IWD+ifupdown instead of wpasupplicant and systemd-resolved?

[riveravaldez <riveravaldezmail@gmail.com>]

Hi, I have an old desktop machine with Debian 11, running fine, as usual.
Recently I bought a USB/Wi-Fi dongle/adapter to connect it to my home WLAN.
The chipset and correspondent firmware blob seem to be the 'MediaTek
MT7601U firmware, version 34 (mt7601u.bin)', available in the
`firmware-misc-nonfree` package.

After reading:
https://wiki.debian.org/NetworkConfiguration
https://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/debian-handbook/sect.network-config
https://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/debian-reference/ch05.en.html
https://wiki.debian.org/WiFi
https://wiki.debian.org/Firmware
https://wiki.debian.org/WiFi/HowToUse

, and some linked pages, I installed `firmware-misc-nonfree`,
rebooted, and configured the interface like this:

$ iwctl
[iwd]# station wlan4 connect "Fibertel WiFi238 2.4GHz"

Input passphrase and done. I'm connected.

[iwd]# station wlan4 show
                                 Station: wlan4                               *
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  Settable  Property            Value
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
            Scanning            no
            State               connected
            Connected network   Fibertel WiFi238 2.4GHz
            ConnectedBss        b8:66:85:fd:0a:d1
            Frequency           2462
            Security            WPA2-Personal
            RSSI                -77                  dBm
            AverageRSSI         -76                  dBm
            RxMode              802.11n
            RxMCS               4
            TxMode              802.11n
            TxMCS               4
            TxBitrate           43300                Kbit/s
            RxBitrate           39000                Kbit/s
            ExpectedThroughput  15937                Kbit/s

Then:

$ sudo nano /etc/network/interfaces

, and added:

```
allow-hotplug wlan4
iface wlan4 inet dhcp
```

And then:

$ sudo ifup wlan4

And done. Everything seems to be working perfectly. I've got this:

$ cat /etc/resolv.conf
domain fibertel.com.ar
search fibertel.com.ar
nameserver 192.168.0.1

$ ip route list
default via 192.168.0.1 dev wlan4
192.168.0.0/24 dev wlan4 proto kernel scope link src 192.168.0.168

$ ip link show
1: lo: <LOOPBACK,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 65536 qdisc noqueue state UNKNOWN
mode DEFAULT group default qlen 1000
    link/loopback 00:00:00:00:00:00 brd 00:00:00:00:00:00
2: enp0s7: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST> mtu 1500 qdisc pfifo_fast state DOWN
mode DEFAULT group default qlen 1000
    link/ether 6c:f0:49:9b:b5:13 brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
11: wlan4: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qdisc mq state
UP mode DORMANT group default qlen 1000
    link/ether 20:e9:17:0d:5d:9e brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff

$ sudo ifconfig
lo: flags=73<UP,LOOPBACK,RUNNING>  mtu 65536
        inet 127.0.0.1  netmask 255.0.0.0
        inet6 ::1  prefixlen 128  scopeid 0x10<host>
        loop  txqueuelen 1000  (Local Loopback)
        RX packets 71  bytes 9188 (8.9 KiB)
        RX errors 0  dropped 0  overruns 0  frame 0
        TX packets 71  bytes 9188 (8.9 KiB)
        TX errors 0  dropped 0 overruns 0  carrier 0  collisions 0

wlan4: flags=4163<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,MULTICAST>  mtu 1500
        inet 192.168.0.168  netmask 255.255.255.0  broadcast 192.168.0.255
        inet6 fe80::22e9:17ff:fe0d:5d9e  prefixlen 64  scopeid 0x20<link>
        ether 20:e9:17:0d:5d:9e  txqueuelen 1000  (Ethernet)
        RX packets 66525  bytes 17810025 (16.9 MiB)
        RX errors 0  dropped 0  overruns 0  frame 0
        TX packets 72346  bytes 12467100 (11.8 MiB)
        TX errors 0  dropped 0 overruns 0  carrier 0  collisions 0

All this seems OK?

I'm asking because the Debian wiki proposes (I think) two different schemes:
- ifupdown with wpasupplicant, iw, wireless-tools, etc.
- iwd enabling `EnableNetworkConfiguration=true` in /etc/iwd/main.conf
and setting the name resolving service with `systemd-resolved`

, and I did neither:

$ systemctl status systemd-networkd.service
● systemd-networkd.service - Network Service
     Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/systemd-networkd.service;
disabled; vendor>
     Active: inactive (dead)
TriggeredBy: ● systemd-networkd.socket
       Docs: man:systemd-networkd.service(8)

, but apparently a mix between both schemes (my "understanding" of the
situation is that iwd creates/manages the connection between the
adapter and the router, and ifupdown with /etc/network/interfaces
sets/configures the interface for the system and the DNS resolution,
because I never installed the `resolvconf` package).

Now, is this proper/right/reliable?
Should I do something different?
Is it normal/irrelevant that I receive once and again the local IP
address 192.168.0.168 (meaning, the last one of all)?

And finally: if this is another possible/simpler solution, should I
(or anyone better equipped) add it to the wiki for other people's use?

Thanks a lot in advance and I desire everybody a wonderful year's beginning!