KDE can't create the initial connection to OWE networks for some reason (see here for more info [bugs.launchpad.net]). As a workaround, I created the connection in the command line using nmcli and voila my internet worked!

*edit* Accidentally switched iwd and wpa_supplicant

[defect]

Very late reply but do you have instructions for doing this? I just ran into the same issue for the first time, and your post is the only thing that I have found so far.

[Extremeadin]

I had to edit the file /etc/NetworkManager/conf.d/wifi_backend.conf and change

 wifi.backend=iwd 

to

 wifi.backend=wpa_supplicant 

and reboot.

Even then, it would was still finicky and didn't always work. I also played around with nmtui in the command line, as that seems to support Open Enhanced networks. Overall it's a weird experience, where sometimes it duplicates networks and asks for a password. Best of luck!

[Extremeadin]

Oh, I forgot that I connected with nmcli. That was done using the command line in desktop mode. You can find some instructions on how to use it here[wiki.archlinux.org]


unfortunately it's a lot of command line stuff, as it turns out Open Enhanced networks aren't supported by plasma [bugs.kde.org] or Game Mode

[Extremeadin]

Here are the notes I wrote for myself:

Connecting to an OWE network

Current steps:

edit /etc/NetworkManager/conf.d/wifi_backend.conf
change wifi.backend to wpa_supplicant
it is originally iwd

Create connection using nmtui
ensure ssid and profile name match

choose Enhanced Open as the security type

need to connect using nmtui in desktop mode, but should be able to connect manually connect using standard game mode interface. Will show blank password, but that's fine

Or just randomly try stuff, who knows


* NOTES (This is the first way I connected, but the nmtui way above seems better)

Run this command to create a connection to OWE network. THen plasma-nm should be able
to connect to it

nmcli c add type wifi ssid ENTER_SSID_HERE


may need to delete connection first
list connections with:

nmcli  connection show


delete connection with:
mcli connection delete WIFI_NAME_HERE



Can also use nmtui, seems to work better with wpa_supplicant

can set network type to enhanced open.

SOmetimes nm-applet in plasma sets a password for no raisin

[defect]

Bummer, but thanks for the replies. Fingers crossed it gets supported properly upstream.