USB Wifi Nic in OpenWRT Linux Guest Disconnect Errors

mikebutash

New Member
Feb 20, 2023
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Hi all, I've been using Proxmox (7.3-3) for home stuff for a while now, I've moved my firewall to a virtual host using opnsense with great success, and was experimenting with using a guest with OpenWRT to be my access point as well via a usb network nic. I've got a Mediatek Wifi 6E USB 3.0 nic that seems to work ok otherwise, but when attempting to start it in OpenWRT under under Proxmox, I get usb errors in the guest, the host itself just sees the usb device reset, but otherwise simply doesn't work. Drivers load, it looks normal, but any invocation of use seems to cause the usb device to crash and reset.

I was originally going to write this off to openwrt or the nic being weird around AP mode, but I'm finding folks using these particular nics with success in AP modes, so tried another test, spawning an OpenWRT instance under virtualbox I use on my desktop for quick and easy vm's, and I'll be darned it worked fine there. That leaves me wonder what is busted with Proxmox USB support now.

I've not used usb pass-through until now with proxmox as I haven't had the need, but any particular reason this shouldn't work?

All dmesg output seems to show the device fine and functional, it's only once I try to put the nic into AP mode that I'll see the usb disconnect occur and reset. The OpenWRT guest typically needs shut down hard and restarted before it'll see the usb device again too. Not sure how otherwise to troubleshoot and provide feedback to fix/resolve this, but glad to provide any requested output for supporting/fixing usb pass-through features in Proxmox.

The device itself is an ALFA AWUS036AXML, or Mediatek 7921u (driver) nic, the host just a generic older broadwell xeon supermicro box. I did test a second usb nic as well for grins, an older realtek 8812au chip that seems to crash in the same capacity under Proxmox and OpenWRT guest, so curious if anyone else is doing this in any sort of production capacity successfully (or tried even).

Thanks in advance!
 

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