Pmbootstrap: wlan-prima (wireless module) and wcnss-service

[PabloCastellano]

Continuation of https://github.com/postmarketOS/pmbootstrap/issues/143 and https://github.com/postmarketOS/pmbootstrap/issues/358

@yuvadm and I are working (see my titan-wifi branch and yuvadm's device-mozilla-flame) on the dynamic firmware loading feature (https://github.com/postmarketOS/pmbootstrap/issues/147) which is required by the wlan-prima module to load blobs _(are these considered blobs?)_ in order to initialize the wireless interface later. This is the case for mozilla-flame and motorola-titan so far.

This is how it works:

• The wlan-prima kernel module is loaded
• wlan-prima tries to load the firmware (multiple files) (will be solved in issue https://github.com/postmarketOS/pmbootstrap/issues/147)
• wcnss-service initializes the wireless interface

I made the wcnss-service (initially written for Android) some modifications (removed Android stuff, mocked Android functions) and added a Makefile and now it compiles and works in real linuxes.

This so-called service reads the following system variables:

• ro.serialno
• ro.baseband (the MODEM_BASEBAND_PROPERTY constant)

and writes wlan.driver.config and wlan.driver.ath.

Maybe writing the variables is not needed for postmarketOS. However ro.serialno is used to generate a serial number, used to initialize the interface. I have hardcoded this value for testing but it can be read from /proc/cmdline.

However my device gets frozen right after running wcnss-service. There must be something I've left back.

Things we should take the chance to discuss:

• Firmware path(s). Is it /lib/firmware or /lib/firmware/postmarketos?

yuvadm commented on Matrix:

also keep in mind that at least for the flame I have firmware that is flashed on some special partitions and ideally i would want to mount them to /lib/firmware/$foo

This is a draft TODO:

• [x] udev dynamic firmware loading https://github.com/postmarketOS/pmbootstrap/issues/143 (pick firmware.sh and the udev rule from some of the branches and include them in postmarketos-base
• [ ] Fix wcnss-service so that it doesn't hang the device :)
• [ ] Investigate also other versions of wcnss-service (will paste the link later, I found some newer version, that might fix the hang) and compiling options (is -DWCNSS_QMI needed?)
• [ ] Research what does the serial number (derived from ro.serialno). Is this the MAC address?

[ollieparanoid]

We have discussed elsewhere, that it would make sense to put postmarketOS specific firmware files in /lib/firmware/postmarketos, so we don't have any clashes with the linux-firmware package.

In other words, I would put everything that is not in linux-firmware in /lib/firmware/postmarketos.

About special firmware partitions: I would rather have the files installed with packages in postmarketOS in the root partition, even if they were duplicated. That way we could make sure that we have a specific version installed, and even update them as necessary (for the devices, where the vendors still supply firmware updates, or maybe at some point in the future for open source firmware) and don't risk writing to that partition, which may break other (Android) operating systems. But as always, this is open for discussion - just my two cents on the topic :)

Awesome progress o/

[yuvadm]

@ollieparanoid Your comment on special partitions makes sense to me, and I tend to agree with that proposal.

[PabloCastellano]

I have pushed the wlan-prima-wcnss branch with wcnss-service (aports/main/wcnss-service) packaged and some modifications to make the firmware load for titan devices.

The module requires the following blobs _in my case_: wcnss.b00, wcnss.b01, wcnss.b02, wcnss.b04, wcnss.b06, wcnss.b07, wcnss.b08, wcnss.b09, wcnss.mdt (note that some numbers are missing). I extracted them from a LineageOS rom and since I don't know where it is better to fetch these, I've put them in a tgz file in the branch.

I said _in my case_ because in the process of finding a repo to fetch these, I've found that some repos have a wcnss.b05 but don't have wcnss.b08 nor wcnss.b09...
So it looks like depending on the device, you might need only some.

Another file needed is WCNSS_qcom_wlan_cal.bin which seems to be used for some kind of calibration.

