In trying to bring up 802.11s mesh on a GL.iNet AR750S with the ath10k Candela Technology (CT) drivers that are now default, I've made a little progress, but still am looking for a source of CT drivers for the QCA9887 that support "rawmode".
With a "standard" (ath79), trying to bring up a mesh-mode interface results in
[ 25.818719] ath10k_pci 0000:00:00.0: must load driver with rawmode=1 to add mesh interfaces
Modifying the file system for
root@OpenWrt:~# cat /etc/modules.d/ath10k-core
ath10k_core rawmode=1
seems to try to enable rawmode, but the currently packaged drivers/firmware apparently don't support rawmode
[ 13.141743] ath10k_pci 0000:00:00.0: firmware ver 10.1-ct-87-__fW-022-6d741b3d api 2 features wmi-10.x,has-wmi-mgmt-tx,mfp,txstatus-noack,wmi-10.x-CT,ratemask-CT,txrate-CT,get-temp-CT,tx-rc-CT,cust-stats-CT,retry-gt2-CT,txrate2-CT crc32 ac1d42a3
[ 13.191909] ath10k_pci 0000:00:00.0: Direct firmware load for ath10k/QCA9887/hw1.0/board-2.bin failed with error -2
[ 13.202717] ath10k_pci 0000:00:00.0: Falling back to user helper
[ 13.291034] firmware ath10k!QCA9887!hw1.0!board-2.bin: firmware_loading_store: map pages failed
[ 13.300524] ath10k_pci 0000:00:00.0: board_file api 1 bmi_id N/A crc32 546cca0d
[ 13.308124] ath10k_pci 0000:00:00.0: rawmode = 1 requires support from firmware
[ 13.315676] ath10k_pci 0000:00:00.0: fatal problem with firmware features: -22
[ 13.323232] ath10k_pci 0000:00:00.0: could not probe fw (-22)
Downloading the days-old https://www.candelatech.com/downloads/ath10k-9887/firmware-2-ct-full-community-22.bin.lede.003 isn't any better and the md5sum appears to be the same.
[ 13.412435] ath10k_pci 0000:00:00.0: qca9887 hw1.0 target 0x4100016d chip_id 0x004000ff sub 0000:0000
[ 13.422011] ath10k_pci 0000:00:00.0: kconfig debug 0 debugfs 1 tracing 0 dfs 1 testmode 0
[ 13.434526] ath10k_pci 0000:00:00.0: firmware ver 10.1-ct-87-__fW-022-6d741b3d api 2 features wmi-10.x,has-wmi-mgmt-tx,mfp,txstatus-noack,wmi-10.x-CT,ratemask-CT,txrate-CT,get-temp-CT,tx-rc-CT,cust-stats-CT,retry-gt2-CT,txrate2-CT crc32 ac1d42a3
[ 13.484705] ath10k_pci 0000:00:00.0: Direct firmware load for ath10k/QCA9887/hw1.0/board-2.bin failed with error -2
[ 13.495530] ath10k_pci 0000:00:00.0: Falling back to user helper
[ 13.582818] firmware ath10k!QCA9887!hw1.0!board-2.bin: firmware_loading_store: map pages failed
[ 13.592297] ath10k_pci 0000:00:00.0: board_file api 1 bmi_id N/A crc32 546cca0d
[ 13.599895] ath10k_pci 0000:00:00.0: rawmode = 1 requires support from firmware
[ 13.607451] ath10k_pci 0000:00:00.0: fatal problem with firmware features: -22
[ 13.615001] ath10k_pci 0000:00:00.0: could not probe fw (-22)
Any idea if/where there is CT firmware for the QCA9887 that supports rawmode?
Yes, if I can, I'd like to try sticking with the project's decision to use CT firmware.
Fallback is the "classic" ath10k firmware Edit: which has now been confirmed to bring up the mesh and authenticate.
Additional reference for a different chip/source: https://lists.libremesh.org/pipermail/lime-users/2016-November/000216.html
i downloaded this exact file
https://github.com/kvalo/ath10k-firmware/raw/master/QCA988X/hw2.0/10.2.4.70/firmware-5.bin_10.2.4.70.6-2placed it the router
/lib/firmware/ath10k/QCA988X/hw2.0/firmware-5.bin
overwriting the one from the package ath10k-firmware-qca988x