network@cinnamon.org applet can only show a single active WireGuard connection

[RafaelKr]

Distribution

Mint 21.3

Package version

6.0.4

Graphics hardware in use

No response

Frequency

Always

Bug description

Since a recent version the Network applet shows WireGuard connections, which is great!

Unfortunately it can only show one active connection but there could be multiple.

Steps to reproduce

Create at least two WireGuard networks (with different subnets) and connect to both. The Network applet will only show one active connection.

Expected behavior

The Network applet should show checkboxes instead of the "radio" items to toggle the Networks independently.

Additional information

No response

[4zv4l]

Same on Cinnamon Mint 22.3 (Zena), would be great if we could toggle WireGuard connections separately.

[IvanTheGeek]

Root cause, for anyone picking this up.

NMDeviceWIREGUARD keeps a single _activeConnection slot:

get connected() {
    return !!this._activeConnection;
},

but every WireGuard connection is handed the same pseudo-device in _syncActiveConnections(), which then calls setActiveConnection(a) once per connection inside the loop. Each activation therefore overwrites the previous one. With two tunnels up, the survivor is simply whichever NM happens to list last; the other is drawn as if it were down. The section switch has the matching flaw — deactivate() tears down only the one in the slot, so it drops one tunnel and then flips straight back on.

NMDeviceVPN does not have this problem, because #12930 gave it a list (_activeConnections) and assigns it once after the sync loop instead of per connection. That fix landed for the VPN section and the WireGuard section was left behind.

#13911 applies the same treatment here, and uses a switch per tunnel rather than a pick-one list — which is what @RafaelKr asked for in the original report, since WireGuard connections are independent of one another.

Smoke-tested with two tunnels up on 6.6.9:

wg active list: [wg-devvps, wg-lab-inet]
rows: wg-devvps=ON  wg-lab-inet=ON  wg-lab=off  wg-home=off

---

Disclosure: I worked on this with Claude (Anthropic's Claude Code). It did the bulk of the code reading, diagnosis and patch authoring, and drafted this write-up; I reviewed the changes and ran them on my own machine before filing. The commits carry a Co-Authored-By: Claude trailer to the same effect. Flagging it so you can weight the review accordingly.