(solved) Unable to create AP on 5ghz TEROW ROW02CD RPI4 Alpine Linux #39
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Hi @desultory
It supports broadcasting 5 GHz. I have a repo for the 7612u chipset: https://github.com/morrownr/7612u At that repo is the following file which may contain a lot of info that might help: https://github.com/morrownr/7612u/blob/main/Bridged_Wireless_Access_Point.md I can see that the following lines in your hostapd.conf have problems: (these are for 5GHz and are ones that should work) ht_capab=[HT40+][HT40-][GF][SHORT-GI-20][SHORT-GI-40] vht_capab=[RXLDPC][SHORT-GI-80][TX-STBC-2BY1][RX-STBC-1][MAX-A-MPDU-LEN-EXP3][RX-ANTENNA-PATTERN][TX-ANTENNA-PATTERN] hostapd can be very picky. In your Let me know how it goes. Regards |
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I tried those hostapd config lines and got this output, I think I updated my config in an edit between when you last read, are you saying that I need to compile your drivers for full AP mode? That is fine but I was just under the impression it would be plug and play. config file: |
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Hi again Zen
Well, I don't have any drivers for 7612u. My repo is informational only. Here is the repo for the 7612u: https://github.com/torvalds/linux/tree/master/drivers/net/wireless/mediatek It is run by a guy named Linus Torvalds. You may have heard of him. Which distro and kernel version are you running? Unless it is very old, your adapter is plug and play. If what you posted above for your hostapd.conf is all there is in the file, then we have a big problem because you are missing a lot of lines that are needed. What I recommend is that you go to... https://github.com/morrownr/7612u/blob/main/Bridged_Wireless_Access_Point.md ...and start looking at the details. That file provides an example hostapd.conf for both bands. You have not said exactly what you are doing but that file should provide a lot of info. Regards |
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that is not my entire hostapd file, I have not included the bottom section which contains my ssid info and such. I know that works. I'm using the latest version of alpine linux. I used your repo before with the rtl8814au chipset on an alfa card and it was very helpful. I purchased the TEROW ROW02CD because you recommended it and it for whatever reason, it seems to not want to support 5ghz mode. |
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I think this is the key area to pay attention to in the hostapd output: Hostapd conf without ssid and password: uname -a: |
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For reference, I am also using a Asus USB N53 with this config and it works fine: |
Is the country set in the OS? (I am not familiar with Alpine so will be not help there) However, I can tell you how to do it the RasPiOS. To check: $ iw reg get Side note: I don't use those lines. Just make sure understand what they do. I've seen folks have due to using those lines. |
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I ran iw reg set US and it appears the same in iw list and is doing the same thing: hostapd conf: iw list: |
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This message is going through my ROW02CD. It is currently working as a 5 GHz AP on a RasPi4B running RasPiOS (32 bit). Setup is per the guide I posted earlier. I am posting my |
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I tried it with your conf and got the same error, look at this portion in particular: it is saying the card does not support IR mode on 5ghz, iw list says the same thing. Here is a relevant portion of my lsmod: IDK, everything points to this card not supporting 5ghz ap mode at all, I may try it on raspios at some point but this is not really that operating system dependent as this is built into the kernel and I'm using a very up to date version of the kernel. Reading your iw list output, I can see your card clearly does not have "no_ir" on the 5ghz bands while mine does. |
There is the problem. The same line in my RasPi hostapd.log says: nl80211: Regulatory information - country=US (DFS-FCC) The fundamental problem is that hostapd and the mt7612u driver must have regulatory information to determine what to support. Without that information, a very restrictive data set that is valid for anywhere in the world is used. The problem you are seeing is not a problem with the driver. The problem you are seeing is not a problem with hostapd. It is highly unlikely that it is a problem with the wifi adapter. It is nearly certain that the issue is that the regulatory information is not being properly set in your OS and I cannot help with that as I am unfamiliar with Alpine. I recommend you seek out the available support provided for Alpine... and if that is unsuccessful, the RasPiOS is available and there is a lot of support available. Regards |
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I guess I will need to try off of Alpine linux unless I can find a way to safely set it on boot. It's just weird that setting it in hostapd doesn't seem to affect it at all, I've never had this issue with another card. |
