Bug 276004

Summary:	Trying to save a WPA2 password causes NetworkManager to use 95% CPU and continuously write the same message to system logs.
Product:	[Unmaintained] Network Management	Reporter:	Patrick Boutilier <boutilpj>
Component:	general	Assignee:	Will Stephenson <wstephenson>
Status:	RESOLVED UPSTREAM
Severity:	crash	CC:	blueowl, bruno, jreznik, kevin.kofler, lamarque, mhlavink, rdieter
Priority:	NOR
Version:	0.9
Target Milestone:	---
Platform:	Fedora RPMs
OS:	Linux
Latest Commit:		Version Fixed In:
Sentry Crash Report:

Description Patrick Boutilier 2011-06-18 22:16:03 UTC

Version: 0.9 (using KDE 4.6.4)
OS: Linux

In "Manage Connections", select the wireless a AP and click the Edit button. At this point a dialog box comes up that says "No agents were available for this request". The title of the dialog box is "Error - KDE Control Module".

Click "Ok" and the "Edit Network Connection" box does come up. Select "Wireless Security" tab and enter WPA/WPA2 Personal password. As soon as I click "Ok"
NetworkManager goes haywire by using 95% CPU and continuously writing to system log. (Note that the problem doesn't occur if the password is less than 8 characters)

Jun 17 23:49:47 hplaptop NetworkManager[1956]: ifcfg-rh: updating
/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-WWOOD3
Jun 17 23:49:47 hplaptop NetworkManager[1956]: ifcfg-rh: updating
/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-WWOOD3
Jun 17 23:49:47 hplaptop NetworkManager[1956]: ifcfg-rh: updating
/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-WWOOD3
Jun 17 23:49:47 hplaptop NetworkManager[1956]: ifcfg-rh: updating
/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-WWOOD3
Jun 17 23:49:47 hplaptop NetworkManager[1956]: ifcfg-rh: updating
/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-WWOOD3
Jun 17 23:49:47 hplaptop NetworkManager[1956]: ifcfg-rh: updating
/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-WWOOD3
Jun 17 23:49:47 hplaptop NetworkManager[1956]: ifcfg-rh: updating
/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-WWOOD3
Jun 17 23:49:47 hplaptop NetworkManager[1956]: ifcfg-rh: updating
/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-WWOOD3

And so on...

At this point the only way out is to kill -9 NetworkManager. WPA2 password never gets saved but I am able to connect if I type the password in each time when the dialog box pops up asking for the password.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
In "Manage Connections", select the wireless a AP and click the Edit button. At this point a dialog box comes up that says "No agents were available for this request". The title of the dialog box is "Error - KDE Control Module".

Actual Results:
NetworkManager goes haywire by using 95% CPU and continuously writing to system log.

Expected Results:
Connect to wireless AP and save password somewhere.

The NetworkManager problem doesn't occur if the password is less than 8 characters, however password is still not save anywhere.

NetworkManager-0.8.9997-2.git20110531.fc15.x86_64
kde-plasma-networkmanagement-0.9-0.53.20110616git.nm09.fc15.x86_64

Comment 1 Kevin Kofler 2011-06-18 22:51:28 UTC

We also have a user who got the same symptoms during migration from the old NM 0.8 settings format to the new NM 0.9 one, see:
http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/kde/2011-June/009614.html
and followups for details.

We are trying to migrate our Fedora 15 users from our custom compat-API-based kludge to your upstream nm09 code, but this looks like a blocker. I hope we can figure out what's going wrong here. It looks like the ifcfg-rh NM plugin used on Fedora is involved somehow.

Comment 2 Lamarque V. Souza 2011-06-19 00:06:23 UTC

I get this problem sometimes too, but it does not crash my computer nor make the CPU reach 100%. It does not happen with NM-0.8.999, only with 0.8.9997. I do not know why but NM sends too many "update" signals when we open the edit dialog, which by the way does not send update calls to NM when opening. I really do not know why NM is sending those signals.

Comment 3 Lamarque V. Souza 2011-06-20 20:30:11 UTC

Another thing I have noticed it is that is does not happen when using only keyfile plugin in /etc/NetworkManager/nm-system-settings.conf. If I use ifnet it happens, probably ifcfg-rh is a similar plugin. I use Gentoo and I do not have ifcfg-rh plugin here.

Comment 4 Lamarque V. Souza 2011-06-22 18:22:43 UTC

According to Rajeesh K Nambiar this is a upstream bug and also affects nm-applet. It has been fixed in NetworkManager-0.8.9997-4.git20110620.

Comment 5 Jirka Klimes 2011-06-23 13:38:47 UTC

This upstream commit for libnm-util fixes the bug:
http://cgit.freedesktop.org/NetworkManager/NetworkManager/commit/?id=864db9f9e80ab547d7dde10fc7a139b22c85c75f

Comment 6 Lamarque V. Souza 2011-07-21 18:02:52 UTC

*** Bug 278204 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***