Installation OpenWrt on Pi 4 with 802.11s support

I'm new to the Raspberry Pi and OpenWrt and trying to install the OS with support for 802.11s. I've read that you need to set the country code in Raspbian first and then go back to Wrt, but I can't find the steps that explain the process. Going back to Wrt isn't clear to me, and after days and literally countless hours of searching, I haven't found a solution....just people providing links to the same old pages that explain the problem but don't help articulate the solution.

Others have asked the question, so apologies if this is redundant, but I don't understand how you can set the country code in wpa_supplicant, flash the SD card with OpenWrt, install the OS and have the country settings preserved.

Some have mentioned Raspbian lite and Luci being involved, but again there aren't a lot of details that clearly explain the steps required. If anyone could lay out the details to install OpenWrt on a Raspberry Pi 4 with 802.11s support, where you set the country code and then go back to Wrt, it would be greatly appreciated...definitely by me and I'm sure by many others looking for the same resolution.

To note, I'm using an external 802.11ac wifi adapter that supports mesh point mode on the Pi, validated with iw phy | fgrep mesh...definitely not trying to use the onboard wifi.

Yes, the setting or selecting country code is not persistent when using Rasbian and rebooting into OpenWRT

OpenWRT configures Country Code in the /etc/wifi/wireless file

What is the exact external 802.11ac wifi adapter ?

Typically you would need to use the LAN onboard wifi to install the additional packages required todo 802.11s as these packages are not installed with the base OpenWRT image, same with the USB wifi dongle

Or

Use chef.libremesh.org when it works and add the additional packages required for your external wifi adapter

LibreMesh auto configured itself as a 802.11s mesh

Just note that many USB wifi adapters cannot mesh and ap same time.

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Thanks for the info. I'm using a Panda Wireless PAU09 for the mesh connections and either the onboard ac card or another USB adapter to act as an AP.

It works ok using HostAPD for the AP portion and Batman-adv for the mesh, both running at 5GHz, but throughput degrades significantly over any distance using ad-hoc mode and especially through multiple hops. I'm hoping .11s will solve this or at least improve performance to a useable level.

Ok, it appears that device uses the rt2800usb Openwrt wifi driver.

From
https://elinux.org/RPi_USB_Wi-Fi_Adapters

What performance level are you hoping to achieve?

RT2800 USB devices have limited transmit power and performance

Unfortunately, that's what I'm finding out. I was hoping for ~40 Mbps, but all I can seem to hit is ~15-19 Mbps at best. After some additional research, it seems like I should be looking towards an Atheros chipset? Does that sound right, or do you have a recommendation to get better coverage and throughput?

I'm currently using cheap Aruba AP-105 devices selling as low as $3 each, get over 100 Mbps mesh performance unencrypted and encrypted with WPA3 SAE performance still reached around 94 Mbps

But for these you need to read the spi flash for each devices insert a modified u-boot and write back the spi flash and tftp boot install a snapshot openwrt image. I run my own derived mesh firmware

https://openwrt.org/toh/aruba/aruba_ap-105
Web result with site links
Aruba AP-105 - OpenWRT

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What packages are you adding for your AP105 mesh configuration? I just ordered a few myself and would like to set them up similar to your description.

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Remember with the AP-105 to keep a backup flash copy of each device

It the feeds from libremesh

Drop me a PM to discuss further

Thank you, @markbirss. I've read through the OpenWRT flash page for the device and am comfortable with the process and will make sure to make a backup of the original flash. I've been checking out libremesh as well so I'll do some searching over there.

How can I contact you for PM? I don't see that the OpenWRT forum supports direct messages.

I have sent you message, you should see a notification top right

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