Before I did my fresh install of Noble, I did a full backup of my /home directory and also copied all of the files from /etc/NetworkManager/system-connections in order to backup all of my wireless passwords. However, once I installed Noble, I learned that there is now a different method of storing wireless passwords and it’s not just a matter of restoring my backup. Is there a conversion utility that I can use to convert the wireless passwords I saved from my Jammy system?
Sadly, there is no way (at least that I’m aware) to migrate wireless passwords. Additionally, 24.04 uses Netplan as what is actually running on your system making the connections, with NetworkManager acting as a frontend (that’s extremely simplified, but the rough gist, and I cannot explain further as that’s not even my area of expertese).
Those items might be in the keyring, so you might check GNOME Keyring (seahorse) to see if there’s anything you can do there. To be honest, though, I’m just throwing ideas out, so it might not work. I’ve never been able to recover network passwords on a fresh install even if saving my /home.
I knew wireless passwords wouldn’t be recovered by just restoring the /home directory which is why I looked up where they were actually stored and I backed it up before doing the fresh install thinking I finally had the system beat. Murphy’s Law kicked me in the teeth AGAIN.
Do share please. This information could be important for someone wanting to help.
Previously the passwords were stored in /etc/NetworkManager/system-connections as *.nmconnections files. In 24.04LTS however, they are stored in /etc/netplan as *.yaml files.
I have never had to deal with this issue but I believe you should be able to import the old wireless information by using nmcli
Of course, doing it manually is not ideal but if you only have 1 or 2 connections to set up it might be fine.
Unfortunately I have far more than just one or two connections. This is my laptop that I take everywhere with me…