[Commotion-dev] Experiences with AR7xxx based USB wifi adapter?

[Ben West]

Hi All,

To follow up, I've made good progress actually getting a USB wifi stick to
work with a VirtualBox guest.  Whether this works or not appears to be
dependent on both your OS and the brand/model of USB wifi adapter.

Thus far, I've verified this works.  Or at least that the guest VM
correctly identifies the USB wifi and loads a driver for it:

VBox host: Ubuntu v11.10 on 32bit x86
VBox version v4.2.4 r81684 (downloaded from virtualbox.org)
VBox extension pack v4.2.4 r81684
Cisco/Linksys WUSB54GC v3 (aka Ralink rt2870)
... with VBox guest Ubuntu v12.10
... with VBox guest Windows XP
*... with VBox guest Commotion OpenWRT* (using rt2800usb kernel model)

On the other hand, my SMCWUSB-N2 (Atheros AR9170 chip) USB adapter does not
work with the VirtualBox USB gateway, regardless of guest OS, which appears
to be specific to this adapter.

Beside Dan's suggestion of AWUS036NEH and TP-Link TL-WN821N, this URL seems
to suggest the TP-Link USB sticks (which are Atheros based) do work for
guests under VirtualBox.  So I'm a gonna get me a couple.
http://top-hat-sec.com/forum/index.php?topic=960.0

Finally, the meshconfig tool doesn't support USB wifu adapters,
unsurprisingly, but I am assuming that modifying it to support such would
be less effort-intensive that modifying mac80211_hwsim.

This should hopefully streamline Commotion testing dramatically, since it
would permit a VM node to mesh directly with physical nodes.

On Tue, Dec 11, 2012 at 4:36 PM, Ben West <ben at gowasabi.net> wrote:

> Hi All,
>
> Part of the envisioned testing procedure Commotion involves simulating
> multiple nodes (OpenWRT or otherwise) bound together via a virtual mesh
> under one VirtualBox host.  Although the mac80211_hwsim library does show
> some promise for simulating wireless networks, that library as-is does not
> support a single (virtual) radio broadcasting both the adhoc mesh and the
> APs.  I instead had been instantiated multiple virtual radios for each
> (B)SSID and bridging that radio with a virtual wired interface.
>
> This works, but the Commotion auto-configuration tool doesn't support it,
> requiring manual configuration of the nodes, which ultimately reduces the
> usefulness of the test procedure.
>
> Other the other hand, VirtualBox is claimed to support connecting USB
> peripherals directly to VMs, which opens up the possibility of connecting
> USB wifi adapters, i.e. physical radios, to virtual nodes.  I.e. multiple
> USB wifi adapters hanging off extension cables plugged into a hub, with
> each radio turned down to minimum tx power.
>
> Does anyone on the list happen to have good experience with a particular
> brand/model inexpensive USB wifi stick based on Atheros AR72xx?  I happen
> to have a single such stick sitting around, brand SMC, but I thus far found
> the carl9170 driver that Ubuntu selects for that device kinda crappy.
>
> --
> Ben West
> http://gowasabi.net
> ben at gowasabi.net
> 314-246-9434
>
>


-- 
Ben West
http://gowasabi.net
ben at gowasabi.net
314-246-9434
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