brcm43430 : hostapd issues

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bamo_4116701
Level 1
Level 1
10 replies posted 5 replies posted 5 sign-ins

Hello,

I'm using the murata 1DX module (broadcom 43430 chip) on an Atmel platform running a Linux kernel 3.10.

My Hostapd version is 2.9 and my wpa_supplicant is v2.5.

The driver sources (v4.14.52-2018_0928) are coming from the Cypress website : https://community.cypress.com/docs/DOC-15932

Actually, I'm able to connect to a Wifi network linked to the Internet on the wlan0 network interface then to set up an access point with hostapd on the uap0 interface, sharing Internet access to the access point clients.

Hostapd is always started after being connected to a Wifi network, on the same Wifi channel used by the Wifi station.

In my use case, the Wifi connection can be disconnected (manually or because of bad network conditions) for a while. In those cases I kill the access point for two reasons :

- Final user should not be able to connect to the access point if Internet is not reachable from this path.

- I can't be sure that the new Wifi connection still use the same Wifi channel. (The access point is not working if not created on the same channel than the Station.)

With other radio modules (from other manufacturers), I was able to manage a "suspend/resume" behaviour of the access point, driven by a shell script launched automatically by wpa_supplicant when wlan0 goes up or down.

In the "resume" step I watched the Wifi channel used by the wlan0 connection, modified the hostapd configuration file to set the same channel before re-launching hostapd.

With the Murata 1DX module, as a first try, I did the same and found out that each time my access point network interface (uap0) was set up or down (manually or not), the wlan0 was also set accordingly to up or down.

With the wpa_supplicant trigged script, it led to a kind of infinite loop of "ups and downs" on wlan0 and uap0.

Finally I understood that it is because the uap0 interface depends on the wlan0 one. Indeed, to create the uap0 interface I did the following :

ifconfig wlan0 up

iw dev wlan0 interface add uap0 type __ap

On other modules I did another way (not working with the 1DX Murata module) :

iw phy phy0 interface add uap0 type managed

As a second way, with the 1DX module I tried to change on the fly the channel used by hostapd with the following command without success :

$hostapd_cli chan_switch 100 2462 vht

Selected interface 'uap0'

FAIL

$hostapd_cli chan_switch 100 2462 ht

Selected interface 'uap0'

FAIL

Could you provide some support regarding the management of the access point channel please ?

I saw that the Cypress archive included a 2.6 version of Hostapd, does this specific Cypress's version embeds modifications that can fix my issues ?

Regards,

Baptiste Moraine

Kapelse

Mobile : +33 (0)6 30 93 58 71

Email : baptiste.moraine@kapelse.com<mailto:baptiste.moraine@kapelse.com>

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1 Solution

Hello,

Sorry for the long delay. With the state the world things, things have been crazy!

I'd suggest you have a go with the recommended setup once and see if the issue still occurs. This means hostapd and wpa_supplicant version 2.6 and one of the tested Linux version (4.1.15, 4.9.11, 4.9.88, 4.9.123). 1DX firmware is likely not the issue.

Thanks.

4.1.15, 4.9.11, 4.9.88, and 4.9.123

View solution in original post

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4 Replies
VinayakS_26
Moderator
Moderator
Moderator
100 replies posted 50 replies posted 25 replies posted

Hi

Could you provide the hostapd.conf file?

The VHT flag wont work here since the chip is 4343w which doesn't support 11ac.

checkout the following blog

Concurrent AP and STA

Regards

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RoCh_2868046
Level 4
Level 4
10 likes received First like received Welcome!

Hello,

I tried to reproduce your use case on my system (NXP i.MX 6UL EVK + Murata 1LV EVB, running kernel 4.9.88) but did not find an issue. I could set up simultaneous STA and AP interfaces and found the AP interface always use the same channel as the STA interface. If I change the STA interface connection to a different AP (having different channel), I can see the AP interface following suit automatically. No need to manually bring it down and changing the channel.

Here is an output capture from my terminal:

Bringing up the interfaces:

root@imx6ulevk:~# iwconfig

eth0      no wireless extensions.

wlan0    IEEE 802.11  ESSID:off/any

          Mode:Managed  Access Point: Not-Associated

          Retry short limit:7  RTS thr:off  Fragment thr:off

          Encryption key:off

          Power Management:on

can0      no wireless extensions.

can1      no wireless extensions.

eth1      no wireless extensions.

lo        no wireless extensions.

sit0      no wireless extensions.

root@imx6ulevk:~# iw dev wlan0 interface add uap0 type __ap

root@imx6ulevk:~# iwconfig

eth0      no wireless extensions.

wlan0    IEEE 802.11  ESSID:off/any

          Mode:Managed  Access Point: Not-Associated

          Retry short limit:7  RTS thr:off  Fragment thr:off

          Encryption key:off

          Power Management:on

can0      no wireless extensions.

can1      no wireless extensions.

eth1      no wireless extensions.

lo        no wireless extensions.

uap0      IEEE 802.11  Mode:Master

          Retry short limit:7  RTS thr:off  Fragment thr:off

          Power Management:on

sit0      no wireless extensions.

