Unsupported USB wifi adapter

rahul-thakoor · June 4, 2021, 12:00pm

I think it would be much easier if you were able to share the code you are using to build the kernel module in a public repository.

Are you able to do that?

Thanks

Tissy · June 4, 2021, 4:43pm

Thank you @rahul-thakoor, that’s a very good idea !

The repository can be found here Tissy/kernel-module-build (github.com)

To confirm, the module and code appears to compile fine using Balena CLI, however the LED on the ALFA card should light blue when it is recognised and running, but it doesn’t. Likewise if I run the lsmod command, the driver appears not to be loaded. So I’m guessing there is still a driver loading issue.

Many thanks for any help you are able offer, genuinely appreciated as it’s driving me nuts and I’d love to get this working !

rahul-thakoor · June 11, 2021, 10:19am

Hi Tissy,

can you please check access to the repo? is it private? I get a 404 when trying to load it

Tissy · June 11, 2021, 10:36am

My apologies @rahul-thakoor, I didn’t realise it was private. This has now been changed to public.

Many thanks

rahul-thakoor · June 25, 2021, 11:10am

Hey Tissy

the driver seems to have a very different way to be compiled. As a quick test i would suggest running the commands that are recommended in the driver setup after running the build script here kernel-module-build/Dockerfile.template at main · Tissy/kernel-module-build · GitHub

Perhaps add cd 8812au-5.9.3.2 && RUN ./install-driver.sh NoPrompt && cd -

I have not tested this. you might need to install other dependencies the script requires

Cheers

toochevere · July 5, 2021, 9:22pm

Hey Steven, I just wanted to ping you to see if you were able to make this work?

Tissy · July 5, 2021, 11:15pm

Hi, unfortunately not yet :(. I am still trying to resolve the issue having followed all the above advise. Is there anything you can suggest to help please?

dtischler · July 6, 2021, 10:51pm

Hi Steven, the only other thing I can think of is, did you try appending Rahul’s suggestion into your Dockerfile? Looking at Step 9 here, kernel-module-build/8812au-5.9.3.2 at main · Tissy/kernel-module-build · GitHub, it seems that additional steps beyond just running the build are needed. So, perhaps trying to append that into the Dockerfile, or just duplicating that script’s functionality, is needed.

Maybe even try a quick test of just opening up a terminal and trying to run this command:

github.com

Tissy/kernel-module-build/blob/main/8812au-5.9.3.2/install-driver.sh#L58

    
      
          	exit 1
          fi
          
          
echo "Starting installation."
          # the add command requires source in /usr/src/${DRV_NAME}-${DRV_VERSION}
          echo "Copying source files to: /usr/src/${DRV_NAME}-${DRV_VERSION}"
          cp -rf "${DRV_DIR}" /usr/src/${DRV_NAME}-${DRV_VERSION}
          echo "Copying ${OPTIONS_FILE} to: /etc/modprobe.d"
          cp -f ${OPTIONS_FILE} /etc/modprobe.d
          
          
dkms add -m ${DRV_NAME} -v ${DRV_VERSION}
          RESULT=$?
          
          
if [[ "$RESULT" != "0" ]]
          then
          	echo "An error occurred. dkms add error = ${RESULT}"
          	echo "Please report this error."
          	exit $RESULT
          fi
          
          
dkms build -m ${DRV_NAME} -v ${DRV_VERSION}

(Alter your paths accordingly, of course)

In the meantime, I have pinged our OS team to ask if it is possible to build the 8812au driver into our next OS release. This depends on the size of the module, as there is only limited space in the OS partitions, so they’ll have to take a look to see if it can be done.

dtischler · July 7, 2021, 10:08pm

Unfortunately, no, there is not enough space in the root partition for the rtl8812au module:

Error response from daemon: failed to copy files: copy file range failed: no space left on device

So, that method will not work until we have Host Application Extensions available, which will allow us to add-on additional capability / functionality to the HostOS. In the meantime, you’ll have to continue with the kernel module build in a container, hopefully you can get that properly working and proceed with your project.