TO4.0 - Unable to activate pci3 interface (slot3) for wifi card

Unter TO4.0 (clean install with med kit) without success I try to install a wifi card in pci3.

I can install and swap wifi cards without any problems at the pci1 and pci2 slots.

When I install a wifi card into pci3 it does not get recognized.

The new “Network Interface” setup in Foris shows only pci1 and pci2.

It does not matter which wifi card I’m using (5GHz or 2.4GHz).

Under TO3.X there where those ‘option path’ lines in /etc/config/wireless which could be edited to move a wifi card from pci1 or pci2 to pci3. Under TO4.0 this option is no longer availble.

Please advice - Thank you!

This path-option is no longer valid? Did you try to use it anyways? In vanilla openwrt 18.06 (on which TOS4.0 is based upon) it is still used.

Yes, I tried it, but it does not work. Also, I looked into all sorts of config files, but I can not find at all, where installed wifi cards are linked to the pci interfaces. I would be interested whether someone else was able to move a wifi card to the pci3 slot.

You could reflash your Omnia after you swapped the cards maybe? There should be a better solution and I am sure there is, but this could help you as a workaround?

Hm… the linking logic changed with one of the 3.1x-releases. A newly installed card is from then on identified by its MAC-address for each radio-instance (option mac).
But it was still possible in 3.x-releases to identify it by its pci-slot (which is listed in /sys/class/net).

Does anyone else has the same issue?

@ssdnvv thanks for your hint.

When a wifi card is installed at the pci1 and pci2 slot the directories:

/sys/devices/platform/soc/soc:pcie/pci0000:00/0000:00:01.0/0000:01:00.0/*
and
/sys/devices/platform/soc/soc:pcie/pci0000:00/0000:00:02.0/0000:02:00.0/*

are set-up correctly.

When a wifi card is installed in the pci3 slot the directory is empty:

/sys/devices/platform/soc/soc:pcie/pci0000:00/0000:00:03.0/

I can not figure out how to get it working.

AM I THE ONLY ONE WHO TRIES TO MOVE A WIFI CARD TO THE PCI3 SLOT?

I will try this in a couple of days - as soon as I have my second TO back in which I plan to install 3 WiFi-cards.

Thanks, since I am using my back up Omnia I am not in a hurry …

So finally I got my backup TO back.
I installed the following cards:

  • PCIe slot 1: standard TO 2,4GHz-card
  • PCIe slot 2: Compex WLE1216v5-20 5GHz
  • PCIe slot 3: standard TO 5GHz-card
root@turris:~# lspci
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Marvell Technology Group Ltd. Device 6820 (rev 04)
00:02.0 PCI bridge: Marvell Technology Group Ltd. Device 6820 (rev 04)
00:03.0 PCI bridge: Marvell Technology Group Ltd. Device 6820 (rev 04)
01:00.0 Network controller: Qualcomm Atheros AR9287 Wireless Network Adapter (PCI-Express) (rev 01)
02:00.0 Network controller: Qualcomm Atheros Device 0046
03:00.0 Network controller: Qualcomm Atheros QCA986x/988x 802.11ac Wireless Network Adapter

It doesn’t matter wether I use option mac 'MAC' or option path 'soc/soc:pcie-controller/pci0000:00/0000:00:03.0/0000:03:00.0' for the third PCIe slot, it is in both cases recognized by the system.
Right now I still have issues bringing up the PCIe slot 2 card, but this happened before. I’ll update the post as soon as I succeeded.

Which cards do you try to use?

Update: This failure of slot 2 seems to be because of the firmware-update - see my next two posts…

Out of a sudden it simply works - I had to roll back to 3.11.4 with a reset /etc/config/wifi and all SSIDs were up :star_struck:. Now they are all configured with the newer option mac '<MAC-address>'.

Edit: it still works after updating to 3.11.10, but I had to rebuild the WiFi config from scratch :neutral_face: