Sys-net : defaulting wifi to disabled

[qos_newbie]

Hi,

I haven’t found a convenient way of starting Qubes OS 4.14.3 with wifi disabled at startup

I’m looking in sys-net (debian 11), found my rtw88_8822ce module loaded, which is normal.
I’m looking for a smart of doing this … (but I did not found the way of at least having it working … creating a "blacklist rtw88_8822ce line in all “blacklist module_name” >> /etc/modprobe.d/*-dontload.conf files ?).

I’m not sure I’m going the right way, as indeed I’d like to be able to re-enable wifi easily if needed.

Best way would probably be knowing what triggers the checkbox “Enable wifi” in the NetworkManager Applet, to uncheck it by default ?

Any idea ?

[Suspicious_Actions]

So the config is at /etc/NetworkManager but i don’t see anything useful there.
There is the possibility that the checkbox just checks if wifi is on and there is no boolean to save it’s state.

Maybe the easiest would be to rfkill or nmcli radio wifi off at startup?

[ludovic]

Hi @qos_newbie ,

@qos_newbie

creating a "blacklist rtw88_8822ce line in all “blacklist module_name” >> /etc/modprobe.d/*-dontload.conf files ?).

To blacklist the kernel module is a way, for this see the blacklist part from config-files documentation.

To remove the wireless device from sys-net is another better way, also called detach a device from a VM, see

• sys-net settings GUI, devices tab, move the device from right to left
• how-to-use-devices documentation
• how-to-use-pci-devices documentation

I hope this will help you.

[qos_newbie]

Hi @Suspicious_Actions ,

Thx, it works, easier than I thought. Yes, nothing valuable by default in /etc/NetworkManager, and nmcli is great, works perfectly and … is saved on reboot (I thought I would have to use it in a startup script like `/etc/init.d/rc.local``or so …) .

Thank you

[qos_newbie]

Hi @ludovic ,

Thank you for the explanations. I have not tried to blacklist the kernel module in the end, but I’ve learned detaching / attaching successfully the wifi device (and so, any device) from sys-net VM graphically, which is great also .

And better, using qvm-device from Dom0 Terminal is more flexible and graphical (and storable in a file), so … I succeeded in doing the same (qvm-device pci d sys-net dom0:03_00:0 in my case), and a script would need qvm-shutdown sys-net prior, and qvm-start sys-net sys-firewall sys-whonix thereafter for instance … I attached the device back the same way in reverse order, so I will script it and create aliases for that .

Thank you