netctl-auto not showing connected profile with netctl list about netctl

[joukewitteveen]

This is a correct usage (the other being systemctl start netctl-auto@wlp8s0), but netctl-auto is listed in netctl.special(7) for a reason. It is not really netctl. To get the profile that was used for connecting when using netctl-auto, you can use

wpa_cli -i wlp8s0 status | sed -n 's/^id_str=//p'

[tuckerrc]

In case anyone else reads this a year later netctl-auto list will show a * next to the active profile and netctl-auto current shows the active profile.

[musteresel]

@joukewitteveen : I am a bit confused right now...
It seems when using netctl-auto, neither systemd nor netctl "know" which profile is currently connected. Is this intended?

I stumbled upon this because I want to start my vpn (using openconnect and a service unit) everytime a specific profile gets connected. This profile is for a wifi without security, which is why I don't want it to be connected without having a vpn connection.

Btw: Does netctl-auto do roaming?
And: What happens on connection loss? Any way to be noticed (in terms of systemd units) about that?

[joukewitteveen]

Well, it is intended as much as it is unavoidable.

For your VPN case, you could add ExecUpPost='/usr/bin/systemctl start <whatever>' to the profile (and perhaps stop it in ExecDownPre).

The wireless connection in the auto setting is managed by a wpa_actiond script (src/lib/auto.action). In advanced cases, you might want to use wpa_actiond directly instead of through netctl. Although netctl leverages the power of wpa_actiond in a user-friendly manner, it does so at the cost of some configurability.