WLAN with Beaglebone Rev. 4

Hi Folks,

perhaps someone can help. If have a WLAN USB device with the RT8192CU chipset. And I have problems to connect my beaglebone to my local dsl router.

I use the kernel v3.2.9+. The firmware exists.

Here are some results of the following steps:

  1. Plug in the wlan stick: The following appears in /var/log/messages

Mar 31 15:45:41 beaglebone user.info kernel: [ 358.750369] usb 1-1.1: new high-speed USB device number 4 using musb-hdrc
Mar 31 15:45:41 beaglebone user.info kernel: [ 358.851520] usb 1-1.1: New USB device found, idVendor=0bda, idProduct=8176
Mar 31 15:45:41 beaglebone user.info kernel: [ 358.851541] usb 1-1.1: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=3
Mar 31 15:45:41 beaglebone user.info kernel: [ 358.851556] usb 1-1.1: Product: 802.11n WLAN Adapter
Mar 31 15:45:42 beaglebone user.info kernel: [ 358.851568] usb 1-1.1: Manufacturer: 802.11n WLPN Adapter
Mar 31 15:45:42 beaglebone user.info kernel: [ 358.851579] usb 1-1.1: SerialNumber: 00e04c000001
Mar 31 15:45:42 beaglebone user.info kernel: [ 358.902903] rtl8192cu: MAC address: 00:9c:95:98:b4:bc
Mar 31 15:45:42 beaglebone user.info kernel: [ 358.902936] rtl8192cu: Board Type 0

  1. I tried ifconfig -a and the following appears

wlan0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:9C:95:98:B4:BC
BROADCAST 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:1000
RX bytes:0 (0.0 B) TX bytes:0 (0.0 B)

  1. I run iwconfig and this is the result

root@beaglebone:~# iwconfig
lo no wireless extensions.

wlan0 IEEE 802.11bgn ESSID:off/any
Mode:Managed Access Point: Not-Associated Tx-Power=0 dBm
Retry long limit:7 RTS thr=2347 B Fragment thr:off
Encryption key:off
Power Management:on

eth0 no wireless extensions.

  1. I use the following configuration
    4.1. /etc/network/interfaces

iface wlan0 inet dhcp
wpa-conf /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf
wpa-driver wext

4.2. wpa_supplicant.conf:

ctrl_interface=/var/run/wpa_supplicant
eapol_version=1
ap_scan=1
fast_reauth=1
network={
ssid=“MYSSID”
scan_ssid=1
proto=WPA RSN
key_mgmt=WPA-PSK
pairwise=CCMP TKIP
group=CCMP TKIP
psk=“MYWPAPSK”
}

  1. After I invoke ifup wlan0 the following apperas
    5.0. After a while an before invoking the command the following apperas in /var/log/messages
    Mar 31 15:46:12 beaglebone daemon.err udevd[57]: worker [181] terminated by signal 9 (Killed)

5.1. Direct after the command

root@beaglebone:~# ifup wlan0
udhcpc (v1.19.3) started
Sending discover…
Sending discover…
Sending discover…
No lease, failing

5.2. Observed in /var/log/messages

Mar 31 15:53:48 beaglebone user.info kernel: [ 844.930405] ADDRCONF(NETDEV_UP): wlan0: link is not ready
Mar 31 15:53:48 beaglebone user.notice root: Checking for WLAN association…
Mar 31 15:53:48 beaglebone user.notice root: No association yet, 15 retries until timeout

Mar 31 15:54:02 beaglebone user.notice root: No association yet, 1 retries until timeout
Mar 31 15:54:03 beaglebone user.notice root: Timeout waiting for association, continuing anyway…

5.3. The red status led on the usb device is switched on

  1. Running iwconfig again shows this

wlan0 IEEE 802.11bgn ESSID:off/any
Mode:Managed Access Point: Not-Associated Tx-Power=20 dBm
Retry long limit:7 RTS thr=2347 B Fragment thr:off
Encryption key:off
Power Management:off
7. rfkill delivers the following result

root@beaglebone:~# rfkill list
1: phy1: Wireless LAN
Soft blocked: no
Hard blocked: no

So after all, there was not a chance to make a connect from beaglebone to my local DSL router.

Has somebody a solution for this?

Thanks in advance and kind regards,
Gerrit

How did u got at this stage? because I cannot even get there .

I am running in 3.2.5+ kernel

thats some outputs:

root@beaglebone:~# lsmod
Module Size Used by
rtl8192cu 87520 1
g_mass_storage 24010 0
rtl8192c_common 53126 1 rtl8192cu
rtlwifi 57404 1 rtl8192cu
mac80211 146552 3 rtl8192cu,rtl8192c_common,rtlwifi
cfg80211 122987 2 rtlwifi,mac80211
rfkill 14605 1 cfg80211
ipv6 210434 16

root@beaglebone:~# iwconfig
lo no wireless extensions.

eth0 no wireless extensions.

So it looks like that the module is running just fine, however it doesnt show the wlan0 , why? some clue?

thanks

Hi,

you are probably missing the Firmware, anyway the RTL8192CU didn’t work for me.
I wrote a post on how to make it working with BB-XM and should be the same for the Bone:

http://embeddedgeeks.wordpress.com/2012/01/03/belkin-micro-wifi-usb-dongle-on-the-beagleboard/

The Realtek driver does not need a Firmware and has no dependencies to others kernel module.

Cheers

Ayoub Zaki

http://embeddedgeeks.wordpress.com