My own WiFi SSID not appearing when using Hardened Kernel

General system Kernel, boot, graphics & hardware
1

I installed the Hardened Kernel shortly after installing EndeavourOS & faced no issues using it. Today after installing updates which included a new version of the Hardened Kernel & rebooting I found that my WiFi is not connected. When I clicked on the Network Manager icon on the sys tray I found 2 other SSIDs but surprisingly my own router’s SSID is missing. I thought that my WiFi router is malfunctioning but when I was able to connect my phone to my router I was sure that the router is not the culprit. Finally I rebooted and selected 5.15.5-arch1-1 & WiFi connection is instant. No issues at all.

Anyone who’s using the Hardened Kernel facing this issue ? Any workaround ?

2

Do you have the package r8168 installed? Try uninstalling it, and see whether that solves your issue (and if not, you can always install it back).

3

Seems like the hardened kernel is switching off your WiFi’s radio functionality. But why use the hardened kernel? yeah, it provides more security but it also disables a lot of stuff like some drivers for network interfaces.

Disabled Devices[edit]

Both kernels disable some drivers that are unlikely to be used to cut attack surface. The drivers disabled are as follows:

  • All staging drivers:
    • CONFIG_RTL8192U - RealTek RTL8192U Wireless LAN NIC driver
    • CONFIG_RTL8192E - RealTek RTL8192E Wireless LAN NIC driver
    • CONFIG_RTL8723BS - RTL8723BS SDIO
    • Intel Compute Stick, the CHIP and many other Intel Atom and ARM based devices
    • R8712U
    • D-Link DWA-130
    • CONFIG_R8188EU
    • TP-Link TL-WN725N
    • CONFIG_R8822BE - Realtek RTL8822BE 802.11ac
    • CONFIG_RTS5208 - Realtek PCI-E Card Reader RTS5208/5288 support
    • CONFIG_PI433 - Pi433 - a 433MHz radio module for Raspberry Pi
    • some data acquisition device such as CONFIG_COMEDI
  • All industrial I/O support (CONFIG_IIO) is disabled. This includes things like humidity sensors, chemical sensors, light sensors, accelerometers etc. that don’t really make sense on a usual desktop system.
  • All android support is disabled as these kernels aren’t meant to be used on any mobile devices.
  • Infiniband support.
  • SMC-R, “sockets over RDMA”, RDMA over Converged Ethernet (RoCE)

Source if needed.

For a normal user, Linux is secure enough unless you personally download a shady script and run it your self.

4

I had found that my ethernet interface was not enabled. I used the command ifconfig to verify that. A member of the #archlinux IRC channel told me to install the r8168 package from AUR. So had used the command yay -S r8168-dkms to install it.

I will uninstall that package & report back. But how can a driver which is meant for the ethernet cause problem for wifi ?

5

I am paranoid about security. As I said I have been using the Hardened Kernel for a long time now. Never faced any issues. This is the first problem.