Wireless config blank after running 'wifi config'

Installing and Using OpenWrt
1

Hello. I am running OpenWrt on a Raspberry Pi 2 that is connected to a switch using two VLAN interfaces: eth0.1 connects to devices on the LAN and eth0.2 connects to the modem. Internet is working and I wanted to extend OpenWrt to also function as a wireless AP. I connected a WiFi adapter to the router and ran dmesg which showed that the WiFi adapter was detected by the router as below:

[ 1269.241129] usb 1-1.5: new high-speed USB device number 5 using dwc_otg
[ 1269.398493] usb 1-1.5: New USB device found, idVendor=148f, idProduct=3070
[ 1269.408248] usb 1-1.5: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=3
[ 1269.418461] usb 1-1.5: Product: 802.11 n WLAN
[ 1269.425672] usb 1-1.5: Manufacturer: Ralink
[ 1269.432635] usb 1-1.5: SerialNumber: 1.0

After searching online, I found that posts referred to the /etc/config/wireless file, which did not exist on my router. One post mentioned running 'wifi config', which creates the /etc/config/wireless file. However, I found that this file is empty. Is there anything else that I need to do to configure the WiFi adapter on my router?

2

Install the drivers. Have you done so yet?

3

No. I came across these WLAN drivers but did not see any drivers named Ralink. Are these the only supported WLAN drivers?

4

kmod-rt2800-usb would be the keyword.

5

Thanks. Running the below using that keyword worked:

opkg update
opkg install kmod-rt2800-usb

Curious to know, how would one determine the keyword/package name for a certain WLAN USB adaptor?

6

An Internet search for the device name with "Linux driver" can be a quick way, without diving into the Linux sources and somewhat-outdated web-page documentation. https://wireless.wiki.kernel.org/en/users/devices can also be helpful.

7

You can often search on the USB manufacturer:product ID, "148f:3070" in this case. Or if its a removable device, plug it into a Linux desktop and check dmesg to see which driver loads.

1 Like