wifi-band confusion on TP-LINK TD-W8970 about lime-packages HOT 6 CLOSED

It seems to me it could be a problem related to how this specific device is mapped inside openwrt, more than a libremesh issue:

This device share the same vr9_tplink_tdw89x0.dtsi with vr9_tplink_tdw8980.dts

It seems it was firstly an error of the manufacturer, fixed in:
https://git.openwrt.org/?p=openwrt/openwrt.git;a=commit;h=ec21c9821c5c8cb2ce7af68dbd497fe9c9c60667

Remanaged then in:
https://git.openwrt.org/?p=openwrt/openwrt.git;a=commit;h=4c8dd973ef8e76f9fc622f0baab981769c89b601
"Instead of disabling the
drivers logic which would add the affected band and
channels. It now disables all channels which are not
within the specified frequency range."

Double check also these if you can:
This is the history of the dtsi (after the renaming to soc_vendor_device):
https://git.openwrt.org/?p=openwrt/openwrt.git;a=history;f=target/linux/lantiq/files/arch/mips/boot/dts/lantiq/vr9_tplink_tdw89x0.dtsi;h=5b7c10bb9dd49b5a3959a8818015bee06ea93da4;hb=HEAD

This the history (before renaming to soc_vendor_device )
https://git.openwrt.org/?p=openwrt/openwrt.git;a=history;f=target/linux/lantiq/files/arch/mips/boot/dts/TDW89X0.dtsi;h=eabbc0257f92d8f37665cb7277295dff9a9fd98f;hb=de6dd7a8db1c073734113156668bca6792dc123d

So for me from it could be considered a normal behaviour in openwrt,
From the libremesh side, I would try to prevent libremesh from trying to configure both a 2.4GHz radio and a 5ghz radio
And I would try deselecting all 5ghz related configs from /etc/config/lime-default and see if the 2.4GHz is up

# config lime-wifi-band '5ghz'
#	list channel '48'
#	list channel '157'
#	option htmode 'HT40'
#	option distance '10000'
#	option adhoc_mcast_rate '6000'
#	option ieee80211s_mcast_rate '6000'

Let us know if it is of any help

from lime-packages.

In /lib/wifi/mac80211.sh (provided by kmod-cfg80211), there is a function __get_band_defaults() which is used by OpenWrt to correctly detect the wifi band of a phy. It just looks at the lines Band <x> in the output of iw phy <phyname> info, where <x> is 1 for 2g and 2 for 5g. It ignores bands without enabled channels. Maybe LibreMesh could do the same?

from lime-packages.

Wow sounds good!
We could "source" (execute) that file and use its function.
No idea if this is easy to do in Lua...

from lime-packages.

In /lib/wifi/mac80211.sh (provided by kmod-cfg80211), there is a function __get_band_defaults() which is used by OpenWrt to correctly detect the wifi band of a phy. It just looks at the lines Band <x> in the output of iw phy <phyname> info, where <x> is 1 for 2g and 2 for 5g. It ignores bands without enabled channels. Maybe LibreMesh could do the same?

It seems wireless.is5Ghz should be re-implemented on top of that function, @pony1k would you mind to make a PR for that?
;)

from lime-packages.

It seems wireless.is5Ghz should be re-implemented on top of that function

This would work for all radios except broadcom radios. As far as I understand, broadcom radios are not compatible with cfg80211 subsystem. For those radios /lib/wifi/broadcom.sh is used instead of /lib/wifi/mac80211.sh.
The best solution I can think of right now is to just look at the option band ... in the config wifi-iface ..., which is populated with the the value returned by __get_band_defaults().

edit
option band is not reliable. OpenWrt 19 doesn't have it. broadcom.sh doesn't produce it.

from lime-packages.

@pony1k are broadcom radios useful in libremesh usecases anyway? AFAIU they could be someway useful just in AP or Station mode, am I wrong?

from lime-packages.