It's been a while

[Thimbles809]

(In case you all needed a refresher:
#200)

And I got a new present:
https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B0CVVWNSH2
It's a mt7921 and it comes with a usb drive with drivers and the adapter with two antennas.

So in order to celebrate, I upgraded one of my razzy AP's from bullseye to bookworm.
And it collapsed. :O
So I reinstalled everything from scratch. Turns out the Labist power supply from the original kit DID NOT like bookworm and, when trying to power the pi and the hostapd adapters, it said NAH! and keeled over. Had a genuine power supply lying around, so I plugged that in.
Then I went over the guide, from scratch, to get everything set up with my dhcp, dynamic dns router.

And it turns out there've been a few changes and a few improvements.

1. the ethernet port has been renamed to end0. The ethernet port also gets an ip address from the network manager when you aren't looking. This lead to a weird situation where my laptop could connect to the AP, but could not ssh or ping to the AP. However I could access the net and ssh to my router and, from the router, ssh to my AP. :?
   Solution?
   In /etc/NetworkManager/NetworkManager.conf
   I added the ethernet port to your tutorial.
   unmanaged-devices=interface-name:wlx11111111;interface-name:end0

[Thimbles809]

2. when creating a bridge with a DHCP assigned address, you still need to create your unique MACAddress that will be assigned to the pool of adapters under the bridge.
   I made a file 30-config-bridge-br0.network:
   And put:
   [Link] MACAddress=da:1f:7c:a0:98:1e [Network] DHCP=ipv4 IPv6AcceptRA=no LinkLocalAddressing=no
   where the MAC address is just a random generated one from any MAC address generator. The LinkLocalAddressing flags and the IPV6AcceptRA are there because the interfaces would get IPv6 addresses randomly generated by the system in the past otherwise.
   when I config the subordinate interfaces in 31-config-br0-interfaces.network, I shut down all of these since the subordinates are bound by the bridge:
   [Match] Name=wlx11111111 Name=end0 [Network] DHCP=no IPv6AcceptRA=no LinkLocalAddressing=no

[Thimbles809]

Doh, thought I had selected the [Match] Name=br0. Plus I forgot the code tag erases newlines.

[Thimbles809]

3. in the /etc/systemd/system/hostapd.service file, I did all the changes that the tutorial suggested but also added a reduce power command since I have dual ap's in two different areas of the house that don't need to shout:
   ExecStartPost=/sbin/iw dev wlx11111111 set txpower fixed 1000
   And with those minor changes on the tutorial, the AP is now dynamically configured, it's power is low, and the other system services are leaving my interfaces alone with no random ip 4 or 6 addresses assigned.
   THANK GOD.
   It also seems work has been done with systemd or the dhcpcd client so that bridges no longer fail to accept renew requests so that the syslog gets spammed.
   Which BTW doesn't exist no more because it's in journalctl. Luckily command v still works to get to the end of a 1000000 line log a page at a time.

[Thimbles809]

So anyways, to make a long story, well, long, I'm setting up my wifi 6 adapters tomorrow. I have a wifi4 and wifi5 adapter running off MT7612U chips from comfast and alfa, and they've been running off a powered VIA VL817 chip USB hub which has been rock solid for the most part.
So yeah, anything I should know before I dive into the mt7921 and wifi6e?
And raspberry pi has just come out with their own supported powered usb hub:
https://www.raspberrypi.com/products/usb-3-hub/
Have you tried any testing with that?

[Thimbles809]

Oh, and a ps. I'm thinking of creating a guest network that allows access to the internet, but not access to the internal network. Is this something that you can create out of a multiple logical SSID's on a single adapter or is this something you require a dedicated adapter for? And like how? I saw the AP isolate flag in hostapd.conf, but I didn't have much success with it.

[Thimbles809]

So using the wifi 6 conf file here:
https://github.com/morrownr/USB-WiFi/blob/020e3a75128b9f9122bc0886f5124d6658bd3ffe/home/AP_Mode/hostapd-WiFi6.conf
I got my mt7921u running wifi 6 while the other mt7612's run wifi4 and 5 respectively.
wifi 4 ookla results?
Download Mbps
74.26
Upload Mbps
60.80
wifi 5?
Download Mbps
266.47
Upload Mbps
210.44
And now wifi 6?
Download Mbps
425.76
Upload Mbps
214.77
This is basically saturating the data limit of our current cable plan. So, all in all, not bad.

[Thimbles809]

So, something interesting. I use my DNS to resolve names on my network. I also use DHCP to set my network clients to receive their DNS server information.

But guess what using systemd breaks. Yeah, so systemd resolve stops resolving and suddenly my AP stops knowing how to address my router by name. The other network clients are fine, but the AP itself can mail packets, it just can't address them by name. Nor does it know the local domain.
The solution I found was in 30-config-bridge-br0.network:
[Match]
Name=br0
[Link]
MACAddress=da:1f:7c:a0:98:1e
[Network]
DHCP=ipv4
IPv6AcceptRA=no
LinkLocalAddressing=no
#here's the resolve fix
DNS=192.168.1.1
Domains=local
But yeah, would be more elegant if systemd allowed the dhcp server to configure the host of dynamic configurations? This seems to be a wide spread problem.

[Thimbles809]

Spoke to soon. Turns out from here:
https://www.freedesktop.org/software/systemd/man/latest/systemd.network.html
You can set the flags for the DHCP server to supply the interface:
[DHCPv4]
UseDNS=true
UseDomains=true

[Thimbles809]

One last thing. I was noticing the power management was off for my two mt7612 adapters but left on for the mt7921u. Because it's serving in AP mode, I thought it best if I turned off this option. It won't let you do it on the command line while it's in use, but a quick trip to the /etc/systemd/system/hostapd.service file and
ExecStartPre=/sbin/iw dev wlx11111111 set power_save off shuts it off.
The tx power command I've been using for the other two adapters has no effect on this one, but what a reach this one seems to have.
It's claiming to have 3dbm Tx while my others are set to 10dbm and it has full reach of the house, even the lead lined rooms. Now it transmits to those rooms at 70-90 mbits/sec, but that's still not bad. With the two APs running wifi6, the house is covered.
Using iperf3 from wifi client to iperf server internal to the house, the transfer rate is capping at 530mbs . The internal network wire to wire caps at 700mbs.

Given my situation there any benefit to going full alpha 6e?
PS. Sorry about the note dump. Hope some of the problem solving proves useful down the line. (Not to mention, I hope I'm doing it all right. 😅 )

[morrownr]

Hi @Thimbles809

Long time, no see.

And I got a new present:

I have one of those Edup adapters that is the same model as yours. I really like it. Well done adapter.

Given my situation there any benefit to going full alpha 6e?

If my testing is any indication, the answer is no. It seems to stem from the big drop in allowed txpwr for 6 GHz. I'm sticking with 5 GHz. There is also an issue in some countries with AP mode being available for 6 GHz.

It may take me awhile to read the rest of your messages. I am busy today.

@morrownr