[pkg-wpa-devel] Bug#882716: wpasupplicant: 2.6-7 does not fallback the default interface config, only id_str plus explicit interface config works

[manul]

Package: wpasupplicant
Version: 2:2.6-7
Severity: important

Dear Maintainer,

Since the last upgrade of wpasupplicant, it does not anymore honor the 'default' interface config in /etc/network/interfaces (it is supposed to fallback to it 
as stated in wpasupplicant documentation).
So dhclient is not called, and IP is not configured.

I have the following stanza in /etc/default/interfaces:
-------
auto wlan0

iface wlan0 inet manual
        wpa-roam /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf
        wpa-roam-default-iface default

iface default inet dhcp
-------

And the following stanza in /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf
-------
network={
        ssid="sid5G"
        psk="*****"
        priority=32
}
-------

Before latest update to 2.6-7, it properly resorted to 'iface default inet dhcp' in /etc/netwpork/interfaces in the following cases:
a) have no id_str option in /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf (as stated above)
b) have id_str option in /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf, but the corresponding 'iface XXX inet dhcp' is missing from /etc/default/interfaces

And it matched the documented behaviour.

Now after the upgrade with version 2.6-7, the ONLY way to make wpasupplicant to automatically invoke dhclient, is using the id_str option for each the network config AND having 
the corresponding iface XXX inet dhcp' stanza in /etc/default/interfaces .

So for example, this is what ONLY now works:
 
stanza in /etc/default/interfaces:
-------
auto wlan0

iface wlan0 inet manual
        wpa-roam /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf
        wpa-roam-default-iface default

iface default inet dhcp
iface one-of-my-networks inet dhcp
-------

plus the following stanza in /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf
-------
network={
        ssid="sid5G"
        psk="*****"
	id_str="one-of-my-networks"
        priority=32
}
-------

But providing separate id_str for all possible networks in /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf and their corresponding "iface XXX inet dhcp" entries in /etc/network/interfaces
is too clumsy to do with each known network (and unnecessarily clogs with extra entries both the interfaces and wpa_supplicant.conf files).
And also does not anymore follow the roaming mode documented behaviour in /usr/share/doc/wpa_supplicant/README.modes.gz


Thank you!



-- System Information:
Debian Release: buster/sid
  APT prefers unstable
  APT policy: (500, 'unstable')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)

Kernel: Linux 4.13.0-1-amd64 (SMP w/4 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=en_US.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8), LANGUAGE= (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash
Init: sysvinit (via /sbin/init)

Versions of packages wpasupplicant depends on:
ii  adduser           3.116
ii  libc6             2.25-2
ii  libdbus-1-3       1.12.2-1
ii  libnl-3-200       3.2.27-2
ii  libnl-genl-3-200  3.2.27-2
ii  libpcsclite1      1.8.22-1
ii  libreadline7      7.0-3
ii  libssl1.1         1.1.0g-2
ii  lsb-base          9.20170808

wpasupplicant recommends no packages.

Versions of packages wpasupplicant suggests:
pn  libengine-pkcs11-openssl  <none>
ii  wpagui                    2:2.6-7

-- no debconf information