Bug 2334171

Summary: Missing /proc/net/wireless in 6.13.0-0-*
Product: [Fedora] Fedora Reporter: Onyeibo Oku <onyeibo>
Component: kernelAssignee: Kernel Maintainer List <kernel-maint>
Status: CLOSED WONTFIX QA Contact: Fedora Extras Quality Assurance <extras-qa>
Severity: high Docs Contact:
Priority: unspecified    
Version: rawhideCC: acaringi, adscvr, airlied, alciregi, alekcejk, bskeggs, hdegoede, hpa, josef, kernel-maint, linville, masami256, mchehab, pbrobinson, ptalbert, steved, suraj.ghimire7
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Hardware: x86_64   
OS: Linux   
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Last Closed: 2025-02-23 11:20:10 UTC Type: ---
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dmesg none

Description Onyeibo Oku 2024-12-26 10:01:05 UTC 
1. Please describe the problem:
I am running Fedora Minimal version with Sway Windows Manager.  I use Bumblebee-status for my status bar. Recently, Bumblebee-status reports a missing /proc/net/wireless -- then crashes. Initially, everything worked until I updated to 6.13.xxx. '/proc/net/wireless' provides network statistics, without it, modules that extract network info from there won't work properly.

2. What is the Version-Release number of the kernel:
Currently  6.13.0-0.rc4.36.fc42.x86_64


3. Did it work previously in Fedora? If so, what kernel version did the issue
   *first* appear?  Old kernels are available for download at
   https://koji.fedoraproject.org/koji/packageinfo?packageID=8 :
 Yes.  It worked in the 6.12.xxx series

4. Can you reproduce this issue? If so, please provide the steps to reproduce
   the issue below:
It has been reproduced by https://github.com/clnhub (see related ticket at https://github.com/clnhub/rtl8192eu-linux/issues/111). I had suspected my wifi driver, but now everything appears to be pointing to the kernel. 

Steps:
Install latest Rawhide (kernel).  I am running Minimal Version of Fedora with Sway Windows Manager.  Install and configure Sway to use bumblebee-status for the status bar.  Bumblebee-status is available in pip. Bumblebee-status reports that "/proc/net/wireless" is missing.

without Bumblebee-status do (BASH):
ls -lh /proc/net/

the wireless will be absent

5. Does this problem occur with the latest Rawhide kernel? To install the
   Rawhide kernel, run ``sudo dnf install fedora-repos-rawhide`` followed by
   ``sudo dnf update --enablerepo=rawhide kernel``:
6.13.0-0.rc4.36.fc42.x86_64 is the latest

6. Are you running any modules that not shipped with directly Fedora's kernel?:
Yes, the wireless driver rtl8192eu from copr:copr.fedorainfracloud.org:sunwire:dkms-rtl8192eu


7. Please attach the kernel logs. You can get the complete kernel log
   for a boot with ``journalctl --no-hostname -k > dmesg.txt``. If the
   issue occurred on a previous boot, use the journalctl ``-b`` flag.

Reproducible: Always
Comment 1 Onyeibo Oku 2024-12-26 10:09:29 UTC 
Created attachment 2063896 [details]
dmesg
Comment 2 nucleo 2025-02-05 00:16:26 UTC 
The same with iwlwifi driver from kernel-6.14.0-0.rc1.15.fc42.x86_64.
Comment 3 nucleo 2025-02-09 16:21:15 UTC 
/proc/net/wireless missing also with kernel-6.13.2-200.fc41 and iwlwifi.
Is it possible to restore it since some programs require its presence?
Comment 4 Artem S. Tashkinov 2025-02-22 16:07:19 UTC 
Fedora has disabled it.

From the linux-wireless mailing list.

Alex Gavin wrote:

> Support for /proc/net/wireless is still present in the kernel. However, in the GitHub issue
> referenced by the bug report you linked, user 'clnhub' noted that Fedora has removed wireless
> extensions (wext) support from their 6.12+ kernel builds [1].
> 
> You can still build it into the kernel by enabling 'WIRELESS_PROC' in your configuration.
> 
> [1] https://github.com/clnhub/rtl8192eu-linux/issues/111#issuecomment-2562629866

No idea what Fedora was thinking. I'm using my own kernel anyway.
Comment 5 Peter Robinson 2025-02-23 11:20:10 UTC 
(In reply to nucleo from comment #3)
> /proc/net/wireless missing also with kernel-6.13.2-200.fc41 and iwlwifi.
> Is it possible to restore it since some programs require its presence?

In short no, wireless-extensions has been deprecated since 2006 and applications have had nearly 20 years to migrate to the new interfaces.

Fedora did an official change to remove wireless extensions, there was a slight reprieve as there were a few drivers upstream that still depended on them but they are now migrated.

https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Changes/RemoveWirelessExtensions

The old interface doesn't support a bunch of "new" wireless features like anything newer than 802.11n and actively don't work for wifi 7.

There's nothing in Fedora that has depended on wireless extensions since the change above, you should work with the packages that aren't in Fedora to migrate to the "new" interface using libnl that's only been around for 20 years, it also has a bunch of new features that may provide better details.