These are the md5 hashes for the blobs:

0f3d4a65a08bf0eda8c3a23e48e438ad  wcnss.b00
f08f46da25e790ce436f6b31e8dc348f  wcnss.b01
bc5fc4f6405e9d3d9a4ff633e5cdfcd4  wcnss.b02
4355bc68a61c942125781266d7a89a9d  wcnss.b04
60c898e99adc6cf9a5c1cb0f6c2c3a52  wcnss.b06
4ae71336e44bf9bf79d2752e234818a5  wcnss.b07
cb18a5d28e77522dfec6a6255bc3847e  wcnss.b08
88049c23cdf003738bb0cefb4dc49dfb  wcnss.b09
8bf067bc8a30b9277a9b228e8a2a2252  wcnss.mdt
53cd45cb0f4dd730119e066333895eb5  WCNSS_qcom_wlan_cal.bin

Some GitHub searches:

• example repo with these blobs
• Special search repositories including wcnss.b06
• Special search repositories including WCNSS_qcom_wlan_cal.bin

Questions for @yuvadm about mozilla-flame:

• Which blobs does your device require?
• Can you paste the md5 sums too?
• Do you have ro.serial argument passed as kernel cmdline? (check /proc/cmdline)
• How long is your ro.serial number? (Mine is 10 characters)

[PabloCastellano]

How to test the wlan-prima-wcnss PR

First, make these changes:

• linux-$flavor must depend on wcnss-service and install the firmware files (example)
• In my case, I set the ro.serial value to /sys/devices/virtual/android_usb/android0/iSerial (check yours, might be different) (example)
• pmbootstrap install
• login through ssh and then
  
  
  
  • sudo su
  
  
  • dmesg -c
  
  
  • wcnss_service
  
  

Check dmesg again. In my case, this is what I get:

[   81.709055,2] wcnss_wlan triggered by userspace
[   81.743479,2] pil_pronto fb21b000.qcom,pronto: wcnss: loading from 0x0d200000 to 0x0d7ae000
[   82.101310,0] pil_pronto fb21b000.qcom,pronto: wcnss: Brought out of reset
[   82.388533,1] pil_pronto fb21b000.qcom,pronto: wcnss: Power/Clock ready interrupt received
[   82.489502,0] pil_pronto fb21b000.qcom,pronto: Subsystem error monitoring/handling services are up
[   82.490933,0] platform sound.41: Driver msm8226-asoc-tapan requests probe deferral
[   82.491068,3] diag: In diag_send_msg_mask_update, invalid status 0
[   82.491081,3] diag: In diag_send_log_mask_update, invalid status 0
[   82.491646,0] platform sound-9302.42: Driver msm8226-asoc-tapan requests probe deferral
[   82.603095,0] wcnss_wlan_ctrl_probe: SMD ctrl channel up
[   82.603913,0] platform sound-9302.42: Driver msm8226-asoc-tapan requests probe deferral
[   82.604438,0] platform sound.41: Driver msm8226-asoc-tapan requests probe deferral
[   82.604491,0] wcnss: version 01050102
[   82.604518,0] wcnss: schedule dnld work for pronto
[   82.604690,0] wcnss: build version 12045421
[   85.118404,0] wcnss: NV download
[   85.118418,0] wcnss: NV file name = wlan/prima/WCNSS_qcom_wlan_nv.bin
[   85.131659,0] wcnss: NV bin size: 29812, total_fragments: 10
[   85.131763,0] wcnss: no space available for smd frame
[   85.155112,0] wcnss: no space available for smd frame
[   85.178447,0] wcnss: no space available for smd frame
[   85.201779,0] wcnss: no space available for smd frame
[   85.234793,0] platform sound.41: Driver msm8226-asoc-tapan requests probe deferral
[   85.235355,0] platform sound-9302.42: Driver msm8226-asoc-tapan requests probe deferral
[   85.236457,0] platform sound-9302.42: Driver msm8226-asoc-tapan requests probe deferral
[   85.237062,0] platform sound.41: Driver msm8226-asoc-tapan requests probe deferral
[   85.239887,0] platform sound.41: Driver msm8226-asoc-tapan requests probe deferral
[   85.240386,0] platform sound-9302.42: Driver msm8226-asoc-tapan requests probe deferral
[   92.628405,0] wcnss_post_bootup: Cancel APPS vote for Iris & WCNSS

This is the output from wcnss_service:

localhost:/home/user# wcnss_service
Getting prop "ro.serialno" : "" ("")
value: ZX1D229ZG4
Serial Number is 1d22ee74
CAL file not found

I'm not using the calibration file at the moment. I want to see if it is device-specific or what. It is still not working but good news is that the device doesn't hang up (maybe because of the calibration file?).

