r8192cu AP mode?

r8192cu AP mode?

[Tom Horsley]

I recently got a cheap usb wi-fi dongle I would love to get
working as an access point. I see the driver table on
the linux wireless website has question marks on most
of the columns in the row for the r8192cu. Anything I
can do to help fill in "yes" in those columns?

Here's my experience and findings so far:

http://home.comcast.net/~tomhorsley/hardware/rtl8192cu/rtl8192cu.html

I'm currently working on fedora 14 with the 2.6.35
kernel fedora ships. Might I have more luck with a
later kernel.org kernel?

Re: r8192cu AP mode?

[Juan Carlos Garza]

Hi,

On Fri, May 6, 2011 at 2:13 PM, Tom Horsley <horsley1953@gmail.com> wrote:
> I recently got a cheap usb wi-fi dongle I would love to get
> working as an access point. I see the driver table on
> the linux wireless website has question marks on most
> of the columns in the row for the r8192cu. Anything I
> can do to help fill in "yes" in those columns?

The required functionality for Access Points is not yet implemented in
the mac80211 driver for the rtl8192cu chipset.

>
> Here's my experience and findings so far:
>
> http://home.comcast.net/~tomhorsley/hardware/rtl8192cu/rtl8192cu.html
>
> I'm currently working on fedora 14 with the 2.6.35
> kernel fedora ships. Might I have more luck with a
> later kernel.org kernel?
> --
> To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-wireless" in
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>

-- 
Juan Carlos Garza

Re: r8192cu AP mode?

[Larry Finger]

On 05/06/2011 07:13 AM, Tom Horsley wrote:
> I recently got a cheap usb wi-fi dongle I would love to get
> working as an access point. I see the driver table on
> the linux wireless website has question marks on most
> of the columns in the row for the r8192cu. Anything I
> can do to help fill in "yes" in those columns?
>
> Here's my experience and findings so far:
>
> http://home.comcast.net/~tomhorsley/hardware/rtl8192cu/rtl8192cu.html
>
> I'm currently working on fedora 14 with the 2.6.35
> kernel fedora ships. Might I have more luck with a
> later kernel.org kernel?

You don't necessarily need a newer kernel, just install the compat-wireless 
package. I'm not a Fedora user, so I don't know the exact details, but I'm 
reasonably certain one exists. If not, you can always get the compat-wireless 
sources from http://wireless.kernel.org/en/users/Download.

The Linux driver for this chip is rtl8192cu and it became part of the mainline 
kernel with 2.6.39, which is the current mainline kernel and at 2.6.39-rc6. As 
it is not yet "stable", you might not want to run it, but the package noted 
above will have the same code for this device.

Larry

Re: r8192cu AP mode?

[Tom Horsley]

On Fri, 06 May 2011 09:59:55 -0500
Larry Finger wrote:

> If not, you can always get the compat-wireless 
> sources from http://wireless.kernel.org/en/users/Download.

Well, the mac80211 code won't compile with the fedora
2.6.35 kernel headers because there isn't a kfree_rcu
that far back in time, so I probably need to see about
either updating the kernel or back porting some kind
of kfree_rcu hack just for the mac80211 driver build.

Re: r8192cu AP mode?

[Tom Horsley]

On Fri, 06 May 2011 09:59:55 -0500
Larry Finger wrote:

> If not, you can always get the compat-wireless 
> sources from http://wireless.kernel.org/en/users/Download.

Well, I worked around the compile errors by reversing the
patch that inserted the kfree_rcu calls, but now when I try
to load the modules I get this:

[root@tomh ~]# modprobe rtl8192cu
WARNING: Error inserting rfkill (/lib/modules/2.6.35.12-90.fc14.x86_64/kernel/net/rfkill/rfkill.ko): Invalid module format
WARNING: Error inserting cfg80211 (/lib/modules/2.6.35.12-90.fc14.x86_64/updates/net/wireless/cfg80211.ko): Invalid module format
WARNING: Error inserting mac80211 (/lib/modules/2.6.35.12-90.fc14.x86_64/updates/net/mac80211/mac80211.ko): Invalid module format
WARNING: Error inserting rtlwifi (/lib/modules/2.6.35.12-90.fc14.x86_64/updates/drivers/net/wireless/rtlwifi/rtlwifi.ko): Invalid module format
WARNING: Error inserting rtl8192c_common (/lib/modules/2.6.35.12-90.fc14.x86_64/updates/drivers/net/wireless/rtlwifi/rtl8192c/rtl8192c-common.ko): Invalid module format
FATAL: Error inserting rtl8192cu (/lib/modules/2.6.35.12-90.fc14.x86_64/updates/drivers/net/wireless/rtlwifi/rtl8192cu/rtl8192cu.ko): Invalid module format

I guess 2.6.35 is just too old or something.

Re: r8192cu AP mode?