Running wpa_supplicant and hostapd:

root@imx6ulevk:~# wpa_supplicant -D nl80211 -i wlan0 -c /etc/wpa_supplicant2.conf -B &

root@imx6ulevk:~# Successfully initialized wpa_supplicant

rfkill: Cannot open RFKILL control device

IPv6: ADDRCONF(NETDEV_UP): wlan0: link is not ready

rfkill: Cannot get wiphy information

[1]+  Done                      wpa_supplicant -D nl80211 -i wlan0 -c /etc/wpa_supplicant2.conf -B

root@imx6ulevk:~# iwconfig IPv6: ADDRCONF(NETDEV_CHANGE): wlan0: link becomes ready

root@imx6ulevk:~#

root@imx6ulevk:~# hostapd /etc/hostapd.conf &

root@imx6ulevk:~# Configuration file: /etc/hostapd.conf

rfkill: Cannot open RFKILL control device

IPv6: ADDRCONF(NETDEV_UP): uap0: link is not ready

uap0: Could not connect to kernel driver

Using interface uap0 with hwaddr 10:98:c3:72:3b:42 and ssid "RomitTestAP"

uap0: interface state UNINITIALIZIPv6: ADDRCONF(NETDEV_CHANGE): uap0: link becomes ready

ED->ENABLED

uap0: AP-ENABLED

root@imx6ulevk:~# iwconfig

eth0      no wireless extensions.

wlan0    IEEE 802.11  ESSID:"Alumnus_Test"

          Mode:Managed  Frequency:2.462 GHz  Access Point: 60:38:E0:9A:A3:9D

          Tx-Power=31 dBm

          Retry short limit:7  RTS thr:off  Fragment thr:off

          Encryption key:off

          Power Management:on

          Link Quality:0  Signal level:0  Noise level:0

          Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0

          Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:0  Missed beacon:0

can0      no wireless extensions.

can1      no wireless extensions.

eth1      no wireless extensions.

lo        no wireless extensions.

uap0      IEEE 802.11  Mode:Master  Tx-Power=31 dBm

          Retry short limit:7  RTS thr:off  Fragment thr:off

          Power Management:on

sit0      no wireless extensions.

Check current connections and channels:

root@imx6ulevk:~# iw dev wlan0 info

Interface wlan0

        ifindex 7

        wdev 0x1

        addr 10:98:c3:72:3b:42

        ssid Alumnus_Test

        type managed

        wiphy 0

        channel 11 (2462 MHz), width: 20 MHz, center1: 2462 MHz

        txpower 31.00 dBm

root@imx6ulevk:~# iw dev uap0 info

Interface uap0

        ifindex 8

        wdev 0x2

        addr 10:98:c3:72:3b:42

        ssid RomitTestAP

        type AP

        wiphy 0

        channel 11 (2462 MHz), width: 20 MHz, center1: 2462 MHz

        txpower 31.00 dBm

root@imx6ulevk:~#

Change STA association:

root@imx6ulevk:~# wpa_cli -i wlan0 select_network 1

OK

root@imx6ulevk:~# iwconfig

eth0      no wireless extensions.

wlan0    IEEE 802.11  ESSID:"ASL_Guest"

          Mode:Managed  Frequency:5.785 GHz  Access Point: 96:83:C2:22:72:7F

          Tx-Power=31 dBm

          Retry short limit:7  RTS thr:off  Fragment thr:off

          Encryption key:off

          Power Management:on

          Link Quality:0  Signal level:0  Noise level:0

          Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0

          Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:0  Missed beacon:0

can0      no wireless extensions.

can1      no wireless extensions.

eth1      no wireless extensions.

lo        no wireless extensions.

uap0      IEEE 802.11  Mode:Master  Tx-Power=31 dBm

          Retry short limit:7  RTS thr:off  Fragment thr:off

          Power Management:on

sit0      no wireless extensions.

Check new connections and channels:

root@imx6ulevk:~# iw dev wlan0 info

Interface wlan0

        ifindex 7

        wdev 0x1

        addr 10:98:c3:72:3b:42

        ssid ASL_Guest

        type managed

        wiphy 0

        channel 157 (5785 MHz), width: 20 MHz, center1: 5785 MHz

        txpower 31.00 dBm

root@imx6ulevk:~# iw dev uap0 info

Interface uap0

        ifindex 8

        wdev 0x2

        addr 10:98:c3:72:3b:42

        ssid RomitTestAP

        type AP

        wiphy 0

        channel 157 (5785 MHz), width: 20 MHz, center1: 5785 MHz

        txpower 31.00 dBm

root@imx6ulevk:~#

Thanks,

Romit

Hello,

At my turn I tried to reproduce the same protocol that you did in order to see if on my setup the access point channel might switch automatically to follow the station connection one.

As a reminder, my system is made upon the 1DX Murata module with driver v4.14.52-2018_0928, Linux kernel 3.10, Hostapd 2.9 and wpa_supplicant v2.5.

In my case, when changing STA association, the station interface is reconnecting successfully to a new access point on another channel, but my system AP interface still remains on the first channel coming from the first STA association.

I saw that the Cypress archive included a 2.6 patched version of Hostapd. Does this specific Cypress custom version embeds modifications related to the access point channel switch ?

Could it be possible that on the 1DX module,  the firmware does not manage a host channel switch ?

Regards,

Baptiste Moraine

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Hello,

Sorry for the long delay. With the state the world things, things have been crazy!

I'd suggest you have a go with the recommended setup once and see if the issue still occurs. This means hostapd and wpa_supplicant version 2.6 and one of the tested Linux version (4.1.15, 4.9.11, 4.9.88, 4.9.123). 1DX firmware is likely not the issue.

Thanks.

4.1.15, 4.9.11, 4.9.88, and 4.9.123

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