[yuvadm]

@PabloCastellano from an initial test I get totally different hashes on the blobs, but I don't have access to all of them right now. I'm going to try testing your PR on the flame and report back with more details.

[PabloCastellano]

Apparently these files are called Peripherial Image Loader (PIL). I have no idea about this stuff but some documentation is here: Documentation/arm/msm/pil.txt.

Also, as reported in /var/log/firmwareload.log, my device is not loading all the blobs (!)

loading /lib/firmware/postmarketos/wcnss.mdt
loading /lib/firmware/postmarketos/wcnss.b02
loading /lib/firmware/postmarketos/wcnss.b04
loading /lib/firmware/postmarketos/wcnss.b06
loading /lib/firmware/postmarketos/wcnss.b07
loading /lib/firmware/postmarketos/wcnss.b08
loading /lib/firmware/postmarketos/wcnss.b09
loading /lib/firmware/postmarketos/wlan/prima/WCNSS_qcom_wlan_nv.bin

The .mdt is the first one loaded (maybe some kind of table that says what to load then?). It seems that the loading happens here. Another references are in include/linux/qseecom.h and drivers/misc/qseecom.c.

Last thing, file sizes seem to be completely different too from other blobs with same names I've found:

-rw-r--r-- 1 pablo pablo     372 Feb  3  2015 wcnss.b00
-rw-r--r-- 1 pablo pablo    6760 Feb  3  2015 wcnss.b01
-rw-r--r-- 1 pablo pablo   10880 Feb  3  2015 wcnss.b02
-rw-r--r-- 1 pablo pablo   45056 Aug 27  2014 wcnss.b04
-rw-r--r-- 1 pablo pablo 2841224 Feb  3  2015 wcnss.b06
-rw-r--r-- 1 pablo pablo      16 Aug 27  2014 wcnss.b07
-rw-r--r-- 1 pablo pablo  786432 Aug 27  2014 wcnss.b08
-rw-r--r-- 1 pablo pablo   36788 Feb  3  2015 wcnss.b09
-rw-r--r-- 1 pablo pablo    7132 Feb  3  2015 wcnss.mdt

We definitely need someone who is familiar to this stuff.

[ollieparanoid]

Great work again o/

Somewhere in the wiki, the TheMuppets organisation is linked, which seems to have quite a collection of these files. I suggest, that we cherry-pick the files from there (with GitHub's raw links), as shown in here: https://github.com/postmarketOS/pmbootstrap/pull/393#discussion_r133513782

This assumes, that it has the files with the right hashes somewhere of course. Otherwise we could dig through the LineageOS dependencies for your devices, and find out where it pulls the sources from (I can help with that, if it is unclear!).

If necessary, you could also cherry-pick files from multiple repositories - this is still better, than including them in our aports folder.

Regarding talking to someone who knows about PIL files. Maybe @McBitter does, otherwise you could ask in a kernel-development IRC channel or something (not saying that I know one).

