wifi boot gets stuck (ath9k)

[steffenhoenig]

Hi there,

I built a pendrive target from the latest gittable source and copied it to a usb stick like so:

Code:

make bin/ipxe.usb
dd if=bin/pxe.usb of=/dev/sdb #in my case it was sdb

Then i tried to boot the demo content of boot.ipxe.org, which works with my wired nic, but gets stuck while downloading the kernel image with the wireless adapter:

What I did:

Code:

set net0/ssid <SSID>
set net0/key <KEY>
dhcp net0
chain http://boot.ipxe.org/demo/boot.php

Any idea? Or is it just broken?

[robinsmidsrod]

It might be broken, or just very slow. You can verify performance by going through the steps at http://ipxe.org/dev/driver and report back if you have issues on any of the tests. Remember to include the type of network you have (802.11a,b,g or n) and what kind of download speeds you get in your OS (for comparison). On a gigabit network 500MB file should take approx. 5s if everything is configured properly. Wireless is obviously slower. How much depends on several environmental factors, suck as radio noise/interference.

I would suggest you use iperf to test the bandwidth in the OS. It gives pretty accurate numbers.

[carlos.alarcon]

(2013-10-12 11:38)robinsmidsrod Wrote:  It might be broken, or just very slow. You can verify performance by going through the steps at http://ipxe.org/dev/driver and report back if you have issues on any of the tests. Remember to include the type of network you have (802.11a,b,g or n) and what kind of download speeds you get in your OS (for comparison). On a gigabit network 500MB file should take approx. 5s if everything is configured properly. Wireless is obviously slower. How much depends on several environmental factors, suck as radio noise/interference.

I would suggest you use iperf to test the bandwidth in the OS. It gives pretty accurate numbers.

A cannot do http for 512mb files in wifi: wpa2 g/n network)
A can do small files transfer, but it fails with files greater than 256K, it get stuck.

[carlos.alarcon]

I cannot download files bigger than 256K using wifi (ath9: 168c:002b) g/n network, and using HTTP, it works for other protocols like tftp but fails for http

[robinsmidsrod]

If you have problems to download large files then you probably have a driver issue. Try to perform the tests, as mentioned earlier and report which one works and which ones don't.

[carlos.alarcon]

those tests seem to be intended for wired network cards.
I will try to adapt them to a wireless card, but I reported,
Everything seems to work but big files over http

[robinsmidsrod]

Yes, and to narrow it down we need to figure out exactly why, and the simplest way to do that is to figure out which of the tests that fail. We don't know if the problem is just a general performance issue, the receive or transmit data path, or something else. It could even be a local configuration issue in your network. Without thorough testing it's hard to determine. In fact, the best way to troubleshoot this is probably to come on IRC (Freenode, #ipxe) and talk to one of the developers.

[carlos.alarcon]

Tests Run (summary)
Link detection (pass with errors)
Basic DHCP: pass
Close and reopen: pass
Large file transfer correctness: Fail (max HTTP file downloaded 250K, md5sum ok, any bigger file fails to downloada, and -t timeout seems not to work, since the command never ends)
Large file transfer speed: Not run
Link interruption: Not run
Loopback: Cannot imagine how to get that done
High-MTU loopback: idem
VLAN loopback: idem

Errors found in Link detection test:
5 Use ifstat to verify that the link state is reported as Up. Some networks (e.g. Infiniband) take a long time to reach link-up; you may have to wait several seconds.
it works (link is up) but errors it reports (the first time i run ifstat)
* http://ipxe.org/3c086003
* http://ipxe.org/380f6001
The second time, same errors and also:
* http://ipxe.org/440e6001
* http://ipxe.org/1c1f6603
6 Disconnect the network cable. (disable wifi)
7 Use ifstat to verify that the link state is reported as Down (or some more specific link error, if the driver uses netdev_link_err())
* link is reported as down
* Errors showed:
* http://ipxe.org/err/4c1f60
* http://ipxe.org/3c086003
* http://ipxe.org/380f6001
* http://ipxe.org/440e6001
* http://ipxe.org/1c1f6603
8 Reconnect the network cable. (enabled back the wifi)
9 Use ifstat to verify that the link state is again reported as Up.
* Link is reported back as up.
* Errors showed:
* http://ipxe.org/3c086003
* http://ipxe.org/380f6001
* http://ipxe.org/440e6001
* http://ipxe.org/1c1f6603