Hey, my two cent on Archer c7 in 21
I use two v5 as APs and one v2 as router.
Other than @Catfriend1 I don't use mesh (802.11s) but 802.11 r,k,v with dawn.
I've been running openwrt/master snapshots and just recently switched to v21.02 snapshots.
I fully agree with: stability is better with non ct version of Firmware and kernel module.
Any attempts to use 802.11w for wpa3 fail for me, staying at wpa2 with ccmp.
@umayer Thank you very much , I'd like to try dawn too :-). It's perfect to have an example . Btw do you know if it's also possible to configure DAWN for band steering EAP (enterprise radius) wireless networks?
@PolynomialDivision Sorry to wave my hand to get you in here. I'm just starting studying the docs on DAWN and like to know if the configuration with EAP RADIUS WiFi SSIDs is as easy (namely the same config/process) as setting it up on a PSK WiFi SSID? I remember 802.11r being more complex to setup for EAP, is the same applying for 802.11k, v?
For an number of changes I looked at the source code, in particular at the function eval_probe_metric in storage/datastorage.c which does compute the score value shown in the Hearing Map. The score is computed per STA per AP. It is used to sort the list of APs before sending it to a STA and thereby givins the STA a hint about alternate (better) APs to connect to.
freq is added to score for 5GHz (favouring the extra bandwidth) rssi is added to score if the signal is stronger than rssi_val low_rssi is added to score if the signal is weaker than low_rssi_val chan_util is added to score if channel utilization is lower than chan_util_val max_chan_util is added to score if channel utilization is greater than max_chan_util_val
With those numbers you can define rules, e.g.:
With low_rssi + freq < 0 2.4 GHz channels are higher in the list if their signal is better than low_rssi_val and the 5GHz channels are worse.
Similarly you can steer STAs to less utilized APs with chan_util.
The other values are related to kicking a STA off an AP. kicking = 1 enables APs to actively remove STAs, forcing them to find a new AP.
If STA RX rate (actively used download bandwidth) is higher than bandwidth_threashold: don't kick (seems to be active) min_number_to_kick threshold: only kick if concluded to kick this number of times
eval_probe_req, eval_auth_req, and eval_assoc_req are used in util/ubus.c to steer probe/authentication/association requests.
With the values != 0 they are handled even if they are not yet in the probe database.
I just played with those values as I do not understand the details.
Maybe @PolynomialDivision can chime in?
never rebooted since the flash , got 21 days uptime and zero issue , real good work
is anyone has been able able to have NFS to work ? I am not able to NFS export an HDD portable plugged on USB , I keep receiving this : /mnt/xxx does not support NFS export
Hence I've decided to install smb but not enough space
Installing samba4-libs (4.13.8-1) to root...
Collected errors:
* verify_pkg_installable: Only have 2636kb available on filesystem /overlay, pkg samba4-libs needs 6985
* opkg_install_cmd: Cannot install package samba4-server.
when I look to free space I can see this, don't we have 16 MB NVRAM ? 5.6 MB sounds not right for me but I can be wrong
I am looking to free up some space , I don't use Mesh at all , which packages are safe to be deleted ?
You'd be better using ImageBuilder to do-your-own image and leave packages out you do not need to save space. I built from official sources so there is no black magic why you need my build. Recipe is in the first post.
I want to go away from kicking clients and hearing maps to 802.11k only. So I can throw away all that checking of assoc and auth and probe requests.
Are you interested in legacy client steering, or are you also fine with just removing all that legacy stuff?
@umayer Also you described everything correctly. But as you can see it is a very complex task to steer clients in a good way. That is why I want to make it more easy.
Just a side note on my Archer C7v2's. I've seen some kernel log lines like this, related to the ath10k 5 GHz radio1. By doing a lot of tests as I own multiple devices, I found out that its a side-effect of USB 1 being not connected and USB 2 being connected to a USB Bluetooth Dongle (Belkin Bluetooth USB Stick, no BLE). If I unplug the device, those messages don't occur. I suspect its the Archer's hardware design to blame not providing enough power for the USB BT dongle.
[ 5745.145705] Rekeying PTK for STA AAA but driver can't safely do that.
[ 9342.978291] Rekeying PTK for STA AAA but driver can't safely do that.
[ 9411.995838] Rekeying PTK for STA BBB but driver can't safely do that.
[12943.878515] Rekeying PTK for STA AAA but driver can't safely do that.
[13012.966663] Rekeying PTK for STA BBB but driver can't safely do that.
[16544.686922] Rekeying PTK for STA AAA but driver can't safely do that.
[24111.145477] Rekeying PTK for STA BBB but driver can't safely do that.
[24116.243208] ath10k_pci 0000:00:00.0: failed to flush transmit queue (skip 0 ar-state 1): 0
[25873.512885] Rekeying PTK for STA AAA but driver can't safely do that.
[25878.526485] ath10k_pci 0000:00:00.0: failed to flush transmit queue (skip 0 ar-state 1): 0
[27716.844376] Rekeying PTK for STA BBB but driver can't safely do that.
[27721.960507] ath10k_pci 0000:00:00.0: failed to flush transmit queue (skip 0 ar-state 1): 0
[29479.216758] Rekeying PTK for STA AAA but driver can't safely do that.
[29484.243547] ath10k_pci 0000:00:00.0: failed to flush transmit queue (skip 0 ar-state 1): 0
[31325.576783] Rekeying PTK for STA BBB but driver can't safely do that.
[31330.749931] ath10k_pci 0000:00:00.0: failed to flush transmit queue (skip 0 ar-state 1): 0
[33088.007513] Rekeying PTK for STA AAA but driver can't safely do that.
[33093.034027] ath10k_pci 0000:00:00.0: failed to flush transmit queue (skip 0 ar-state 1): 0
[34934.269452] Rekeying PTK for STA BBB but driver can't safely do that.
[34939.286006] ath10k_pci 0000:00:00.0: failed to flush transmit queue (skip 0 ar-state 1): 0
[36696.582167] Rekeying PTK for STA AAA but driver can't safely do that.
[36701.827281] ath10k_pci 0000:00:00.0: failed to flush transmit queue (skip 0 ar-state 1): 0
[38543.050255] Rekeying PTK for STA BBB but driver can't safely do that.
[38548.080235] ath10k_pci 0000:00:00.0: failed to flush transmit queue (skip 0 ar-state 1): 0
[50551.118039] Rekeying PTK for STA AAA but driver can't safely do that.
[51163.665078] Rekeying PTK for STA AAA but driver can't safely do that.
[54151.953580] Rekeying PTK for STA AAA but driver can't safely do that.
[54269.908168] Rekeying PTK for STA BBB but driver can't safely do that.
This is a very crowded enviroments with lots of differents wiFis across the spectrum.
For testing purposes, i've also disabled all but 1 SSIDs.
Funny thing is: The modem/router from my isp gives me constant speed upwards of 500 mbits on the same 5 Ghz channels (80 width) during testing...
Is there anything else we can do to speed up the Archer?