Debian – Modules for USB wireless adapter missing

debianusbwifi

I have an USB wireless adapter that is recognized as:

# lsusb
ID 148f:5370 Ralink Technology, Corp. RT5370 Wireless Adapter.

I am using this adapter on a device that has a much slimmed down kernel running Debian Jessie.

I have installed the various applications needed: wireless-tools, wpa-supplicant, ralink-firmware package, hostapd and bridge-utils.

I have rebuilt the kernel to include various modules and built the driver that accompanied the adapter.
enter image description here
enter image description here
enter image description here

# iwconfig

recognizes my adapter as ra0

# iwlist ra0 scan

returns the networks that should be available

# iw list

returns nothing.

# iw ra0 info
command failed: No such device (-19)

Hosting a AP fails:

# /usr/sbin/hostapd -dd /etc/hostapd/hostapd.conf
random: Trying to read entropy from /dev/random
Configuration file: /etc/hostapd/hostapd.conf
Could not open file /sys/class/net/ra0/phy80211/name: No such file or directory
netlink: Operstate: linkmode=0, operstate=6
nl80211: Set mode ifindex 6 iftype 2 (STATION)
nl80211: Failed to set interface 6 to mode 2: -19 (No such device)
nl80211: Try mode change after setting interface down
nl80211: Set mode ifindex 6 iftype 2 (STATION)
nl80211: Failed to set interface 6 to mode 2: -19 (No such device)
nl80211: Interface mode change to 2 from 0 failed
nl80211 driver initialization failed.

Connecting to a AP fails also:

# wpa_supplicant -Dnl80211 -ira0 -c/etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf
nl80211: Could not configure driver to use managed mode
ra0: Failed to initialize driver interface

I also tried the adapter on a laptop running debian wheezy. There everything was fine.

Am I missing some modules?

# lsmod
Module                  Size  Used by
rt5370sta             742575  1
cfg80211              210493  0
rfkill                 14017  1 cfg80211
hostap                103696  0
lib80211                5372  1 hostap
xt_nat                  1750  3
xt_tcpudp               3046  6
ipt_MASQUERADE          2286  2
iptable_nat             2881  1
nf_nat_ipv4             3399  1 iptable_nat
nf_nat                 17347  4 xt_nat,ipt_MASQUERADE,iptable_nat,nf_nat_ipv4
nf_conntrack_ipv4      13503  6
nf_defrag_ipv4          1285  1 nf_conntrack_ipv4
xt_state                1108  5
nf_conntrack           77834  6 ipt_MASQUERADE,iptable_nat,nf_nat_ipv4,nf_nat,nf_conntrack_ipv4,xt_state
iptable_filter          1347  1
ip_tables              11196  2 iptable_nat,iptable_filter
x_tables               17193  6 xt_nat,xt_tcpudp,ipt_MASQUERADE,xt_state,iptable_filter,ip_tables
ppp_deflate             3787  0
bsd_comp                5006  0
evdev                   9979  0
tsc2007                 5157  0
option                 21380  1
usb_wwan               11156  1 option
usb_storage            45150  0
scsi_mod              120215  1 usb_storage
ppp_async               7246  1
ppp_generic            26588  7 ppp_deflate,bsd_comp,ppp_async
slhc                    5513  1 ppp_generic
crc_ccitt               1517  1 ppp_async
phy_mxs_usb             2952  2
ci_hdrc_imx             3956  0
ci_hdrc                 7027  1 ci_hdrc_imx
ehci_hcd               58577  1 ci_hdrc
usbserial              35306  5 option,usb_wwan

Best Answer

@casey Thank you, I tried the experimental support. The adapter is now recognized as wlan0 and iw list seems to work.

Connecting to a AP seems also to work.

Hosting my own AP looked to work at first but when I try to connect to the AP from my phone, there goes a long time after inserting the password and there seems to be some kind of timeout and it does not connect:

...
lib80211: common routines for IEEE802.11 drivers
lib80211_crypt: registered algorithm 'NULL'
...
triton1 login: ieee80211 phy0: rt2800usb_entry_txstatus_timeout: Warning - TX status timeout for entry 8 in queue 2
ieee80211 phy0: rt2800usb_entry_txstatus_timeout: Warning - TX status timeout for entry 8 in queue 2
ieee80211 phy0: rt2800usb_entry_txstatus_timeout: Warning - TX status timeout for entry 8 in queue 2
....

EDIT:

I got hosting my own AP to work.

I loaded some extra modules:

modprobe lib80211_crypt-tkip
modprobe lib80211_crypt-wep
modprobe lib80211_crypt-ccmp

Then gave wlan0 an static IP.

And hosted a DHCP server (udhcpd) that was attached to wlan0.

Related Question