Thanks TJ for your help. I understand the wireless in BalenaOS better now. Here is the complete summary and tshoot steps. What I was doing wrong is trying to work with wpa_supplicant where as wifi config is handled differently in BalenaOS. Here a short write up to close the thread.
Initial state :
root@secret:~# nmcli c
NAME UUID TYPE DEVICE
Wired connection 1 c84aa153-db05-3955-bd54-428fcdd30a86 ethernet eth0
supervisor0 c58b2e92-586b-4eef-9724-2fe9d01a2b6e bridge supervisor0
!
#nmcli - t
wlan0: disconnected
“wlan0”
wifi (brcmfmac), A2:8C:9B:EB:55:12, hw, mtu 1500
!
Tshoot steps:
ip link set wlan0 down
ip link set wlan0 up
! above two command did not help in any new relevant log
root@secret:~#nmcli connection reload
! above command forced system to re-read the file and generated useful logs shown below.
Error from log:
Feb 12 15:49:36 secret NetworkManager[1474]: [1613144976.3304] keyfile: load: “/etc/NetworkManager/system-connections/resin-sample”: failed to load connection: Key file contains line “on]” which is not a key-value pair, group, or comment
!
! above log indicate that the Wifi config file “resin-sample” at two location - “/mnt/boot/system-connections” and “/etc/NetworkManager/system-connections” has syntax errors.
! used “mount -o remount,rw /” to enale edit to READ-Only file - resin-sample and fixed the syntax error. again perform “nmcli connection reload”. Tail the Network Manager logs.
! Log shows that wlan0 now active and connected - device (wlan0): Activation: successful, device activated
journalctl -u wpa_supplicant* -u NetworkManager -f
Feb 12 15:56:39 secret NetworkManager[1474]: [1613145399.9323] audit: op=“connections-reload” pid=31769 uid=0 result=“success”
Feb 12 15:56:39 secret NetworkManager[1474]: [1613145399.9336] policy: auto-activating connection ‘balena-wifi’ (bcb05b81-52cb-3828-8088-c0f55e950375)
Feb 12 15:56:39 secret NetworkManager[1474]: [1613145399.9382] device (wlan0): Activation: starting connection ‘balena-wifi’ (bcb05b81-52cb-3828-8088-c0f55e950375)
Feb 12 15:56:39 secret NetworkManager[1474]: [1613145399.9389] device (wlan0): state change: disconnected → prepare (reason ‘none’, sys-iface-state: ‘managed’)
Feb 12 15:56:40 secret NetworkManager[1474]: [1613145400.4905] device (wlan0): set-hw-addr: reset MAC address to B8:27:EB:4B:2B:7A (preserve)
Feb 12 15:56:40 secret NetworkManager[1474]: [1613145400.5222] device (wlan0): supplicant interface state: inactive → disabled
Feb 12 15:56:40 secret NetworkManager[1474]: [1613145400.5227] device (wlan0): supplicant interface state: disabled → inactive
Feb 12 15:56:40 secret NetworkManager[1474]: [1613145400.5235] device (wlan0): state change: prepare → config (reason ‘none’, sys-iface-state: ‘managed’)
Feb 12 15:56:40 secret NetworkManager[1474]: [1613145400.5255] device (wlan0): Activation: (wifi) access point ‘balena-wifi’ has security, but secrets are required.
Feb 12 15:56:40 secret NetworkManager[1474]: [1613145400.5256] device (wlan0): state change: config → need-auth (reason ‘none’, sys-iface-state: ‘managed’)
Feb 12 15:56:40 secret NetworkManager[1474]: [1613145400.5420] device (wlan0): state change: need-auth → prepare (reason ‘none’, sys-iface-state: ‘managed’)
Feb 12 15:56:40 secret NetworkManager[1474]: [1613145400.5440] device (wlan0): state change: prepare → config (reason ‘none’, sys-iface-state: ‘managed’)
Feb 12 15:56:40 secret NetworkManager[1474]: [1613145400.5461] device (wlan0): Activation: (wifi) connection ‘balena-wifi’ has security, and secrets exist. No new secrets needed.