[yuvadm]

For the record these are the md5sums I get for these files on the Flame:

7a673f600e60f57100a8647eb270ae1b  /lib/firmware/modem/wcnss.b00
d559413b468ca58f2526028cde2d3d43  /lib/firmware/modem/wcnss.b01
37444e89d4868707077f8e3f7bf35535  /lib/firmware/modem/wcnss.b02
43cdfa7f36e9e97d59c56f7070101cdb  /lib/firmware/modem/wcnss.b04
093a100f1c4b9ecd8af5531fdd9e3e4d  /lib/firmware/modem/wcnss.b06
469aa816010c9c8639a9176f625189af  /lib/firmware/modem/wcnss.b07
6843138f05e560f2a679c9dcc3e01d94  /lib/firmware/modem/wcnss.b08
2927bfec9a71fc435d7c1436a697a91a  /lib/firmware/modem/wcnss.b09
6b1f1ec9e4f081ad0487b33340092e96  /lib/firmware/modem/wcnss.mdt
ae4f1518310d4f25d32ceff402a7ba84  /persist/WCNSS_qcom_wlan_nv.bin

[yuvadm]

Ok made some progress testing the branch on the flame, I cherry picked some of your commits and added some flame specific stuff just for testing (device-mozilla-flame-wifi).

When running:

$ wcnss_service 
Getting prop "ro.serialno" : "" ("")
value: f30ecc8f
Serial Number is f30ecc8f
CAL file not found
Settings prop "wlan.driver.ath" = "0"
wcnss_read_and_store_cal_data trying to read cal

And the process just hangs there. This is what I get on dmesg:

[  307.153504] wcnss_wlan triggered by userspace
[  307.185667] wcnss_trigger_config:  adc get failed
[  307.201502] pil_pronto fb21b000.qcom,pronto: wcnss: loading from 0x0d200000 to 0x0d7ae000
[  307.794145] pil_pronto fb21b000.qcom,pronto: wcnss: Brought out of reset
[  308.536404] pil_pronto fb21b000.qcom,pronto: wcnss: Power/Clock ready interrupt received
[  308.646108] pil_pronto fb21b000.qcom,pronto: Subsystem error monitoring/handling services are up
[  308.647876] diag: In diag_send_msg_mask_update, invalid status 0
[  308.647892] diag: In diag_send_log_mask_update, invalid status 0
[  308.891588] wcnss_wlan_ctrl_probe: SMD ctrl channel up
[  308.894578] wcnss: version 01050102
[  308.894609] wcnss: schedule dnld work for pronto
[  308.895557] wcnss: build version 12053614
[  311.435296] wcnss: NV download
[  311.448544] wcnss: NV bin size: 29812, total_fragments: 10
[  311.448637] wcnss: no space available for smd frame
[  311.475367] wcnss: no space available for smd frame
[  311.505342] wcnss: no space available for smd frame
[  311.535353] wcnss: no space available for smd frame
[  311.588453] wcnss: not setting up vbatt
[  318.905460] wcnss_post_bootup: Cancel APPS vote for Iris & WCNSS

Actually this might be proper behavior. If I keep the service open, I'm now able to get past this and actually attempt to start loading the wlan driver. I'm stuck on a few things there, but overall this looks good!

(Tracking this separately in #410)

[PabloCastellano]

Regarding the -DWCNSS_QMI flag used to compile wcnss-service, I've started reading and collecting useful information about QMI (Qualcomm MSM Interface). However, I'm still not sure if the qmi_wwan driver and libqmi can totally replace the interface initialization done by wcnss-service.

[montvid]

I have the same problem with not working wifi in Nexus 7 2013 flo. I will test your suggestions. I found some links that deal with this problem. @PabloCastellano and others thank you for your help fixing it!
Upstream prima firmware:
https://source.codeaurora.org/external/wlan/prima/tree/
SystemD launcher you can hack? :) :
https://git.linaro.org/landing-teams/working/qualcomm/wcnss-config.git
Arch linux chroot with wifi howto:
https://github.com/crondog/arch-flo#getting-wi-fi-working
Discussion how to load the firmware:
https://discuss.96boards.org/t/unable-to-boot-dragonboard-410c/149/3
https://discuss.96boards.org/t/enabling-wifi-support-in-custom-linux-kernel-and-rootfs/1104

[montvid]