[Larry Finger]

On 05/06/2011 11:35 AM, Tom Horsley wrote:
> On Fri, 06 May 2011 09:59:55 -0500
> Larry Finger wrote:
>
>> If not, you can always get the compat-wireless
>> sources from http://wireless.kernel.org/en/users/Download.
>
> Well, the mac80211 code won't compile with the fedora
> 2.6.35 kernel headers because there isn't a kfree_rcu
> that far back in time, so I probably need to see about
> either updating the kernel or back porting some kind
> of kfree_rcu hack just for the mac80211 driver build.

That compilation problem was reported this morning on the mailing list. I expect 
that it will be fixed within a day or so.

I am currently testing rtl8192cu as an AP using hostapd. It is transmitting 
beacons and a station can authenticate and associate using WPA2. The only 
problem I'm having is that the station is not getting an IP number using dhcpd, 
but I don't think that is a problem with rtl8192cu. Once I get it sorted out, 
I'll send you my script for starting the AP.

Larry

Re: r8192cu AP mode?

[Larry Finger]

On 05/06/2011 12:16 PM, Tom Horsley wrote:
> On Fri, 06 May 2011 09:59:55 -0500
> Larry Finger wrote:
>
>> If not, you can always get the compat-wireless
>> sources from http://wireless.kernel.org/en/users/Download.
>
> Well, I worked around the compile errors by reversing the
> patch that inserted the kfree_rcu calls, but now when I try
> to load the modules I get this:
>
> [root@tomh ~]# modprobe rtl8192cu
> WARNING: Error inserting rfkill (/lib/modules/2.6.35.12-90.fc14.x86_64/kernel/net/rfkill/rfkill.ko): Invalid module format
> WARNING: Error inserting cfg80211 (/lib/modules/2.6.35.12-90.fc14.x86_64/updates/net/wireless/cfg80211.ko): Invalid module format
> WARNING: Error inserting mac80211 (/lib/modules/2.6.35.12-90.fc14.x86_64/updates/net/mac80211/mac80211.ko): Invalid module format
> WARNING: Error inserting rtlwifi (/lib/modules/2.6.35.12-90.fc14.x86_64/updates/drivers/net/wireless/rtlwifi/rtlwifi.ko): Invalid module format
> WARNING: Error inserting rtl8192c_common (/lib/modules/2.6.35.12-90.fc14.x86_64/updates/drivers/net/wireless/rtlwifi/rtl8192c/rtl8192c-common.ko): Invalid module format
> FATAL: Error inserting rtl8192cu (/lib/modules/2.6.35.12-90.fc14.x86_64/updates/drivers/net/wireless/rtlwifi/rtl8192cu/rtl8192cu.ko): Invalid module format
>
> I guess 2.6.35 is just too old or something.

What does the output of dmesg say?

If could be as simple as your compiler is a different version.

Larry

Re: r8192cu AP mode?

[Tom Horsley]

On Fri, 06 May 2011 12:31:27 -0500
Larry Finger wrote:

> What does the output of dmesg say?
> 
> If could be as simple as your compiler is a different version.

I actually figured that out as well: In the messages file
I saw these errors:

May  6 13:12:57 tomh kernel: [ 1106.442233] compat: exports duplicate symbol vzalloc (owned by kernel)

I removed the definition of vzalloc (which is maybe defined
by fedora in some backported patch in their kernel?) and I can now load
the modules and even try to connect, but I keep getting
this sequence:

May  6 13:40:11 tomh hostapd: wlan0: STA 60:a1:0a:c7:af:01 IEEE 802.11: authenticated
May  6 13:40:11 tomh hostapd: wlan0: STA 60:a1:0a:c7:af:01 IEEE 802.11: associated (aid 1)
May  6 13:40:14 tomh hostapd: wlan0: STA 60:a1:0a:c7:af:01 IEEE 802.11: deauthenticated due to local deauth request

So I haven't gotten far enough to worry about DHCP or
NAT or anything yet - I only stay connected for a second. Perhaps
I should first try something less complicated than WPA2
authentication, but I won't get a chance to fool with this
more till tomorrow probably. It's looking a lot better now
that it did earlier though.

Also, when running hostapd -dd, I get an endless stream of
these messages:

Unknown Broadcom information element ignored (type=52 len=26)

don't know if that actually matters to anyone.

Re: r8192cu AP mode?

[Tom Horsley]

On Fri, 6 May 2011 14:01:52 -0400
Tom Horsley wrote:

> So I haven't gotten far enough to worry about DHCP or
> NAT or anything yet - I only stay connected for a second. Perhaps
> I should first try something less complicated than WPA2
> authentication, but I won't get a chance to fool with this
> more till tomorrow probably. It's looking a lot better now
> that it did earlier though.

Well, I did try it with no encryption and it works better.
Instead of being disconnected every couple of seconds,
I last around ten or twenty seconds now and am able to
use the web browser and wot-not during the time I am
connected, so it is kind of working.

I've updated my web page with all my current experiences:

http://home.comcast.net/~tomhorsley/hardware/rtl8192cu/rtl8192cu.html

search for "Day three" to get down to the latest update.