Orange Pi Zero Plus2 H5 - WLAN Interfaces

[Roman Koehler]

Hi,

 

I'm trying to set up multiple wlan interfaces for my Orange Pi Zero Plus2 H5. I want to have a interface in AP mode and a interface in Managed Mode ... so that I can provide a minimal "register me into your wlan" AP and the other interface can try that provided wlan credentials without reusing/ turning off / reconfigurating the AP interface. So I want to run a normal hostapd on wlan1 and a wpa_supplicant on wlan0 ...

When I'm using the iw list command, I get serveral "valid interface combination", one is

   * #{ managed } <=1 , #{ AP } <= 1, #{ P2P-client } <= 1, #{ P2P-device} <= 1, #total <= 4, #channel <= 1

afaik that means that I can run one managed (Station) interface and one AP interface with same channel, but it should be totally possible

 

on starting up I've got one wlan0 interface in managed mode, when I'm now trying to add a new interface (iw phy0 interface add wlan1 type managed) I got a error "Device or resource busy" which is totally correct, because there can only be one managed interfache

when I turn on the hostapd process on wlan0, it changes that interface to AP mode (I've confirmed this using iw dev), so I'm trying to add now a new interface (iw phy0 interface add wlan1 type managed), but I got a other Error "Operation not supported".

 

So now the question:

- Is my general assumption, that the orange pi zero plus2 can run multiple wlan interfaces right ? Since when I'm trying to add more that supported interfaces I got other error than the case, when in my opinion the prerequests are ok... if this is generall not possible I guess I got other errors.

- Do I anything wrong with configurating or did I missed some prequests ?

- Since the armbian for the h5 is in development, maybe there might be also some issue about the driver etc ?

- has anyone succedded with such a usecase on this board ?

 

Thanks in advance

 

Roman Koehler

 

 

[Roman Koehler]

Hi,

 

just to push this question back to the top ... with actual version (Armbian_5.69_Orangepizeroplus2-h5_Debian_stretch_next_4.19.13) the problem running the device as a accesspoint is done, now it's running as a accesspoint by default. That's ok

What I've wondering is about the capabilities of the wlan. It keeps to be

* #{ managed } <=1 , #{ AP } <= 1, #{ P2P-client } <= 1, #{ P2P-device} <= 1, #total <= 4, #channel <= 1

 

but when I'm running a (not very stable) Image from the OrangePi guys I've getting

 

* #{ managed } <=2 , #{ AP } <= 1, #{ P2P-client } <= 1, #{ P2P-device} <= 1, #total <= 4, #channel <= 1

 

which means that the onboard wlan chip can have 2 interfaces (wlan0 and wlan1), one of them can be a accesspoint. I've managed one time to get this configuration running with a parallel accesspoint and a "normal" client connection via wpa_supplicant ... but on that image are too many network managers running in parallel so I can't get this configuration running a second time ... and also it is not well supported, it has a (for me) worthless grafical desktop etc.etc.

 

so now is the question for me: if the number of avaible interfaces depending on the chip or also on the driver settings / distribution combilation ? Can you enable the second interface on that plattform ?

[Igor]

1 hour ago, Roman Koehler said:

so now is the question for me: if the number of avaible interfaces depending on the chip or also on the driver settings / distribution combilation ? Can you enable the second interface on that plattform ?

Driver on a stock kernel is (very) different from the one used in a modern kernel. Here everything runs via general brcmfmac driver which IIRC don't have those capabilities. I have seen patches somewhere, but since its out of general and also mine interest, I didn't bother to waste time on this. Since you only have 1T1R package, performance is questionable by default.

If you want proceed from here,  find patches, study https://docs.armbian.com/Developer-Guide_Build-Preparation/ and try to bring the kernel with upgreaded driver up. Patches associated with RaspberryPi 3 might work - it's the same driver. If you succeed, share the love https://docs.armbian.com/Process_Contribute/.