Okay so I see that the prima driver is in here:
https://source.codeaurora.org/external/wlan/prima/tree/
But it is for the android kernel so uses wakelocks. The good news is that wakelocks are included in mainline kernel but under a different name.
How would one patch the drivers to include them in mainline kernel?
I see the lineage flo google kernel has the prima driver in /staging and the Qualcomm WCNSS CORE driver in wifi enabled.
@PabloCastellano maybe it would be better to use the lineage version as it uses the upstream WCNSS_qcom_wlan_nv.bin instead of your patch with WCNSS_qcom_wlan_cal.bin?
It seems Linaro guys are working on WCNSS support:
https://git.linaro.org/people/john.stultz/flo.git/

[montvid]

Okay, so finally after two days of work I found out how to load the wifi drivers for Nexus 7 2013 flo and want to share with you all so it may help with your devices:

1. See if your kernel has this /drivers/net/wireless/ath/wcn36xx as new kernels have this driver and select it in menuconfig if you are compiling the kernel.
2. Download the official or community ROM for your device or learn how to extract files from your phones Android system.
3. Find and convert system.img or system.new.dat file to a raw image so you can exctract firmware:
   simg2img system.img system.raw.img or sdat2img system.transfer.list system.new.dat system.img
4. The files you need are in /vendor/firmware/ and /etc/wifi/. For Linux support overwrite /vendor/firmware/wlan/prima/ with /etc/wifi/ files. If you have a WCNSS_qcom_wlan_nv*.bin file - rename it to WCNSS_qcom_wlan_nv.bin and overwrite the old WCNSS_qcom_wlan_nv.bin as it is only a symlink.
5. Put the created /firmware/ folder to your system /lib/firmware/ folder. Alternatively for wifi you only need WCNSS_cfg.dat, WCNSS_qcom_cfg.ini, WCNSS_qcom_wlan_nv.bin and all the wcnss* files.
6. IMPORTANT! Check if the checksums of the files on your pc and device are the same with sha512sum *
7. Download and copy just wcnss-start into /usr/sbin/ or you can use the whole package if needed.
   https://git.linaro.org/landing-teams/working/qualcomm/wcnss-config.git/tree/
8. Reboot and after startup write dmesg and see if the wifi driver has loaded and ip link to see if you have a wlan0 device if not try to run wcnss-start manualy or reboot again. Try to build the kernel wifi driver as a module.
9. Try to run wpa suplicant and dhcp to see if you can connect to the Internet.

