WLAN: known issues and how to help - uptime test - more results

Philip Rhoades phil at pricom.com.au
Fri Feb 6 06:25:50 CET 2009


Werner,


Werner Almesberger wrote:
> Philip Rhoades wrote:
>> So I should upgrade to the latest (7.00.6) firmware I guess to see what  
>> effect that has on OM WLAN uptime?
> 
> I think it would be good if you could upgrade, yes. I'm not sure
> if it will make a difference for this problem, but they fixed a
> LOT of issues, so it seems like a good move in any case.


I upgraded to 7.00.4 but it still only lasted a few hours.


>> What about the alternative OS firmwares?
> 
> The VxWorks-based WRT54G are quite limited when it comes to
> alternatives. Starting with hardware version 5, the RAM was
> reduced, making it hard to run Linux, but DD-WRT managed
> regardless. With version 7, Linksys/Cisco also changed the WLAN
> chipset, which seems to have created a so far unsurmountable
> obstacle.


Yep, I started looking around after your last note . .


> See also
> http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/linux-wireless-networking-41/wrt54g-v7-firmware-504449/
> 
> Linksys/Cisco also make the specifically Linux-friendly WRT54GL.


Nice, but a bit late for me now . .


> For experimenting, you could also use a WLAN card with a PC and
> run hostapd. This has the added advantage that it's easier to
> patch hostapd and such than for a small embedded system.
> 
> Finding a suitable WLAN card can be a challenge, though. I did
> a bit of field research, and of the readily available 802.11b/g
> PCI cards, the ones based on the RaLink RT2561 seem to work best:
> 
> http://svn.openmoko.org/developers/werner/wlan/freeze/4if/HW
> 
> Reluctant to add yet another layer of trouble, I didn't venture
> into USB land.


Bit too much for me too at the moment . .


> I would really love to see master mode support for the RTL-8185L,
> though. These are the cheapest cards on the market, you can find
> them everywhere, and they have great reception. Ironically, master
> mode support used to exist in an ancient and long-forgotten driver
> http://rtl8180-sa2400.sourceforge.net/ and there's another fork
> that seems to have gone dormant after the new driver's been
> included in mainline: http://rtl-wifi.sourceforge.net/wiki/Main_Page


Right.

Hereunder the results from the last test - nothing jumps out.

Regards,

Phil.


Working:

Thu Feb  5 20:17:00 GMT 2009

eth0      AR6000 802.11g  ESSID:"linksys"
           Mode:Managed  Frequency:2.472 GHz  Access Point: 
00:1C:10:09:8E:32
           Bit Rate=54 Mb/s   Tx-Power=15 dBm   Sensitivity=0/3
           Retry:on
           Encryption key:off
           Power Management:off
           Link Quality:197/94  Signal level:-154 dBm  Noise level:-96 dBm
           Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
           Tx excessive retries:16  Invalid misc:0   Missed beacon:0

eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:12:CF:8E:EF:27
           inet addr:192.168.0.33  Bcast:192.168.0.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
           inet6 addr: fe80::212:cfff:fe8e:ef27/64 Scope:Link
           UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
           RX packets:5466 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
           TX packets:3111 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
           collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
           RX bytes:1788128 (1.7 MiB)  TX bytes:369911 (361.2 KiB)

Kernel IP routing table
Destination     Gateway         Genmask         Flags Metric Ref    Use 
Iface
192.168.1.0     0.0.0.0         255.255.255.0   U     0      0        0 usb0
192.168.0.0     0.0.0.0         255.255.255.0   U     0      0        0 eth0
0.0.0.0         192.168.0.1     0.0.0.0         UG    0      0        0 eth0
0.0.0.0         192.168.1.200   0.0.0.0         UG    0      0        0 usb0


Stopped working:

Fri Feb  6 04:59:40 GMT 2009

eth0      AR6000 802.11g  ESSID:"linksys"
           Mode:Managed  Frequency:2.472 GHz  Access Point: 
00:1C:10:09:8E:32
           Bit Rate=65.535 Mb/s   Tx-Power=0 dBm   Sensitivity=0/3
           Retry:on
           Encryption key:off
           Power Management:off
           Link Quality:204/94  Signal level:-147 dBm  Noise level:-96 dBm
           Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
           Tx excessive retries:37  Invalid misc:0   Missed beacon:12

eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:12:CF:8E:EF:27
           inet addr:192.168.0.33  Bcast:192.168.0.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
           inet6 addr: fe80::212:cfff:fe8e:ef27/64 Scope:Link
           UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
           RX packets:20151 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
           TX packets:8665 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
           collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
           RX bytes:12580168 (11.9 MiB)  TX bytes:833503 (813.9 KiB)

Kernel IP routing table
Destination     Gateway         Genmask         Flags Metric Ref    Use 
Iface
192.168.1.0     0.0.0.0         255.255.255.0   U     0      0        0 usb0
192.168.0.0     0.0.0.0         255.255.255.0   U     0      0        0 eth0
0.0.0.0         192.168.0.1     0.0.0.0         UG    0      0        0 eth0
0.0.0.0         192.168.1.200   0.0.0.0         UG    0      0        0 usb0


-- 
Philip Rhoades

GPO Box 3411
Sydney NSW	2001
Australia
E-mail:  phil at pricom.com.au



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