[Voyage-linux] Dual Atheros miniPCI wifi on an ALIX3 card

[Kim-man 'Punky' TSE]

Hi all,
See known issue section in ALIX2/3 manual

    http://www.pcengines.ch/pdf/alix2.pdf

"Senao NMP-8602 PLUS high power radio cards are not supported at this 
time, pending an answer from Senao on power issues."

Moreover, there was an ECN issued that the 2nd Mini-PCI slot did not 
work on some earlier version of ALIX3.

Please check with PCEngines on your issue.

Regards,
Punky

Howard Lowndes wrote:
> This is a project on which I am currently working in Nepal and am having
> some trouble configuring Atheros cards.
>
> The ALIX3 card from PC Engines GmbH has 2 Senao 400mW Atheros based radio
> cards.
>
> Configuing one card is not a problem, but when I try to configure them
> both they appear to have a conflict of personality.
>
> This is the relevant piece out of the /etc/network/interfaces file:
>
> auto lo
> iface lo inet loopback
>
> auto eth0
> iface eth0 inet dhcp
>
> auto ath0
> iface ath0 inet static
>         address 10.5.3.1
>         netmask 255.255.255.0
>         pre-up wlanconfig ath0 create wlandev wifi0 wlanmode adhoc
>         # madwifi-base wifi0
>         # wireless-mode Ad-hoc
>         up iwpriv ath0 mode 3
>         up iwconfig ath0 channel 2
>         up iwconfig ath0 mode ad-hoc
>         up iwconfig ath0 essid RIDS-Nepal-03
>         up iwconfig ath0 txpower auto
>         up iwconfig ath0 enc 524944534E6570616C53525333
>         up iwconfig ath0 rate auto
>         #up nat.sh ath0 eth0 "10.1.20.0/24"
>
> auto ath1
> iface ath1 inet static
>         address 10.5.2.2
>         netmask 255.255.255.0
>         pre-up wlanconfig ath1 create wlandev wifi1 wlanmode adhoc
>         # madwifi-base wifi1
>         # wireless-mode Ad-hoc
>         up iwpriv ath1 mode 3
>         up iwconfig ath1 channel 7
>         up iwconfig ath0 mode ad-hoc
>         up iwconfig ath0 essid RIDS-Nepal-02
>         up iwconfig ath0 txpower auto
>         up iwconfig ath0 enc 524944534E6570616C53525332
>         up iwconfig ath0 rate auto
>         #up nat.sh ath0 eth0 "10.1.20.0/24"
>
>
>
> This is the relevant piece of what I see with ifconfig, and it all looks
> fine:
>
> ath0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:02:6F:49:EF:65
>           inet addr:10.5.3.1  Bcast:10.5.3.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
>           inet6 addr: fe80::202:6fff:fe49:ef65/64 Scope:Link
>           UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
>           RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
>           TX packets:3 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
>           collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
>           RX bytes:0 (0.0 b)  TX bytes:230 (230.0 b)
>
> ath1      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:02:6F:49:EF:64
>           inet addr:10.5.2.2  Bcast:10.5.2.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
>           inet6 addr: fe80::202:6fff:fe49:ef64/64 Scope:Link
>           UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
>           RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
>           TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
>           collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
>           RX bytes:0 (0.0 b)  TX bytes:0 (0.0 b)
>
> wifi0     Link encap:UNSPEC  HWaddr
> 00-02-6F-49-EF-65-30-3A-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00
>           UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
>           RX packets:254 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:64
>           TX packets:276 errors:23 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
>           collisions:0 txqueuelen:199
>           RX bytes:11684 (11.4 KiB)  TX bytes:31080 (30.3 KiB)
>           Interrupt:9
>
> wifi1     Link encap:UNSPEC  HWaddr
> 00-02-6F-49-EF-64-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00
>           UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
>           RX packets:827 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:395
>           TX packets:753 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
>           collisions:0 txqueuelen:199
>           RX bytes:97324 (95.0 KiB)  TX bytes:34638 (33.8 KiB)
>           Interrupt:11
>
>
>
> This is what I see with iwconfig:
>
> ath0      IEEE 802.11g  ESSID:"RIDS-Nepal-02"  Nickname:""
>           Mode:Ad-Hoc  Frequency:2.417 GHz  Cell: 02:02:6F:49:EF:65
>           Bit Rate:0 kb/s   Tx-Power:18 dBm   Sensitivity=0/3
>           Retry:off   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
>           Encryption key:5249-4453-4E65-7061-6C53-5253-32   Security
> mode:restricted
>           Power Management:off
>           Link Quality=38/94  Signal level=-55 dBm  Noise level=-93 dBm
>           Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
>           Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:0   Missed beacon:0
>
> ath1      IEEE 802.11g  ESSID:""  Nickname:""
>           Mode:Ad-Hoc  Frequency:2.462 GHz  Cell: Not-Associated
>           Bit Rate:0 kb/s   Tx-Power:18 dBm   Sensitivity=0/3
>           Retry:off   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
>           Encryption key:off
>           Power Management:off
>           Link Quality=0/94  Signal level=-94 dBm  Noise level=-94 dBm
>           Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
>           Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:0   Missed beacon:0
>
>
>
> In the latter you will note the following:
>
> ath0 has grabbed the ESSID and the key of the config for ath1, and poor
> old ath1 has neither ESSID nor key.  ath0 appears to have grabbed the
> correct channel (2), but ath1 appears to either default to channel 1 or
> picks up a locally strong channel (11).
>
> It has to be something pretty obvious but I am not seeing it.
>
> TIA
>
>
>   


-- 
Regards,
Punky

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