I agree but have not investigated it in detail. The setting in hostapd does no good if the proper information is not flowing from the OS. There are some legacy things still in hostapd so it could be that the hostapd.conf settings is from how things used to be done with other hostapd drivers (not to be confused with usb wifi adapter drivers). I know this is frustrating. Been there, done many frustrating things. Playing with distros that are not mainline distros is fun but I always have an sd card with RasPiOS available. I also always have a good stable distro on a desktop system or two so I can check when issues like this come up. I don't think this is an issue with the adapter but if further testing shows that it is then I will be interested in the details so that I can post as much so other users know. I know the guide I posted is long but it is well tested and it does something almost no other guides do... it doesn't just show you how to set up an ap, it shows you how to get the best performance from the commonly used adapters that we talk about around here. |
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Yeah, I'll get around to this eventually, I thought this was gonna be a plug and play thing and I currently use that pi as a router among other things right now so I'm not ready for it to be offline for an extended period of time yet. This is a bit unrelated to this issue, but is this the right comfast adapter? I was having issues finding it: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005002599961851.html |
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Hi @jackloomen Good stuff. If he is running the system currently as a wired router or even if he just adds a 2.4 GHz AP, this can be overlooked as it mostly doesn't come into play but as soon as you try to bring up a 5 GHz AP, boom. Hi @desultory
I am a little lost. I thought we were talking about a ROW02CD? If you are looking to add another adapter, the adapter in that link does work (it is a multi-state adapter so that you are aware). Comfast actually makes several adapters with Mediatek chipsets, actually several with the mt7612u. They do tend to make them multi-state so if I were picking between your ROW02CD and the adapter in the link, I would go with the ROW02CD as it is single state. I have both adapters. The performance is about the same. Regarding the help message above, have you considered testing your AP setup with 2.4 GHz? That could help determine if there is a problem with the adapter. If it works, the problem is likely with the reg stuff as we talking about. |
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Simply running |
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I will note that the speeds don't seem to be great, for whatever reason the RX/TX speeds in windows are listed as "32/866 (Mbps)"and I can't get over 200mbps in iperf3 and the devices are right next to each other, I was able to get more than that with the alfa card, thought it would die after a day or so and needed to be manually unplugged, replugged in and services had to be restarted |
I'm going to have to make some assumptions here as it wasn't clear to me how things are set up. I'll assume the Windows machine is the client and your TEROW adapter is the AP on your Pi. It appears your Windows machine is showing the link speed and 866 is indeed the link speed that the TEROW adapter is capable of in 5 GHz with an 80 MHz wide channel. That tells us a lot of things are set up properly.
Being right next to each other could be hurting the iperf3 data. Closer is not always a better thing. Now, with a link speed of 866, the maximum iperf3 speed we should expect is around 400 Mb/s. It is a half duplex thing. We could get 400 Mb/s but we would need no interference and no congestion and all computers/adapters set up perfectly. Remember that wifi is designed to share. When other clients and ap's that are on a channel in the same block of channels that you are in, there will be sharing... which reduces your speed. Where I live these days, there are dozens of AP's on channel 44 and 157 (over 45 each in fact). They are set to 80 MHz channel width. That really hurts and I can't get 200 Mb/s with iperf3 if I try to compete with that depending on the time of day. Here is what I do beat it and have very reliable wifi. I don't compete on the highly congested channels/blocks. I go find cleaner air. I have a main router, ZyXEL NBG6817 running OpenWRT, that pulls in internet at about 100 Mb/s. The Zyxel uses channel 100 (DFS) for 5 GHz and channel 11 for band 1. A CAT6 cable connects the RasPi4B to the Zyxel. The RasPi is on channel 6 and channel 36 (set to 80211n, 20 MHz width). Given that we have some things that won't work on DFS, I think we all have that problem, I wanted to find some clear air for 5 GHz and I found a 20 MHz wide area of clean air at channel 36 because all the other AP's around here in the lower band are on 44. For whatever reason, it seems a lot of people are not using 2.4 GHz much. Channel 1 is heavily congested but 6 and 11 are relatively uncontested. I can get 400 Mb/s on my main box here right now because it is connected to the DFS channel on my main router. That is serious overkill but cool to look at. Getting good throughput is a matter of knowing and taking advantage of what your location gives you. Hope this helps. |
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My setup is a rip4 with the wan on the built in port and lan on a usb to gigabit ethernet adapter. I can get about 300/20mbps from my isp and I have no issue getting these speeds across the ethernet interfaces. I was able to get about 400mbps on iperf with the alfa rtl8814au based card I had before which makes sense given what you said before. I'm using cat6 on everything and I don't think there are any bottlenecks inside of my network. |
Well, no. USB WiFi is considered a niche market by the chipset makers so we tend to end up at the end of the line when it comes to some features. Until recently I would have said that no USB WiFi adapters were supporting DFS channels in AP mode but low and behold, along comes an up dated driver for the rtl8812au that does support this: https://github.com/morrownr/8812au-20210629 The following pull request over at the OpenWRT MT76 repo indicates that the code is in the 7612u adapter but it is not turned on. I am trying to push this issue and will continue. The Realtek 8814au driver has never supported this. Overall, we are not in good shape in this regard. Hopefully we can get the appropriate changes made. |
Hey, don't be talkin' bad about my 32 bit kernel. |
morrownr
changed the title
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Well regardless, your repo has made doing this a lot more accessible. I for one prefer to be able to use my own wireless devices for networking equipment I use but I can see how that isn't very common. Hopefully more manufacturers will see that people care and that communities will be willing to do some of the work for them if they give them something to work with. |
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My opinion of the best path forward is increase the amount of information available to Linux users so that we can make good decisions. I think most Linux users would choose usb WiFi adapters that work with in-kernel drivers if that information is available to them. The Linux foundation has put a lot of effort into established standards that provide guidance to the many developers out there. Given the rolling dev model of the Linux kernel, the best way to support it with drivers is to do what Linux Wireless standards call for and that is mac80211 technology drivers that are maintained in-kernel. For usb WiFi, Mediatek does that and Realtek goes their own way which is very painful for Linux users. I think as more Linux users move to Mediatek chipset based adapters, we will see more noise regarding things that users want to see. The MT76 drivers are very good but I there are 3 things that we collectively should be asking to have fixed:
I just took a look at that list and thought to myself "that is the best you can come up with?" All 3 of those are basically configuration changes requiring no major work. WPA3 works. Monitor mode is great. AP mode is great. They support VIF. I could go on. On the other hand, I could make a long list of things that are missing or don't work right or don't work the right way with the Realtek drivers. We need Mediatek to announce a new WiFi 6 chipset. |
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I'm under the impression that the version of the mt7612 that is used in internal cards/boards is capable of radar detection. I don't know if the usb version is capable of radar detection. I am aware of the patch but have not tested it. Have you tested it? |
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I have only used the in kernel drivers with no extra configuration for the kernel modules |
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I also have some hard time setting up an AP on 5 GHz using an EDUP EP-AC1605 USB WiFi card which has MT7612U chipset. The WiFi device is connected into an USB3 port. I have followed the recommendations from this page https://github.com/morrownr/USB-WiFi/blob/main/home/AP_Mode/Bridged_Wireless_Access_Point.md and created a new hostapd.conf file with the same content listed on the wiki page. I'm running the hostapd configuration on ArchLinux running standard kernel 5.19.4 and I have the mt7612u modules loaded. I only commented the ieee80211h=1 line in the config which enables DFS for 5GHz channels since I read that MT7612U chipset does not support it yet. Whenever I start the hostapd using the created conf file I'm unable to see any SSID and receive beacon errors. Below is the debug output |
The modules look good. I am not familiar with Arch so let me throw something out. Does Arch use Network Manager? If it does, Network Manager will continue to try to run the show so it will have to be deactivated. The guide you are using is very heavily tested on RasPiOS 32 and 64 bit. The RasPiOS does not use Network Manager... Does this make sense? Nick |
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@morrownr I'm not using NetworkManager (not installed) but systemd-networkd instead. |
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I purchased this device: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B086L6TR6G?psc=1
Dmesg output:
Iw list output:
Hostapd conf, HT and VHT params may be wrong but it refuses to broadcast on 5ghz bands:
Hostapd output:
I can see in iw list that this device apparently does not support broadcasting on any 5ghz bands. I was using this alfa card but I was getting really poor performance and the network would have to be reset once a day or so when the card crashed https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01MZD7Z76?psc=1
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