Re: [PATCH v1 RFC 1/4] vm/sys/net: remove connman & dbus

[Yureka <yuka@yuka.dev>]

On 11/25/25 11:15, Alyssa Ross wrote:
> Yureka Lilian <yureka@cyberchaos.dev> writes:
>
>> In preparation to integrating xdp-forwarder, making the net-vm a net-driver VM.
>>
>> Signed-off-by: Yureka Lilian <yureka@cyberchaos.dev>
>> ---
>>   vm/sys/net/Makefile                           |  2 +-
>>   vm/sys/net/default.nix                        |  8 +++-----
>>   vm/sys/net/file-list.mk                       | 13 +------------
>>   vm/sys/net/image/etc/dbus-1/system.conf       |  8 --------
>>   .../etc/s6-rc/connman/dependencies.d/dbus     |  0
>>   vm/sys/net/image/etc/s6-rc/connman/run        | 19 -------------------
>>   vm/sys/net/image/etc/s6-rc/connman/type       |  1 -
>>   .../net/image/etc/s6-rc/connman/type.license  |  2 --
>>   .../net/image/etc/s6-rc/dbus/notification-fd  |  1 -
>>   .../etc/s6-rc/dbus/notification-fd.license    |  2 --
>>   vm/sys/net/image/etc/s6-rc/dbus/run           | 10 ----------
>>   vm/sys/net/image/etc/s6-rc/dbus/type          |  1 -
>>   vm/sys/net/image/etc/s6-rc/dbus/type.license  |  2 --
>>   .../image/etc/s6-rc/ok-all/contents.d/sysctl  |  0
>>   vm/sys/net/image/etc/s6-rc/sysctl/type        |  1 -
>>   .../net/image/etc/s6-rc/sysctl/type.license   |  2 --
>>   vm/sys/net/image/etc/s6-rc/sysctl/up          |  4 ----
>>   vm/sys/net/image/etc/sysctl.conf              |  4 ----
>>   18 files changed, 5 insertions(+), 75 deletions(-)
>>   delete mode 100644 vm/sys/net/image/etc/dbus-1/system.conf
>>   delete mode 100644 vm/sys/net/image/etc/s6-rc/connman/dependencies.d/dbus
>>   delete mode 100644 vm/sys/net/image/etc/s6-rc/connman/run
>>   delete mode 100644 vm/sys/net/image/etc/s6-rc/connman/type
>>   delete mode 100644 vm/sys/net/image/etc/s6-rc/connman/type.license
>>   delete mode 100644 vm/sys/net/image/etc/s6-rc/dbus/notification-fd
>>   delete mode 100644 vm/sys/net/image/etc/s6-rc/dbus/notification-fd.license
>>   delete mode 100644 vm/sys/net/image/etc/s6-rc/dbus/run
>>   delete mode 100644 vm/sys/net/image/etc/s6-rc/dbus/type
>>   delete mode 100644 vm/sys/net/image/etc/s6-rc/dbus/type.license
>>   delete mode 100644 vm/sys/net/image/etc/s6-rc/ok-all/contents.d/sysctl
>>   delete mode 100644 vm/sys/net/image/etc/s6-rc/sysctl/type
>>   delete mode 100644 vm/sys/net/image/etc/s6-rc/sysctl/type.license
>>   delete mode 100644 vm/sys/net/image/etc/s6-rc/sysctl/up
>>   delete mode 100644 vm/sys/net/image/etc/sysctl.conf
> Won't we still need connman or NetworkManager or something to configure
> Wi-Fi?

Thank you for this excellent question.

connman and NetworkManager are all-in-one tools for networking. They 
mostly provide a unified interface for the underlying stacks 
(wpa_supplicant/iwd, kernel networking stack, firewall, VPNs). I don't 
expect we can re-use such an all-in-one tool in the driver VM, as the 
driver VM is only responsible for one device and shuffling data from and 
to it. In the Wi-Fi case there is an exception because the device needs 
special configuration, with user input. In the future, I see 
wpa_supplicant as a candidate which can maintain Wi-Fi connections in a 
stateful configuration file, providing both a cli and a GUI which we 
could forward to the user.

For more complex networking configuration, I would expect them to be 
done via the VM "graph", where an advanced user could build a chain of 
provider VMs which do 1:n multiplexing (the router I'm currently 
writing), n:1 multiplexing (something like Android's automatic switching 
between Wi-Fi, cellular uplink and cabled connections depending on 
network conditions), and VPN/Tor as a 1:1 provider performing some 
encapsulation.

In this current patch series the spectrum router takes over the 1:n 
multiplexing that connman was previously used for. For the n:1 
multiplexing needed for network devices with multiple interfaces, I 
expect to just use the next best one which receives router 
advertisements (which should be similar to the previous user experience 
with connman), but in this current patch series the n:1 multiplexing is 
not implemented.

 From what I can tell Wi-Fi was not a previously working feature, and 
supporting it in the future via wpa_supplicant would not be much more 
difficult, as we have tested the router in principle supports 
multiplexing multiple apps to one Wi-Fi connection.