ChuYuan Chiang

technical experience

© 2024. from https://github.com/qian256/qian256.github.io

setup ubuntu wifi in raspberry pi 3 b+

[  wifi  ubuntu  linux  system  raspberrypi  network  ] 10 Sep 2018

setup wifi for raspberry pi3 b+

it can use open source broadcom wifi drvier – brcmfmac with 43445 firmware

it uses ubuntu 18.04 for the following describe:

PS. the ubuntu 18.04 server without wpa_supplicant package as default.

0. Disable the biosname in your ubuntu

in ubuntu 18.04, the network interface name becomes to xxxxxxx not eth0, 1, .., wlan0, 1, … if you confuse about this, you can disable it from the cmdline.txt in boot partitions, just add “net.ifnames=0 biosdevname=0” in the end of cmdline.

cmdline=....... net.ifnames=0 biosdevname=0

1. kernel and drivers

in this case, please set the following kernel CONFIG to “*”, let the kernel preload some feaures:

then set the broadcom full mac wifi driver to “m”:

then rebuild the kernel image and drivers and updates them to boot, rootfs partitions likes:

cd <kernel>
make menuconfig <== add the CONFIGs
make clean
make -j8

cp arch/arm64/boot/Image <boot>/kernel8.img
cp drivers/net/wireless/broadcom/brcm80211/brcmfmac/brcmfmac.ko <rootfs>/lib/modules
cp drivers/net/wireless/broadcom/brcm80211/brcmutil/brcmutil.ko <rootfs>/lib/modules

2. wifi firmware

in raspberry pi3 b+, it can use the wifi firmware binrary as:

to download these firmware files, you can find in github armbian firmware repository, and put the files to rootfs partitions:

cp brcmfmac43455-sdio.bin <rootfs>/lib/firmware/brcm/
cp brcmfmac43455-sdio.txt <rootfs>/lib/firmware/brcm/

3. manual install driver in your system

to bring up the wlan0, use the commands:

insmod /lib/modules/brcmutil.ko
insmod /lib/modules/brcmfmac.ko

normally, the wlan0 will be created and we can use it to do next setting for wpa supplicant.

4. wpa supplicant configure

the ubuntu 18.04 server (arm64 version) dose not preload the wpa_supplicant, it needs install wpa_supplicant first.

4.1. install wpa_supplicant

it can find the wpa_supplicant package and relates package from http://ports.ubuntu.com/pool/main

then, it can use dpkg to install them:

dpkg -i multiarch-support_2.27-3ubuntu1_arm64.deb
dpkg -i libpcsclite1_1.8.23-1_arm64.deb
dpkg -i libnl-3-200_3.2.21-1_arm64.deb
dpkg -i libnl-genl-3-200_3.2.21-1_arm64.deb
dkpg -i wpasupplicant_2.6-18ubuntu1_arm64.deb

4.2. initial wpa_supplicant

first， it needs a wpa_supplicant.conf file with content:

ctrl_interface=/var/run/wpa_supplicant
update_config=1

then, launch the wpa_supplicant with arguments:

wpa_supplicant -B -D nl80211 -i wlan0 -c wpa_supplicant.conf

after this, the wpa_supplicant should be started and it can use wpa_cli to control it:

wpa_cli -i wlan0
scan
scan_result

4.3. setting the wifi ssid and password

use the wpa_passphrase can generate the wpa_supplicant configure for a ssid:

wpa_passphrase <ssid> <pass>

for example:

wpa_passphrase ssid-doraemon doraemon

network={
        ssid="ssid-doraemon"
        #psk="doraemon"
        psk=5c0ea2621a502d013e9e1b4a85ffa5811eb77564f125582268c7bbf0c69c6683
}

5. integrate into ubuntu system

set start wifi service after start system

5.1. create a init.d scirpt

create a script to install wifi driver with content:

#!/bin/sh
### BEGIN INIT INFO
# Provides:          wifi
# Required-Start:
# Required-Stop:
# Should-Start:
# Default-Start:     2 3 4 5
# Default-Stop:
# X-Interactive:
# Short-Description: wifi
### END INIT INFO

PATH=/bin:/sbin:/usr/bin:/usr/sbin
MODFILE=/lib/modules/brcmfmac.ko
MODUTIL=/lib/modules/brcmutil.ko
MODUTIL_NAME=brcmutil
MODFILE_NAME=brcmfmac

case $1 in
        start)
                if [ "$(lsmod | grep $MODFILE_NAME | wc -l)" != "0" ] || [ "$(lss
mod | grep $MODFILE_NAME | wc -l)" != "0" ]; then
                        $0 stop
                fi

                insmod $MODUTIL
                insmod $MODFILE
                ;;
        stop)
                rmmod $MODFILE_NAME 2>&1 > /dev/null
                rmmod $MODUTIL_NAME 2>&1 > /dev/null
                ;;
        restart|force-reload)
                $0 stop
                sleep 1
                $0 start
                ;;
        *)
                echo not support command argument $1
                exit 1
                ;;
esac

exit 0

5.2. update rc.d

let ubuntu install wifi driver while starting up:

update-rc.d wifi defaults

5.3. setup netplan

for now, wpa_supplicant will be called from netplan, setup wifi network in netplan as file: /etc/netplan/01-wifi.yaml

network:
  version: 2
  renderer: networkd
  wifis:
    wlan0:
      dhcp4: yes
      dhcp6: no
      gateway4: 192.168.10.1
      nameservers:
        addresses: [192.168.10.1, 8.8.8.8]
      access-points:
        "ssid-dormaemon":
          password: "doraemon"

in face, you also can set static ip in here

network:
  version: 2
  renderer: networkd
  wifis:
    wlan0:
      dhcp4: no
        addresses: [192.168.10.2/24]
      dhcp6: no
      gateway4: 192.168.10.1
      nameservers:
        addresses: [192.168.10.1, 8.8.8.8]
      access-points:
        "ssid-dormaemon":
          password: "doraemon"

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