Feb 12 15:56:40 secret NetworkManager[1474]: [1613145400.5464] Config: added ‘ssid’ value ‘Akshu729’
Feb 12 15:56:40 secret NetworkManager[1474]: [1613145400.5465] Config: added ‘scan_ssid’ value ‘1’
Feb 12 15:56:40 secret NetworkManager[1474]: [1613145400.5465] Config: added ‘bgscan’ value ‘simple:30:-80:86400’
Feb 12 15:56:40 secret NetworkManager[1474]: [1613145400.5467] Config: added ‘key_mgmt’ value ‘WPA-PSK’
Feb 12 15:56:40 secret NetworkManager[1474]: [1613145400.5468] Config: added ‘auth_alg’ value ‘OPEN’
Feb 12 15:56:40 secret NetworkManager[1474]: [1613145400.5468] Config: added ‘psk’ value ‘’
Feb 12 15:56:40 secret NetworkManager[1474]: [1613145400.7082] device (wlan0): supplicant interface state: inactive → scanning
Feb 12 15:56:41 secret wpa_supplicant[30644]: wlan0: Trying to associate with SSID ‘Akshu729’
Feb 12 15:56:41 secret NetworkManager[1474]: [1613145401.2433] device (wlan0): supplicant interface state: scanning → associating
Feb 12 15:56:41 secret wpa_supplicant[30644]: wlan0: Associated with c8:08:73:08:da:b8
Feb 12 15:56:41 secret wpa_supplicant[30644]: wlan0: CTRL-EVENT-CONNECTED - Connection to c8:08:73:08:da:b8 completed [id=0 id_str=]
Feb 12 15:56:41 secret wpa_supplicant[30644]: wlan0: CTRL-EVENT-SUBNET-STATUS-UPDATE status=0
Feb 12 15:56:41 secret wpa_supplicant[30644]: wlan0: CTRL-EVENT-REGDOM-CHANGE init=COUNTRY_IE type=COUNTRY alpha2=US
Feb 12 15:56:41 secret NetworkManager[1474]: [1613145401.8164] device (wlan0): supplicant interface state: associating → completed
Feb 12 15:56:41 secret NetworkManager[1474]: [1613145401.8166] device (wlan0): Activation: (wifi) Stage 2 of 5 (Device Configure) successful. Connected to wireless network “Akshu729”
Feb 12 15:56:41 secret NetworkManager[1474]: [1613145401.8185] device (wlan0): state change: config → ip-config (reason ‘none’, sys-iface-state: ‘managed’)
Feb 12 15:56:41 secret NetworkManager[1474]: [1613145401.8269] dhcp4 (wlan0): activation: beginning transaction (no timeout)
Feb 12 15:56:42 secret NetworkManager[1474]: [1613145402.9786] dhcp6 (wlan0): activation: beginning transaction (timeout in 45 seconds)
Feb 12 15:56:44 secret NetworkManager[1474]: [1613145404.0761] dhcp4 (wlan0): state changed unknown → bound
Feb 12 15:56:44 secret NetworkManager[1474]: [1613145404.0921] device (wlan0): state change: ip-config → ip-check (reason ‘none’, sys-iface-state: ‘managed’)
Feb 12 15:56:44 secret NetworkManager[1474]: [1613145404.1610] device (wlan0): state change: ip-check → secondaries (reason ‘none’, sys-iface-state: ‘managed’)
Feb 12 15:56:44 secret NetworkManager[1474]: [1613145404.1624] device (wlan0): state change: secondaries → activated (reason ‘none’, sys-iface-state: ‘managed’)
Feb 12 15:56:44 secret NetworkManager[1474]: [1613145404.1882] dns-mgr: Writing DNS information to /sbin/resolvconf
Feb 12 15:56:44 secret NetworkManager[1474]: [1613145404.2387] device (wlan0): Activation: successful, device activated.
verification:
root@secret:~# ip a | grep wlan
3: wlan0: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qdisc fq_codel qlen 1000
inet 192.168.1.143/24 brd 192.168.1.255 scope global dynamic wlan0
root@secret:~#
root@secret:~#
root@secret:~#
root@secret:~# nmcli c
NAME UUID TYPE DEVICE
Wired connection 1 c84aa153-db05-3955-bd54-428fcdd30a86 ethernet eth0
balena-wifi bcb05b81-52cb-3828-8088-c0f55e950375 wifi wlan0
supervisor0 c58b2e92-586b-4eef-9724-2fe9d01a2b6e bridge supervisor0