[montvid]

```
sha512sums="ec6f014d324047a040c75f1922673021108a40d1b8d5ca53658995c4bd28b07e6ad8dd96560fb9bc82b45dfed7d6db3234ef5d8ec2a5d7246608f2423d023609 wcnss.mdt
5f6b1eff9304980a16eccf77ac201d0920c8562a6996f19e4fe0b8386f8d0ce31aaa745e7bc15e2ffd2ce6104192cd0b891211db6d895d632ed924a797e7d48b wcnss.b00
a91fc0f8aad8bb4d1664c09ff2203ddccb7f2ed3b49fc0dde4e527d1e864b65f8550bf4fc17120c555482deb3be75a028012e38ec8fa7c75216a9143b9ad38ca wcnss.b01
b21248769ed69b1f5a6372abf034bf3e88899df23bc98fea1338f27666065402fcb6adb37f1c0557f465360fd69a3840ccdf082c152bcac2dc4b92e2f087504a wcnss.b02
7252245a66bae6cc9d9dce2fd87e84447fd37072c05894d3adf730ac12cb42fb3372bba3ee8ace37cab7cb63472791c574362308f187832d277deec1bfd3198b wcnss.b04
b008c92dbb527f98dc402f018d72a3c715aea9a990766268ea66496a9371cc9b34c09e6119fe28fdff27e4fe083ee56f91fbf52c0570b5b6156b17fe3ff1c86c wcnss.b05
d9ec98e8fa795383678dc8ffd388d8a5fe2a475559c5996f551f02766bc3397e74c100548dcb06e2a65515c76cf28eac6f156aa805cf81ea3c580c859f4bd0f1 WCNSS_cfg.dat
df8bbc08774c1d8b479955e11e88964a172638934b98aeff3a1a76eeb2a6981f4ab9ef1c5e8abb050812ca2e99f21f661485c0c052f2103c76eccc19857f3f47 WCNSS_qcom_cfg.ini
d734e76a83960e0d6fbc11816417459ec17a72196cde727f7aeba509601965637234101cb17fa168f1cb128f1b63499cb68fe7acdef280654f25d0847a59960a WCNSS_qcom_wlan_nv.bin"

[ollieparanoid]

@montvid, awesome work! Let us know if you need any help with packaging that for postmarketOS (so it can be installed automatically when selecting the asus-flo device)!

[montvid]

Yes I need help but now I am going to sleep.
this firmware asks you to agree to the license. I don't know how you automate that:
https://dl.google.com/dl/android/aosp/qcom-flo-mob30x-43963492.tgz

[montvid]

It seems the upstream codeaurora https://source.codeaurora.org/external/wlan/prima/tree/ firmware(the WCNSS_qcom_wlan_nv.bin) does not work with my Nexus 7 2013/flo wifi so I had to extract the files from the rom or download from lineageos flo device repo. I updated the instructions and the SHA512.

[drebrez]

I tried the wcnss_service on the huawei y530, I had to change the source url because it wasn't working anymore. @PabloCastellano If you want I can push my changes directly on the branch, but I tried to rebase the branch on master and there were conflicts on other files that are not related to the wcnss_service.
Is it ok for you if I create a new branch with the new APKBUILD I created (it's a cleaned up version of your with a github repository as source and with your patches)?

[z3ntu]

Got WiFi to work on the FP2 with the Prima/Pronto driver (run all commands as root!):

• Get the files:
  WCNSS_qcom_cfg.ini, WCNSS_cfg.dat, WCNSS_qcom_wlan_nv.bin, wcnss.b0{0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9}, wcnss.mdt on the device (wcnss.* files into /lib/firmware/postmarketos/ and WCNSS_* files into /lib/firmware/postmarketos/wlan/prima/)

• Activate the driver:

echo 1 > /dev/wcnss_wlan

• Run some other command (I don't know yet what it does exactly, but it seems to be required):

echo sta > /sys/module/wlan/parameters/fwpath

• Start wpa_supplicant:

wpa_supplicant -Dnl80211 -iwlan0 -c/etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf

• Connect to the network:
  Follow this guide.
• Start a dhcp client:

udhcpc -iwlan0

• Now you should be able to access anything (as root user if you have ANDROID_PARANOID_NETWORK enabled in the kernel, see #737)

[ollieparanoid]

Awesome news! So... the wcnss service is not even required?

[z3ntu]

No idea what it should do, but no. I'm just trying to get a proper time on my device for SSL to work but the alpine package manager is not very user friendly for dependency resolution unfortunately...

[ollieparanoid]

You could install and enable chrony, see #674.

[yuvadm]

@z3ntu Great progress! Will test this on the Flame when I get some spare time in the weekend.

[z3ntu]

@ollieparanoid I started it using rc-service chronyd start but both chronyc activity and chronyc sources didn't show any "sources". I even tried adding one directly via an IP address but it just didn't work. Maybe because of the paranoid security stuff but these rc services should be run as root (and didn't see anything other in the init.d script)...

[PabloCastellano]

@z3ntu Awesome finding! I will try it in my titan device soon

[z3ntu]

Yes, chrony connections are fixed with #742 .

localhost:~# chronyc sources
210 Number of sources = 1
MS Name/IP address         Stratum Poll Reach LastRx Last sample               
===============================================================================
^? manage.mediainvent.at         2   6     1    15  -17430d[-17430d] +/-   57ms

But I needed makestep 1 -1 in my /etc/chrony/chrony.conf otherwise chrony wouldn't synchronize the time (it thinks it's really 1970 and apparently only changes it back slowly)

[drebrez]

@z3ntu nice job, I was also trying to run the wcnss_service on the huawei y530 without success. I will try your solution to see if it also work for my device 👍

[PabloCastellano]

I confirm that z3ntu's instructions work in Moto G titan :tada:
wcnss_service is not really needed