Posted on

VHT mesh

…is a thing now.

# iw dev
phy#0
    Interface wlan0
		ifindex 4
		wdev 0x1
		addr 30:b5:c2:fb:34:d8
		type mesh point
		channel 149 (5745 MHz), width: 80 MHz, center1: 5775 MHz

# iperf -c 192.168.1.20
------------------------------------------------------------
Client connecting to 192.168.1.20, TCP port 5001
TCP window size: 43.8 KByte (default)
------------------------------------------------------------
[  3] local 192.168.1.21 port 34175 connected with 192.168.1.20 port 5001
[ ID] Interval       Transfer     Bandwidth
[  3]  0.0-10.0 sec   148 MBytes   124 Mbits/sec
Posted on

mesh on ath10k

I’ve had my ath10k AP (TP-Link Archer C7 v2) since last October or so, with the goal of having a VHT-capable device with which to test (currently non-existent) VHT mesh. Unfortunately, for nearly all of that time, I’ve been stuck on a firmware crash shortly after bringing up the device. Not that I’ve spent a whole lot of time on it, but there’s only so much one can do when getting to the point of “firmware crashes and it has something to do with peers but that’s all I know and I don’t have the time, tools, or code to dig deeper.”

I think there’s some variant on rubber duck debugging where you complain publicly about some issue, and doing that makes you think about it more, and then the way forward is magically revealed. That, plus some helpful hints from the residents of the ath10k ML, got me over the hump, so now it works!

Next up, finding a spare mini PCIe slot for the other ath10k device I have, and getting the VHT bits done…