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Switching to iwd from network manager

Details​

We are going to need iwd network managers. But by default DHCP client is disabled and requires a external DHCP client. We are going to use dhcpcd5. For resolving DNS will fail because there is no local DNS server. We are going to use systemd-resolved for this purpose.

Pre-requisites​

  • Install iwd and dhcpcd5
sudo apt install iwd dhcpcd5
  • Disable NetworkManager, dnsmasq and resolvconf services:
sudo systemctl disable NetworkManager
sudo systemctl disable dnsmasq
sudo systemctl disable resolvconf
  • Configure the DHCP server, disable ip configuration for unwanted interfaces and set a static IP address for the main interface:
# /etc/dhcpcd.conf

denyinterfaces wlan0
interface wlan1
static ip_address=192.168.1.111/24
static routers=192.168.1.1
static domain_name_servers=192.168.1.1
  • Configure iwd to use systemd-resolved for DNS resolution:
# /etc/iwd/main.conf
[Network]
NameResolvingService=systemd
  • Point systemd-resolved as the DNS server in /etc/resolv.conf
# by default, /etc/resolv.conf is an empty file generated by NetworkManager
# so link the default
sudo ln -sf /run/systemd/resolve/stub-resolv.conf /etc/resolv.conf
  • Configure systemd-resolved to use gateway as the DNS server
# /etc/systemd/resolved.conf.d/default_dns.conf
[Resolve]
DNS=192.168.1.1
  • Restart the services:
sudo systemctl enable --now systemd-resolved
sudo systemctl enable --now dhcpcd
sudo systemctl enable --now iwd

  • Connect to wifi using iwctl

  • Make sure an IP address is assigned by ip route

$ ip route
default via 192.168.1.1 dev wlan1 src 192.168.1.111 metric 305
192.168.1.0/24 dev wlan1 proto dhcp scope link src 192.168.1.111 metric 305
  • Make sure DNS resolution is working by resolvectl dns
$ resolvectl dns
Global: 192.168.1.1
Link 2 (enP4p65s0):
Link 3 (enP3p49s0):
Link 4 (wlan0):
Link 5 (wlan1):