Suggest to add WPA3 support field in ToH

Site Feedback and Other Questions
#1

I noticed that 21.02 release will have WPA3 support built-in by default (which I'm aware of this change when testing snapshot builds in February 2021).

However, based on trying snapshot builds on different hardwares, I realized that not all routers support WPA3, so It would be best to add WPA3 support field in ToH (suggesting with values of Yes, No, Unknown).

For instance, Netgear EX3700 (which looks like a pretty old wi-fi extender) do support WPA3, and Linksys WRT 1200ac also supports (despite this OpenWRT form hinted lack of support of WPA3), while Raspberry Pi 4 B can't (wi-fi can turn on, but WPA3-supported client can't connect to that network)

Edit: for those who wants to talk about WPA3 support on Linksys WRT series, please visit this newly-created thread:

Thank you for all the enthusiasts.

#2

I feel like vendor stock firmwares are usually "reluctant" to add WPA3 support, so promoting WPA3 support on OpenWRT Wiki might make OpenWRT more popular for people to extend their routers' lives.

For instance, Netgear R7800 supports WPA3 in OpenWRT but not in stock firmware (and I believe Netgear only add WPA3 support starting their AX**** series routers)

2 Likes
#3

How did you come to this conclusion? Last I heard mwlwifi does not support WPA3. It lacks a few things for that.

#4

it's not directly a hardware thing but a driver thing, so this should be relatively easy to do by looking at the current hardware information.

Afaik Atheros and Qualcomm wifi chipsets use an opensource driver that supports WPA3, Mediatek driver mostly supports it (the Netgear EX3700 is using a Mediatek chipset for example) but has bugs on some chipsets https://github.com/openwrt/mt76/issues/410 while other drivers like mwlwifi or whatever is used by broadcomm wifi (most obvious example being the raspberry) don't.

2 Likes
#5

Then any comments regarding WPA3 should go to the wlan driver pages: https://openwrt.org/docs/techref/driver.wlan/start

#6

Technically correct, but keep in mind that end users will not know that this is a driver thing and that they should look there. Nor that those pages even exist in our wiki. Pretty much nobody edits or updates techdata pages in ever.

Also those are just a couple links to an upstream wiki about them (with questionable and fragmented information, imho), a dead link to wikidevi (that I think is dead for good) and to the git repos where source is.

For example the article in the upstream wiki of ath9k does not mention WPA3 but I know for a fact that it does support it (as I'm using it on 2 devices with my phone that does also support it)

we don't have an actual article about driver data in the wiki.

I would personally make a new article about WPA3 in the https://openwrt.org/docs/guide-user/network/wifi/start category just so we can collect any info about this topic in a place where people actually go, and maybe add a link to it on the top of the ToH pages so people can find it easily.
If it's Ok I'll probably write that in a few days

2 Likes
#7

I've tested my 1200ac (hardware version 2) using February snapshot of OpenWRT build, with an known WPA3 supported client.

#8

7 posts were merged into an existing topic: WPA3 support (maybe?) on Linksys WRT series router

#9

I don't think a end user (who understand basic hardware information but not to great detail of OpenWRT and linux driver) would go to the guide wiki page see which driver is WPA3-supported.

If I assume correctly, they tend to find information in that device's ToH page. It's might be a tough work (if the WPA3 addition to ToH is not automatic), but would greatly benefit end users to find whether their device is "known to support" WPA3 when using OpenWRT.

1 Like
#17

Per my understanding, WPA3 is a software feature and it is not related to hardware.