Using a Realtek 802.11n dongle with Unipi
-
Setting up some Unipi's to talk to a central (HA/scalable) server here. Since wired as well as wireless connection to the unipis was required, we got a few Realtek wifi dongles. Follows a braindump to recall it later and free for anyone else to use.
Lets get the kernel modules first:
wget http://www.mendrugox.net/downloads/20 -O raspi scp -r raspi pi@192.168.2.222:~
SSH into the RPi and to load the module
sudo su cd raspi sudo cp *.ko /lib/modules/3.12.28+/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/ sudo cp *.bin /lib/firmware/rtlwifi/ sudo depmod -a sudo echo 8188eu >> /etc/modules sudo modprobe 8188eu
Now, we want the RPi to acquire a fixed IP (192.168.2.222) when connected to LAN and use the GW 192.168.0.1 and we also want the RPi to lease an IP from DHCP when wifi dongle is connected to it. To do this, we want to change /etc/network/interfaces accordingly:
sudo echo ' auto lo iface lo inet loopback iface eth0 inet static address 192.168.2.222 netmask 255.255.255.0 gateway 192.168.0.1 allow-hotplug wlan0 auto wlan0 iface wlan0 inet dhcp wpa-conf /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf iface default inet dhcp ' > /etc/network/interfaces
We need to setup wpa supplicant. Assuming your wifi has the ssid "MYSSID" and password "YOUSHALLPASS", then
sudo wpa_passphrase MYSSID YOUSHALLPASS
whcih reutrns
network={ ssid="MYSSID" #psk="YOUSHALLPASS" psk=74d000273e94452d31a3e0ec32d87b8ac52dd3e31f1448a41b8d98ea99abafa0 }
which you need to put into your wpa_supplicant.conf. The complete conf file looks like this
sudo echo ' ctrl_interface=DIR=/var/run/wpa_supplicant GROUP=netdev update_config=1 network={ ssid="MYSSID" #psk="YOUSHALLPASS" psk=74d000273e94452d31a3e0ec32d87b8ac52dd3e31f1448a41b8d98ea99abafa0 key_mgmt=WPA-PSK pairwise=CCMP auth_alg=OPEN } ' > /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf
To prevent the dongle to go to sleep whenever you don't need it, disable power management:
sudo echo ' # Disable power management options 8192cu rtw_power_mgnt=0 rtw_enusbss=0 ' > /etc/modprobe.d/8188eu.conf
If you still get random disconnects, get closer to your AP (that actually helped, the dongle is crap when it comes to signal strength). Hope this helps.
-
Setting up some Unipi's to talk to a central (HA/scalable) server here. Since wired as well as wireless connection to the unipis was required, we got a few Realtek wifi dongles. Follows a braindump to recall it later and free for anyone else to use.
Lets get the kernel modules first:
wget http://www.mendrugox.net/downloads/20 -O raspi scp -r raspi pi@192.168.2.222:~
SSH into the RPi and to load the module
sudo su cd raspi sudo cp *.ko /lib/modules/3.12.28+/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/ sudo cp *.bin /lib/firmware/rtlwifi/ sudo depmod -a sudo echo 8188eu >> /etc/modules sudo modprobe 8188eu
Now, we want the RPi to acquire a fixed IP (192.168.2.222) when connected to LAN and use the GW 192.168.0.1 and we also want the RPi to lease an IP from DHCP when wifi dongle is connected to it. To do this, we want to change /etc/network/interfaces accordingly:
sudo echo ' auto lo iface lo inet loopback iface eth0 inet static address 192.168.2.222 netmask 255.255.255.0 gateway 192.168.0.1 allow-hotplug wlan0 auto wlan0 iface wlan0 inet dhcp wpa-conf /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf iface default inet dhcp ' > /etc/network/interfaces
We need to setup wpa supplicant. Assuming your wifi has the ssid "MYSSID" and password "YOUSHALLPASS", then
sudo wpa_passphrase MYSSID YOUSHALLPASS
whcih reutrns
network={ ssid="MYSSID" #psk="YOUSHALLPASS" psk=74d000273e94452d31a3e0ec32d87b8ac52dd3e31f1448a41b8d98ea99abafa0 }
which you need to put into your wpa_supplicant.conf. The complete conf file looks like this
sudo echo ' ctrl_interface=DIR=/var/run/wpa_supplicant GROUP=netdev update_config=1 network={ ssid="MYSSID" #psk="YOUSHALLPASS" psk=74d000273e94452d31a3e0ec32d87b8ac52dd3e31f1448a41b8d98ea99abafa0 key_mgmt=WPA-PSK pairwise=CCMP auth_alg=OPEN } ' > /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf
To prevent the dongle to go to sleep whenever you don't need it, disable power management:
sudo echo ' # Disable power management options 8192cu rtw_power_mgnt=0 rtw_enusbss=0 ' > /etc/modprobe.d/8188eu.conf
If you still get random disconnects, get closer to your AP (that actually helped, the dongle is crap when it comes to signal strength). Hope this helps.