Guest network SDIO Wi-Fi issue workaround

[miska]

Dear Turris users,

we were trying to figure out what is going on with SDIO Wi-Fi and guest network for quite some time. We haven’t got to the exact root cause yet as it is working on some devices and doesn’t on others. But in general, the feedback we got and we were later able to reproduce in our testing environment is that with guest network enabled, the Wi-Fi is much less stable.

//EDIT: We found a solution and implemented it in Turris OS 5.0.4.

[Redyellow]

I hvae installed this as you suggested.

Can you please post the md5 of the version that we should test just to make sure it is the right version.

[miska]

Just not to prevent people from testing it out and providing some feedback, it is a file from commit 43bcc74b81a506b527168d9342d231e397d6f893 with md5 0c38094161db2bceeb6c057ae21c67d8 but as said, firmware is unfortunately binary only and it is not the newest firmware available for that card…

[Redyellow]

I have been using this firmware now for a while.
For me it had no effect on stability. So it still crashes sometimes and can only be fixed by rebooting the router.

Having this said, I am not using Guest Networks at all.

[viktor]

This state must be solved immediately. Same as MOX hanging after reboot.

[francis]

Hello Miska,

I tried your workaround mentioned here with the older firmware and it didn’t change anything. I had to remove the SDIO 2x2 Wifi module from my Mox A so that it wouldn’t freeze anymore.
I tried this even with only one SSID and both 2.5G and 5G do eventually freeze my router.

Thank you

[Pepe]

We were investigating it further and improvements for multi SSID (primary Guest network) are coming.
More details are included in this post:

Guest WiFi on MOX AP?

We are aware that there are some issues mostly related to multi SSID with SDIO Wi-Fi card which is being used in Turris MOX. A few days ago, we managed to get fixes for in hostapd and mwifiex driver and that change is being staged in wireless-drivers-next tree. However, there is some additional work, which needs to be done. OpenWrt is using heavily patched hostapd in their stable releases. On the other hand, there is the latest hostapd in the master branch, which they pushed 2 days ago. It is a…

[ssdnvv]

The notation inside the linked gitlab issue is a little bit confusing - will the better working firmware be added to 5.0.1 or 5.2?

[Pepe]

We are using the latest firmware for mwifiex. Backported hostapd changes were merged into HBK+ branches and same applies for fix of memory corruption mwifiex. We will let you know. Currently, it is on review.

[francis]

Can’t wait to try the workaround in TOS5.0.4! Thank you!
So we don’t have to wait for sdsd8997_combo_v4.bin version 16.68.1.p197 to be checked into
https://github.com/NXP/mwifiex-firmware/tree/master/mrvl ?

[Pepe]

Hi @francis,

We already asked NXP (previously by Marvell) in the linux-wireless, if it is possible to update it there and as well in the Github repository which you mention. You don’t need to worry about the firmware for Turris MOX SDIO Wi-Fi card anymore. Use the version, which we provide and since Turris OS 5.0.4 multiSSID on SDIO will work as it should without using any workaround.

[viktor]

Does the newer firmware contain security fixes?