Prerequisites
Depending on the type of the wireless card, additional driver may be required. These can be found under the Kernel modules section:
Kernel modules ---> Wireless Drivers --->
Wireless card used in this tutorial is Marvell's 88W8897 Wi-Fi based module which uses mwlwifi driver (kmod-mwlwifi).
Basic configuration
Once you have built the image with the required drivers and booted the board, you can check if the wifi module was detected correctly using the lspci command:
root@OpenWrt:~# lspci 00:00.0 Ethernet controller: Marvell Technology Group Ltd. 88W8897 [AVASTAR] 802.11ac Wireless
If the wireless card is detected correctly, use the iw command to confirm that the driver was loaded correctly as well:
root@OpenWrt:~# iw list Wiphy phy0 max # scan SSIDs: 4 max scan IEs length: 2242 bytes max # sched scan SSIDs: 0 max # match sets: 0 Retry short limit: 7 Retry long limit: 4 Coverage class: 0 (up to 0m) Device supports T-DLS. Available Antennas: TX 0 RX 0 Supported interface modes: * managed * AP * AP/VLAN * monitor Band 1: Capabilities: 0x106f RX LDPC HT20/HT40 SM Power Save disabled RX HT20 SGI RX HT40 SGI No RX STBC Max AMSDU length: 3839 bytes DSSS/CCK HT40 Maximum RX AMPDU length 65535 bytes (exponent: 0x003) Minimum RX AMPDU time spacing: 4 usec (0x05) HT TX/RX MCS rate indexes supported: 0-15, 32 VHT Capabilities (0x33813930): Max MPDU length: 3895 Supported Channel Width: neither 160 nor 80+80 ...
Basic wireless config is created by default, but wireless interfaces are disabled. To enable them either change the option disabled to 0 manually in /etc/config/wireless:
config wifi-device 'radio0' option type 'mac80211' option channel '36' option hwmode '11a' option path 'soc/d0070000.pcie/pci0000:00/0000:00:00.0' option htmode 'VHT80' option disabled '1' # Change this to '0' config wifi-iface option device 'radio0' option network 'lan' option mode 'ap' option ssid 'OpenWrt' option encryption 'none'
or change it via UCI:
uci set wireless.radio0.disabled='0' && uci commit wireless
UCI commands will be used for the rest of tutorial.
It is also recommended that you change the default SSID and add encryption:
uci set wireless.@wifi-iface[0].ssid='My ESPRESSObin AP' uci set wireless.@wifi-iface[0].encryption='psk2' uci set wireless.@wifi-iface[0].key='xxxxxxxxxx' uci commit wireless
In cases where multiple radios/interfaces are available, you can just replace the array value to change value on the different interface, e.g:
# Radio 0 uci set wireless.@wifi-iface[0].ssid='My ESPRESSObin AP 2.4 GHz' # Radio 1 uci set wireless.@wifi-iface[1].ssid='My ESPRESSObin AP 5 GHz'
Full configuration listing all available options can be obtained with uci show command:
root@OpenWrt:~# uci show wireless wireless.radio0=wifi-device wireless.radio0.type='mac80211' wireless.radio0.channel='36' wireless.radio0.hwmode='11a' wireless.radio0.path='soc/d0070000.pcie/pci0000:00/0000:00:00.0' wireless.radio0.htmode='VHT80' wireless.radio0.disabled='1' wireless.@wifi-iface[0]=wifi-iface wireless.@wifi-iface[0].device='radio0' wireless.@wifi-iface[0].network='lan' wireless.@wifi-iface[0].mode='ap' wireless.@wifi-iface[0].ssid='My ESPRESSObin AP' wireless.@wifi-iface[0].encryption='psk2' wireless.@wifi-iface[0].key='1122334455'
Once the changes are saved, restart the network with the wifi command:
root@OpenWrt:~# wifi root@OpenWrt:~# [ 2160.322391] IPv6: ADDRCONF(NETDEV_UP): wlan0: link is not ready [ 2160.329766] br-lan: port 3(wlan0) entered blocking state [ 2160.335232] br-lan: port 3(wlan0) entered disabled state [ 2160.340657] device wlan0 entered promiscuous mode [ 2161.609345] IPv6: ADDRCONF(NETDEV_CHANGE): wlan0: link becomes ready
Advanced configuration
The iw command is used to determine the capabilities of the wifi module, such as supported modes, channels, etc:
root@OpenWrt:~# iw dev phy#0 Interface wlan0 ifindex 13 wdev 0x5 addr 10:a5:d0:98:da:2c ssid My ESPRESSObin AP type AP channel 36 (5180 MHz), width: 80 MHz, center1: 5210 MHz txpower 20.00 dBm
Use iw list for a more detailed output.
