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List:       tails-dev
Subject:    [Tails-dev] macchanger
From:       intrigeri () boum ! org (intrigeri)
Date:       2013-05-13 18:34:16
Message-ID: 85fvxq4tlj.fsf () boum ! org
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Hi Jesper,

I'm so sorry for coming back to you that late... these are busy times.

Jesper wrote (25 Feb 2013 18:50:47 GMT) :
> First of all, I've discovered that when having a
> BroadcomBCM4313,BCM43224,BCM43224 orBCM43225wireless network card, a
> user-change of MAC address is not supported by the current version of
> the Broadcom-sta binary driver nor the current version of the open
> sourcebrcmsmac driver. This means that everybody using one of these
> adapters will not be able to change the MAC address no matter what take
> is chosen for the macchanger issue (these adapters are quite common!).

:/

> Together with the guys implementing the open sourcebrcmsmac driver I've
> created a patch for the kernel used by tails allowing user-change of the
> MAC address.

Great news, thanks a lot for working on this! I hope your efforts are
integrated into the mainline Linux kernel so that Tails can benefit
from it eventually. Was it submitted on LKML already?

> Of course, for it to work, it's needed to remove the Broadcom-sta driver
> (wl) and insert the otherwise blacklisted brcmsmac driver.

Data points:

  * Tails ships the brcmsmac module.
  * Tails does not ship the wl module.
  * I could not find any indication that brcmsmac is blacklisted
    in Tails.

Did I miss something?

If I'm correct, then the good news is that once brcmsmac is fixed in
the Debian Linux kernel, then Tails will (almost) automatically
benefit from it, so no additional work is needed :)

> This leads me to my macchanger solution (which is already one of the
> proposed solutions on the todo). Before describing it I'd like to
> propose that the patch is added no matter what!

Sorry to disappoint you, but I doubt we want to start maintaining our
own patched Linux kernel for this reason only. Our resources are
rather scarce, and our roadmap well-filled.

> My solution is simple:
[...] skipped discussion about user-interface.

> If it's present it checks if one of the Broadcom wireless network
> adapters above is present using lspci. If it's present it removes the
> Broadcom-sta (wl) driver and inserts the open source (and patched)
> brcmsmac driver.

I don't think this is needed, see above. Feel free to enlighten me if
I've missed something, though. There are better ways (see
modprobe.d(5)) to indicate that we prefer one module over the other,
by the way, in case it would be needed.

Best regards,
-- 
  intrigeri
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