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MAC randomization for the Nexus 5X #147

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thestinger opened this Issue Jan 17, 2016 · 16 comments

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@thestinger @canary5 @tobia @Rudd-O @thelifeofjay @recvoid @n3xus5x
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thestinger commented Jan 17, 2016 •
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  • @thestinger thestinger edited May 16, 2016

Full MAC randomization completely breaks WiFi authentication and had to be disabled.

Scanning MAC randomization mostly works, but it occasionally triggers the same symptom, apparently during sleep - but not always. It has also been disabled.

@thestinger thestinger added Type: enhancement Device: Nexus 5X labels Jan 17, 2016

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canary5 May 12, 2016

Sorry for question, is it working on 6P

canary5 commented May 12, 2016

Sorry for question, is it working on 6P
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thestinger May 12, 2016

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The scanning MAC randomization is enabled on both. Full MAC randomization isn't ported to the 6P yet, but I expect it to work. Only the Nexus 5X uses the Qualcomm WiFi hardware rather than the usual Broadcom chips.
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thestinger commented May 12, 2016

The scanning MAC randomization is enabled on both. Full MAC randomization isn't ported to the 6P yet, but I expect it to work. Only the Nexus 5X uses the Qualcomm WiFi hardware rather than the usual Broadcom chips.
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thestinger May 13, 2016

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The Nexus 6P now has full MAC randomization. It works fine. The Nexus 5X wifi chip and drivers are just garbage.
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thestinger commented May 13, 2016 •
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  • @thestinger thestinger edited May 13, 2016

The Nexus 6P now has full MAC randomization. It works fine. The Nexus 5X wifi chip and drivers are just garbage.

@tobia tobia referenced this issue May 15, 2016

Closed

WiFi disconnects on Nexus 5X #262

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tobia May 15, 2016

The Nexus 5X wifi chip and drivers are just garbage.

And you guys didn't think of mentioning this on the project's documentation?

So I just bought an expensive phone specifically to install CopperheadOS, because it's one of the two models mentioned on the project homepage that don't have a ridiculous price and because a sample of internet reviews suggested that it was an improvement over the 5. And after cursing its wifi for a week I find out it's well known by the developers that it's garbage.

Great, just great. I hope Amazon takes it back.

tobia commented May 15, 2016 •
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  • @tobia tobia edited May 15, 2016

The Nexus 5X wifi chip and drivers are just garbage.

And you guys didn't think of mentioning this on the project's documentation?

So I just bought an expensive phone specifically to install CopperheadOS, because it's one of the two models mentioned on the project homepage that don't have a ridiculous price and because a sample of internet reviews suggested that it was an improvement over the 5. And after cursing its wifi for a week I find out it's well known by the developers that it's garbage.

Great, just great. I hope Amazon takes it back.
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thestinger May 16, 2016

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If every upstream issue was going to be documented, the project would solely consist of writing documentation for all of the bugs in Android. The issues with the Nexus 5X WiFi chip aren't particularly bad when compared to everything else. It just isn't compatible with MAC randomization and sometimes needs to be toggled on and off.

It's possible that scanning MAC randomization makes the issues worse than they would be otherwise. However, every issue that has come up such it dropping off during heavy use or sleep and being unable to reconnect has upstream reports. The workaround for those is toggling it off and on again. These issues don't occur on other devices with Broadcom WiFi chips. It would be worth trying to disable scanning MAC randomization (which requires a userdebug build) to see if the issues are still just as frequent, but it's difficult to determine that especially since I don't regularly use the 5X. The issues haven't come up during automated testing, only when it's being used in a more normal way (sleeping, heavy network usage).
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thestinger commented May 16, 2016

If every upstream issue was going to be documented, the project would solely consist of writing documentation for all of the bugs in Android. The issues with the Nexus 5X WiFi chip aren't particularly bad when compared to everything else. It just isn't compatible with MAC randomization and sometimes needs to be toggled on and off.

It's possible that scanning MAC randomization makes the issues worse than they would be otherwise. However, every issue that has come up such it dropping off during heavy use or sleep and being unable to reconnect has upstream reports. The workaround for those is toggling it off and on again. These issues don't occur on other devices with Broadcom WiFi chips. It would be worth trying to disable scanning MAC randomization (which requires a userdebug build) to see if the issues are still just as frequent, but it's difficult to determine that especially since I don't regularly use the 5X. The issues haven't come up during automated testing, only when it's being used in a more normal way (sleeping, heavy network usage).