AP + STA
If your wifi module supports station (STA) mode, it is possible to combine multiple modes on the same radio.
For example, we can create a new WAN section in /etc/config/wireless which will be configured for the station mode:
... option ssid 'My ESPRESSObin AP' option encryption 'psk2' option key '1122334455' # New section: config wifi-iface option device 'radio0' option network 'wan' option mode 'sta' option ssid 'xxxxxxxx' option encryption 'xxx' option key 'xxxxxxxx'
Replace the x's above with the existing values of the wireless network to which you are connecting.
We plan to use wlan0 as WAN interface and wlan0-1 as an access point. We will edit the /etc/config/network configuration file to bridge the existing WAN port to LAN so that the entire switch consist of LAN-only ports:
config interface 'loopback' option ifname 'lo' option proto 'static' option ipaddr '127.0.0.1' option netmask '255.0.0.0' config globals 'globals' option default_ps '0' option ula_prefix 'fd36:3cdf:47bb::/48' config interface 'lan' option type 'bridge' option ifname 'lan0 lan1 wan' # Add wan interface to LAN section option proto 'static' option ipaddr '192.168.1.1' option netmask '255.255.255.0' option ip6assign '60' config interface 'wan' #option ifname 'wan' # Since we now have 2 interfaces on the WAN (wan/wlan0), we will comment out existing one option proto 'dhcp' config interface 'wan6' option ifname 'wan' option proto 'dhcpv6'
Restart the network:
/etc/init.d/network restart
Finally we should have the following:
br-lan Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:50:43:01:02:05
inet addr:192.168.1.1 Bcast:192.168.1.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
inet6 addr: fe80::250:43ff:fe01:205/64 Scope:Link
inet6 addr: fd36:3cdf:47bb::1/60 Scope:Global
UP BROADCAST MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:5 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:0 (0.0 B) TX bytes:606 (606.0 B)
eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:50:43:01:02:03
inet6 addr: fe80::250:43ff:fe01:203/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:14 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:532
RX bytes:0 (0.0 B) TX bytes:1636 (1.5 KiB)
Interrupt:8
lan0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:50:43:01:02:05
UP BROADCAST MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:0 (0.0 B) TX bytes:0 (0.0 B)
lan1 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:50:43:01:02:06
UP BROADCAST MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:0 (0.0 B) TX bytes:0 (0.0 B)
lo Link encap:Local Loopback
inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0
inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:65536 Metric:1
RX packets:352 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:352 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1
RX bytes:23992 (23.4 KiB) TX bytes:23992 (23.4 KiB)
wan Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:50:43:01:02:04
UP BROADCAST MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:0 (0.0 B) TX bytes:0 (0.0 B)
wlan0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 12:A5:D0:98:DA:2C
inet addr:192.168.0.29 Bcast:192.168.0.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
inet6 addr: fe80::2c0:caff:fe67:b98e/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:330 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:60 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:78010 (76.1 KiB) TX bytes:7766 (7.5 KiB)
wlan0-1 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 12:A5:D0:98:DA:2C
inet6 addr: fe80::c0:caff:fe67:b98e/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:16 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:0 (0.0 B) TX bytes:2152 (2.1 KiB)
Where lan0, lan1 and wan interfaces are bridged together (br-lan) and serve as LAN ports. We are connected to the existing network over wlan0 which is used as WAN (wireless) port, and wlan0-1 is our My ESPRESSObin AP access point.