88W9098 PCIe Card shows up as "Ethernet Controller"

[cdubs14]

I'm running Layerscape 21.08 on the FRWY-LS1012A Development Board (Kernel 5.10.35). I've successfully loaded the two kernel modules required for the NXP PCIe 88W9098 WiFi card (mlan and moal, module is Embedded Artists Type 1XL), yet the card still shows up as two Ethernet Controllers (one for each antenna, the Ethernet Interfaces are legit). Has anyone seen this issue before and/or know how to correct it? (see photo)

Thanks

[ocourson]

Dear @cdubs14 

I tested lshw on a slightly different setup:

- LS1046 Yocto Linux 5.15.52

- Murata Type 1XL module

As you will see in the log file, the wifi interfaces are correctly list as "Wireless interface" by lshw.

See attached log.

Could you please provide:

1/ dmesg logs

2/ lshw -version

3/ iwconfig command output 

Regards,

Olivier

[ocourson]

Dear @cdubs14 

I also tested lshw using same wifi SW as you:

- LS1046 Yocto Linux 5.15.52

- Murata Type 1XL module

- lf-5.15.52-2.1.0 Wifi driver/FW (PCIE9098--17.92.1.p116.1-MM5X17344.p1-(FP92))

- lf-6.1.55-2.2.0 Wifi driver/FW (PCIE9098--17.92.1.p136.132-MM6X17423.p6-(FP92))

The wifi interfaces are correctly list as "Wireless interface" by lshw.

Regards,

Olivier

[ocourson]

Dear @cdubs14 

Could you please provide more details on your setup ?

1/ 88W8998 driver and firmware version ?

2/ Instructions used to build the 88W9098 driver and insmod it ?

3/ Wifi driver init log message ?

Regards,

Olivier

[cdubs14]

@ocourson Sure! I just followed these directions, but the antenna showed up as an Ethernet port both before and after the driver was installed and the card worked correctly:

1/ Getting NXP Wifi/BT driver and firmware

You can get NXP Wifi/BT driver from:

git clone http://github.com/nxp-imx/mwifiex.git

git checkout lf-5.15.52-2.1.0

And NXP Wifi/BT firmware:

git clone https://github.com/NXP/imx-firmware

git checkout lf-5.15.52-2.1.0

88W9098 chipset PCIe firmware is imx-firmware/nxp/nxp/FwImage_9098_PCIE/pcieuart9098_combo_v1.bin

2/ Cross compiling the driver

You will need to setup the cross compiler for your host processor, then build the driver as follows:

cd mwifiex/mxm_wifiex/wlan_src && make KERNELDIR=<LINUX_KERNEL_SOURCES> build

The driver is composed in two kernel modules moal.ko and mlan.ko, located in mwifiex/mxm_wifiex/bin_wlan

3/ Copy driver and firmware to the target

Driver: copy mwifiex/mxm_wifiex/bin_wlan directory content to your host (.ko file in usual location, the other files in /lib/firmware/nxp/ directory)

Firmware: copy imx-firmware/nxp/FwImage_9098_PCIE/pcieuart9098_combo_v1.bin to your host, usually in /lib/firmware/nxp/ directory

4/ Starting Wifi driver

Refer to README_MLAN for explanations

Driver is started by insmod'ing moal.ko (has dependancy to mlan.ko)

There are two ways to specify the drivers parameters:

Using wifi_mod_para.conf file content to provide driver options: "modprobe moal mod_para=nxp/wifi_mod_para.conf"

moal.ko driver will get its parameters from the wifi_mod_para.conf file, automatically load mlan.ko dependency and start downloading the firmware

Manually specifying driver options

In that case, you can use this kind of command: "modprobe moal fw_name=nxp/pcieuart9098_combo_v1.bin cfg80211_wext=0xf cal_data_cfg=none"

Once firmware is loaded, ifconfig -a should show new network interfaces (by default mlan0 for STA mode and uap0 for AP mode)

5/ Configuring STA

You can use wpa_supplicant to use 88W9098 in STA mode and connect to an access point:

ifconfig mlan0 up

wpa_passphrase SSID SSID_PASSWD >> /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf

wpa_supplicant -B -i mlan0 -c /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf (-Dnl80211)

[ocourson]

Dear @cdubs14 

Could you provide:

1/ the driver init logs (or dmesg) ?

2/ confirm you want to use LS as client, and connect it to a WiFi Access Point ?

3/ confirm you replaced in below instruction SSID and SSID_PASSWD with the access point SSID and password:

wpa_passphrase SSID SSID_PASSWD >> /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf

Regards,

Olivier

[cdubs14]

Sure:

1) Attached. 

2) Yes. Long term I'd like to use it as an access point, but still don't understand why it refers to itself as an "Ethernet Controller."

3)  Yep, and I'm successfully connected to a network. 

[ocourson]

Dear @cdubs14 

From you log, we can see that you are using the following Wifi SW:

wlan: version = PCIE9098--17.92.1.p116.1-MM5X17366.p5-GPL-(FP92)

- PCIE9098--17.92.1.p116.1 corresponds to 88W9098 firmware integrated in Linux 5.15.52_2.1.0 BSP

- MM5X17366.p5 corresponds to the driver version integrated in Linux 5.15.71_2.2.0 BSP

We advice customers to use firmware and driver from the same Linux BSP version.

We would advice you to use both firmware and driver from latest release (lf-6.1.55-2.1.0 tag)

Regards,

Olivier