@thestinger thestinger referenced this issue May 16, 2016

Closed

scanning MAC randomization occasionally prevents WiFi from reconnecting on the Nexus 5X #269

@thestinger thestinger added the upstream label May 19, 2016

@thestinger thestinger added the Priority: low label Jul 1, 2016

@randomice42 randomice42 referenced this issue Jul 3, 2016

Closed

more frequent associated MAC randomization #275

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Rudd-O Jul 19, 2016

I can't find the menu entry for randomization. Was that altogether removed from 5X and in which commits was it killed?

Rudd-O commented Jul 19, 2016

I can't find the menu entry for randomization. Was that altogether removed from 5X and in which commits was it killed?
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Rudd-O Jul 19, 2016

Ah, I found it. Ignore my post. I'm an idiot.

Note that the randomization doesn't seem to work when I'm already associated.

Rudd-O commented Jul 19, 2016

Ah, I found it. Ignore my post. I'm an idiot.

Note that the randomization doesn't seem to work when I'm already associated.
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Rudd-O Jul 19, 2016

How can I tell using tcpdump that my phone is in fact randomizing its MAC address when scanning?

Rudd-O commented Jul 19, 2016

How can I tell using tcpdump that my phone is in fact randomizing its MAC address when scanning?
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thelifeofjay Jul 19, 2016

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@Rudd-O please confirm you have an actual issue before reporting it on the bugtracker.

http://bfy.tw/6oKS
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thelifeofjay commented Jul 19, 2016

@Rudd-O please confirm you have an actual issue before reporting it on the bugtracker.

http://bfy.tw/6oKS

@thelifeofjay thelifeofjay closed this Jul 19, 2016

@thelifeofjay thelifeofjay reopened this Jul 19, 2016

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thestinger Jul 19, 2016

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5X doesn't use either full MAC randomization or scanning MAC randomization anymore. It's used on the Nexus 5, 9 and 6P without problems. Can see the scanning MAC randomization via ip link since it's done via wpa_supplicant's support for changing the MAC address on the interface rather than requesting that the interface uses a random scanning address (that might work for 5X, but not really interested in another mechanism to work around the broken driver, and it likely doesn't randomize the vendor portion).
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thestinger commented Jul 19, 2016

5X doesn't use either full MAC randomization or scanning MAC randomization anymore. It's used on the Nexus 5, 9 and 6P without problems. Can see the scanning MAC randomization via ip link since it's done via wpa_supplicant's support for changing the MAC address on the interface rather than requesting that the interface uses a random scanning address (that might work for 5X, but not really interested in another mechanism to work around the broken driver, and it likely doesn't randomize the vendor portion).
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recvoid Oct 10, 2016

Hello, I have a 5X and the mac randomization is not working. Was this disabled?
If so will it be enabled again in the future?

recvoid commented Oct 10, 2016

Hello, I have a 5X and the mac randomization is not working. Was this disabled?
If so will it be enabled again in the future?
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thestinger Oct 10, 2016

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If it was implemented, this issue would be closed. You're welcome to work on it. I'm not going to be working on anything related to Qualcomm's awful qcacld-2.0 WiFi driver anymore.
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thestinger commented Oct 10, 2016

If it was implemented, this issue would be closed. You're welcome to work on it. I'm not going to be working on anything related to Qualcomm's awful qcacld-2.0 WiFi driver anymore.
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thestinger Oct 15, 2016

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Confirmed that the driver is still broken.
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thestinger commented Oct 15, 2016

Confirmed that the driver is still broken.
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n3xus5x Jan 7, 2017

damn... wasnt working still came here to check up the progress still no improvements.. sad story

n3xus5x commented Jan 7, 2017

damn... wasnt working still came here to check up the progress still no improvements.. sad story
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thestinger Jan 7, 2017

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It's not going to fix itself. Until someone is interested in doing some real work on this, there isn't going to be progress. This likely impacts the Pixel and Pixel XL too so there's the slim chance that someone with a Pixel or Pixel XL will want MAC randomization working. I seriously doubt that anyone cares enough to do more than complaining about it though. It's not going to be trivial to get this working. It will be a substantial amount of work and might not pan out if it turns out to be an inherent limitation of the hardware / firmware.
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thestinger commented Jan 7, 2017

It's not going to fix itself. Until someone is interested in doing some real work on this, there isn't going to be progress. This likely impacts the Pixel and Pixel XL too so there's the slim chance that someone with a Pixel or Pixel XL will want MAC randomization working. I seriously doubt that anyone cares enough to do more than complaining about it though. It's not going to be trivial to get this working. It will be a substantial amount of work and might not pan out if it turns out to be an inherent limitation of the hardware / firmware.

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thestinger Jan 9, 2017

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Replacing with #556.
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thestinger commented Jan 9, 2017

Replacing with #556.

@thestinger thestinger closed this Jan 9, 2017

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