[Commotion-dev] OpenWRT AP not functioning

Fri Jul 26 14:53:52 UTC 2013

I think one underlying cause is that AA r36682 coincides with a hostapd
update in the OpenWRT source (likewise for wpa_supplicant, wpad, and their
derivatives).  Here are a couple posts to the OpenWRT-devel listserv from
Antonio Quartulli, who works with open-mesh.org and BATMAN, about the
problem.  He mentioned submitting patches to the hostapd/wap_supplicant
list too.

https://lists.openwrt.org/pipermail/openwrt-devel/2013-July/020685.html
https://lists.openwrt.org/pipermail/openwrt-devel/2013-July/020689.html

On Fri, Jul 26, 2013 at 7:33 AM, Dan Staples <
danstaples at opentechinstitute.org> wrote:

> On Fri 26 Jul 2013 08:29:43 AM EDT, Josh King wrote:
> > Yes, we should definitely continue to go with wpad assuming we can
> > identify a version that works reliably. Presumably, the space savings
> > is why OpenWRT compiles hostapd and wpa_supplicant into the wpad
> > multi-call binary in the first place. Will was building images with a
> > new version pinning as well, as he suspected that the problem might be
> > a mismatch between the nl80211 headers included in wpad vs. the version
> > made available with the kernel. He'll send updates to the list.
> >
> > As an aside, something we should look into doing at some point is
> > rolling our own version of wpad-mini that has the IBSS-RSN compile
> > flags added. The addition of those flags are the only reason we
> > switched from wpad-mini to wpad, but wpad also contains the whole
> > WPA-Enterprise stack and we could potentially save up to 400-600KB by
> > stripping that out, from what I recall.
> >
> > On Fri 26 Jul 2013 07:43:34 AM EDT, Dan Staples wrote:
> >> On Thu 25 Jul 2013 11:31:20 PM EDT, Ben West wrote:
> >>> I did notice approx 1.5 months ago that AA r36682+ did seem to cause
> >>> IBSS-RSN to stop working entirely, at least with nodes that had
> >>> packages hostapd and wpa_supplicant (but NOT wpad) installed.
> >>>
> >>> Right now, I have a collection of nodes running AA r36681 with JUST
> >>> wpad, any they appear to be doing IBSS-RSN adhoc just fine.
> >>>
> >>> Stability issues notwithstanding, is there a reason to go with the
> >>> full hostapd / wpa_supplicant packages?  I noticed you save
> >>> 150-200kBytes in firmware size using wpad instead.
> >>>
> >>> On Thu, Jul 25, 2013 at 8:59 PM, Dan Staples
> >>> <danstaples at opentechinstitute.org
> >>> <mailto:danstaples at opentechinstitute.org>> wrote:
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>     Update: turns out building w/ wpa_supplicant and hostapd as
> separate
> >>>     packages (instead of wpad which combines them into one binary)
> solves
> >>>     the problem. A newer version of wpad/hostapd/wpa_supplicant is
> >>>     available
> >>>     since we pinned AA to revisions from April, so Will and Jordan
> >>>     experimented with using the new version.
> >>>
> >>>     I just built with OpenWRT pinned @36682 and the packages feed
> @36537,
> >>>     and can confirm it fixes the problem, while including the newer
> >>>     version
> >>>     of wpad/hostapd/wpa_supplicant. IBSS-RSN works as well.
> >>>
> >>>     Thanks Will and Jordan for doing a lot of hard work investigating
> this
> >>>     today!
> >>>
> >>>     --
> >>>     Dan Staples
> >>>
> >>>     Open Technology Institute
> >>>     https://commotionwireless.net
> >>>     OpenPGP key: http://disman.tl/pgp.asc
> >>>     Fingerprint: 2480 095D 4B16 436F 35AB 7305 F670 74ED BD86 43A9
> >>>     _______________________________________________
> >>>     Commotion-dev mailing list
> >>>     Commotion-dev at lists.chambana.net
> >>>     <mailto:Commotion-dev at lists.chambana.net>
> >>>     https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/commotion-dev
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> --
> >>> Ben West
> >>> http://gowasabi.net
> >>> ben at gowasabi.net <mailto:ben at gowasabi.net>
> >>> 314-246-9434
> >>
> >> 150-200k seems like a good enough reason to go with wpad instead of
> >> separate hostapd/wpa_supplicant, especially since we are tight on
> >> space. And since AP mode and IBSS-RSN both work w/ wpad at the
> >> revisions I tested, we might as well move our pinning up to that, don't
> >> you think?
> >>
> >> --
> >> Dan Staples
> >>
> >> Open Technology Institute
> >> https://commotionwireless.net
> >> OpenPGP key: http://disman.tl/pgp.asc
> >> Fingerprint: 2480 095D 4B16 436F 35AB 7305 F670 74ED BD86 43A9
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> Commotion-dev mailing list
> >> Commotion-dev at lists.chambana.net
> >> https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/commotion-dev
> >>
>
> Good idea, I can work on compiling wpad-mini w/ IBSS-RSN support today
> if that makes sense. Should we move the pin versions in the meantime,
> since the current version doesn't work?
>
> --
> Dan Staples
>
> Open Technology Institute
> https://commotionwireless.net
> OpenPGP key: http://disman.tl/pgp.asc
> Fingerprint: 2480 095D 4B16 436F 35AB 7305 F670 74ED BD86 43A9
>

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