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#1 2008-09-26 20:29:44

karabaja4
Member
From: Croatia
Registered: 2008-09-14
Posts: 997
Website

RT73 drivers & patches

So... I recently got this card. I was so dissapointed with it's support (before this one I had Atheros based card which worked so perfectly). When I plugged it in on newest Arch installation, the system oopsed at boot. Some googling discovered that it was some conflict with newest kernel and rt2500usb module (which I don't know why it's loaded anyway). Some more googling also discovered that rt2x00 drivers are not compatible with wpa_supplicant (which i need to connect to PEAP secured networks).

So, i just blacklisted the whole kernel integrated modules (rt2500usb, rt73usb, rt2x00usb, rt2x00lib) and installed offical RT73 drivers (2008_0506_RT73_Linux_STA_Drv1.1.0.1.tar.bz2). This worked very good (ralink drivers rock), but I was unable to put the card in monitor mode ('unknown parameter' at iwconfig rausb0 mode monitor). So i searched on and found these: http://homepages.tu-darmstadt.de/~p_lar … .1.tar.bz2

These worked awsome in monitor mode, and little less awsome in managed mode. I tested them when signal was not so good (through 3 walls), and ralink drivers showed much more performance in this situation. Since rt73-k2wrlz is based on serialmonkey's rt2x00 i can only assume that pure rt2x00 have similar peformance (since I didn't test them, I can only assume, but wth.. they don't work with wpa_supplicant anyway). So i needed a solution to have wpa_supplicant support, good performance and monitor mode.

Here's what I have come up with.

I combined these two drivers (ralink and rt73-k2wrlz (I'll call them enhanced)). I made two bash scripts that load needed driver:

Here is a script for loading ralink drivers:

#!/bin/bash

#script for ralink drivers

#check root user
if [ "$(id -u)" != "0" ]; then
   echo "Noob you are not root! :(" 1>&2
   exit 1
fi

#interface down
ifconfig rausb0 down

#unload ralink module
rmmod rt73
rmmod firmware_class

#delete enhanced module
rm /lib/modules/2.6.26-ARCH/extra/rt73.ko

#delete enhanced firmware
rm /lib/firmware/rt73.bin

#copy new ralink module
cp ralink/rt73.ko /lib/modules/2.6.26-ARCH/extra/

#update modules
depmod -a

#load enhanced module
modprobe rt73

#it should work here with "modprobe rt73", but i get Segmentation Fault
#with only partially loaded module, so i must reboot to get it working.

#reboot
reboot

and for enhanced drivers:

#!/bin/bash

#script for enhanced drivers

#check root user
if [ "$(id -u)" != "0" ]; then
   echo "Noob you are not root! :(" 1>&2
   exit 1
fi

#interface down
ifconfig rausb0 down

#unload ralink module
rmmod rt73

#delete ralink module
rm /lib/modules/2.6.26-ARCH/extra/rt73.ko

#create enhanced firmware
cp firmware/rt73.bin /lib/firmware/

#copy new enhanced module
cp enhanced/rt73.ko /lib/modules/2.6.26-ARCH/extra/

#update modules
depmod -a

#load enhanced module
modprobe rt73

#all fine here

(don't ask me why I just didn't rename the module and just rmmod/modprobe it, I like things simple and easy wink)

Just one question. See the first script? Well.. when enhanced drivers are loaded (with firmware from /lib/firmware), when I try to modprobe ralink drivers I get "Segmentation fault" (but the drivers still half-load, I can see the interface in iwconfig but I can't use it) and must reboot in order to get them working. Why is this? I unload both rt73 (enhanced) and firmware_class modules (see the script), but nothing changes... i must reboot anyway. Strange... This only happenes at enhanced -> ralink, but not in ralink -> enhanced.

Anyway, ralink drivers work with wpa_supplicant 0.5.8 - in their drivers package there are few files which you move to original wpa_supplicant dir and compile it with ralink support. I tried to do this with latest 0.5.10, and even 0.5.7 - but the result is that they won't even compile. So, the only working version is 0.5.8 + ralink patches.

I have made an archive containing all the above: http://www.geocities.com/baluba_1/rt73wireless.tar.gz (sorry for this host, my server is currently down).

So, if you need support for wpa_supplicant (PEAP) & monitor mode, this would be some kind of solution.

I'll post install instructions (although they are in tar and they can be easily figured out).

0. blacklist rt2x00 modules as showed in modprobe.conf

1. compile & install enhanced drivers sources/rt73-k2wrlz-3.0.1.tar.bz2 (extract, make & make install in Modules folder)
2. copy rt73.ko from /lib/modules/2.6.26-ARCH/extra to rt73wireless/enhanced
3. copy rt73.bin from /lib/firmware to rt73wireless/firmware
4. extract sources/2008_0506_RT73_Linux_STA_Drv1.1.0.1.tar.bz2
5. compile with make inside Modules folder
6. copy rt73.ko from Modules folder to rt73wireless/ralink
7. use scripts (ralink.sh & enhanced.sh) to switch between drivers

8. if you need wpa_supplicant there is ralink patched version (0.5.8) in wpa_supplicant folder
9. compile wpa_supplicant with: "cp defconfig .config" and then "make"
10. install (and overwrite) executables with something like: "sudo cp wpa_cli wpa_passphrase wpa_supplicant /usr/sbin"

And finally... what are your experiences with rt73 drivers? Monitor mode? Performance? wpa_supplicant? If any of this can be done easier than above please share it.

Thanks

karabaja4

Last edited by karabaja4 (2008-09-26 20:30:53)

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#2 2008-09-27 00:47:49

cwjiof
Member
From: Taichung, TW
Registered: 2008-01-27
Posts: 131

Re: RT73 drivers & patches

I'm using Linksys WUSB54G, which is well supported by rt73usb module in the kernel, except that it need to install a firmware package: rt2x00-rt71w-fw, to make it really work.

You can find this solution in the Wiki.

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#3 2008-09-27 01:09:18

karabaja4
Member
From: Croatia
Registered: 2008-09-14
Posts: 997
Website

Re: RT73 drivers & patches

cwjiof wrote:

I'm using Linksys WUSB54G, which is well supported by rt73usb module in the kernel, except that it need to install a firmware package: rt2x00-rt71w-fw, to make it really work.

You can find this solution in the Wiki.

as mentioned above, i dont' think rt73usb works with wpa_supplicant.

or does it?

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#4 2008-09-27 01:29:40

cwjiof
Member
From: Taichung, TW
Registered: 2008-01-27
Posts: 131

Re: RT73 drivers & patches

But rt73usb works well with netcfg2. Just try it.

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#5 2008-09-27 02:11:17

karabaja4
Member
From: Croatia
Registered: 2008-09-14
Posts: 997
Website

Re: RT73 drivers & patches

cwjiof wrote:

But rt73usb works well with netcfg2. Just try it.

I will... I'll report soon. Just for the record i need WPA enterprise (or PEAP).

It's the problem from this thread http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=48934

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