nl80211, wext, dhclient

[Simon Kitching]

Hi,

I've noticed some odd behaviour I hope someone here can explain.

I can get dhcpcd/dhclient to initialise an interface with wpa_supplicant 
using "-Dwext" but not "-Dnl80211" (ie the default). Is that expected 
behaviour?

System: Lenovo thinkpad with intel 7265 wireless. OS: debian8 or 
linux-from-scratch (both show the same behaviour), systemd-based but all 
network-related daemons disabled.

If I run
   wpa_supplicant -c.. -iwlp3s0
then the interface does not reach RUNNING state (according to ifconfig).

Running "dhcpcd wlp3s0" afterwards reports "link not up" and eventually 
exits. Running "dhclient wlp3s0" just hangs.

If I add "-Dwext" to the wpa_supplicant options, then the interface 
reaches state RUNNING, and dhcpcd/dhclient allocate an address for it. 
That is obviously a problem, as the default systemd service file for 
wpa_supplicant starts it without any -D parameter, ie defaulting to nl80211.

The debian install connects fine if run normally (ie all regular daemons 
enabled, NetworkManager managing networking).

Any advice appreciated

Regards,
Simon