Tails

#1 Updated by sajolida 2017-12-29 05:59:00

• Tracker changed from Bug to Feature

Common vendors:

• TP-Link: http://uk.tp-link.com/products/list-11.html?filterby=4851&page=1
• Netgear: http://www.netgear.com/home/products/networking/wifi-adapters/
• Linksys: https://www.linksys.com/us/c/networking-accessories
• Belkin: http://www.belkin.com/us/Products/Network-Accessories/Routers-&-Adapters/c/WSNTWLSUSBA/
• D-Link: http://us.dlink.com/product-category/home-solutions/connect/adapters/

Other ressources:

• Ubuntu: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/WifiDocs/WirelessCardsSupported

I bought 4 adapters (marked with an ‘X’).

|   | Vendor  | Model                      | Band    | Price | Driver / Chip              | Size  |
|---+---------+----------------------------+---------+-------+----------------------------+-------|
| X | TP-Link | AC600 (Archer T2U)         | Dual    | $17   | mt7610                     | Small |
|   | Linksys | AE6000                     | Dual    | $30   | mt7610                     | Small |
|   | Netgear | AC600 (A6100)              | Dual    | $34   | rtl8812au                  | Small |
| X | D-Link  | DWA-171                    | Dual    | $15   | rtl8812au                  | Small |
| X | Linksys | WUSB6100M Max-Stream AC600 | Dual    | $15   | rt2800usb                  | Small |
|   |         |                            |         |       |                            |       |
| X | TP-Link | TL-WN823N                  | 2.4 GHz | $13   | rtl8xxxu / rtl8192eu       | Small |
|   | Netgear | N300 (WNA3100M)            | 2.4 GHz | $40   | rtl8192cu                  | Small |
|   | Netgear | G54/N150 (WNA1000M)        | 2.4 GHz | $90   | rtl8192cu                  | Nano  |
|   | Belkin  | N300 F7D2102               | 2.4 GHz | $19   | rtl8192cu r8712u           | Small |
|   | D-Link  | DWA-131                    | 2.4 GHz | $18   | rtl8192cu rtl8188eu r8712u | Small |
|   |         |                            |         |       |                            |       |
|   | TP-Link | AC450 (Archer T1U)         | 5 GHz   |       |                            | Nano  |
|   | TP-Link | TL-WN725N                  | 2.4 GHz |       |                            | Nano  |
|   |         |                            |         |       |                            |       |
|   | TP-Link | AC1300 (Archer T4U)        | Dual    |       |                            | Long  |
|   | Netgear | AC1200 (A6200)             | Dual    |       |                            | Long  |
|   | Netgear | N900 (WNDA4100)            | Dual    |       |                            | Long  |
|   | Netgear | N600 (WNDA3100)            | Dual    |       |                            | Long  |
|   | Linksys | AE2500 N600                | Dual    |       | Broadcom BCM43236          | Long  |
|   | Linksys | AE3000 N900                | Dual    |       |                            | Long  |
|   | Linksys | WUSB6300 AC1200            | Dual    |       | 0bda:0153                  | Long  |
|   | Netgear | N300 (WNA3100)             | 2.4 GHz |       |                            | Long  |
|   | Netgear | N150 (WNA1100)             | 2.4 GHz |       | ath9k_htc                  | Long  |
|   | Linksys | AE1200 N300                | 2.4 GHz |       |                            | Long  |
|   | Belkin  | N300 F9L1002               | 2.4 GHz |       | 050d:845a RTL8192SU        | Long  |
|   | D-Link  | DWA-140                    | 2.4 GHz |       | rt2870                     | Long  |

The 3 dual adapters don’t load any driver in Tails 3.3:

D-Link - AC600 - DWA-171:

Dec 29 00:35:54 amnesia kernel: usb 1-1.1: new high-speed USB device number 6 using ehci-pci
Dec 29 00:35:54 amnesia kernel: usb 1-1.1: New USB device found, idVendor=2001, idProduct=3314
Dec 29 00:35:54 amnesia kernel: usb 1-1.1: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=3
Dec 29 00:35:54 amnesia kernel: usb 1-1.1: Product: 802.11n WLAN Adapter
Dec 29 00:35:54 amnesia kernel: usb 1-1.1: Manufacturer: Realtek
Dec 29 00:35:54 amnesia kernel: usb 1-1.1: SerialNumber: 00e04c000001
Dec 29 00:35:54 amnesia systemd-udevd[24613]: failed to execute '/lib/udev/mtp-probe' 'mtp-probe /sys/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1a.0/usb1/1-1/1-1.1 1 6': No such file or directory
Dec 29 00:35:55 amnesia laptop-mode[24652]: enabled, not active
Dec 29 00:35:55 amnesia laptop-mode[25142]: enabled, not active

Linksys - AC600 - Max-Stream:

Dec 29 00:37:15 amnesia kernel: usb 1-1.2: new high-speed USB device number 7 using ehci-pci
Dec 29 00:37:16 amnesia kernel: Dropped outbound packet: IN= OUT=wlan0 SRC=fe80:0000:0000:0000:f831:837e:b6e9:f912 DST=ff02:0000:0000:0000:0000:0000:0000:0002 LEN=48 TC=0 HOPLIMIT=255 FLOWLBL=495350 PROTO=ICMPv6 TYPE=133 CODE=0 UID=0 GID=0
Dec 29 00:37:16 amnesia kernel: usb 1-1.2: New USB device found, idVendor=13b1, idProduct=0042
Dec 29 00:37:16 amnesia kernel: usb 1-1.2: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=3
Dec 29 00:37:16 amnesia kernel: usb 1-1.2: Product: USBWLAN
Dec 29 00:37:16 amnesia kernel: usb 1-1.2: Manufacturer: Qualcomm Atheros
Dec 29 00:37:16 amnesia kernel: usb 1-1.2: SerialNumber: 12345678
Dec 29 00:37:16 amnesia systemd-udevd[25666]: failed to execute '/lib/udev/mtp-probe' 'mtp-probe /sys/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1a.0/usb1/1-1/1-1.2 1 7': No such file or directory
Dec 29 00:37:16 amnesia laptop-mode[25705]: enabled, not active
Dec 29 00:37:16 amnesia laptop-mode[26195]: enabled, not active

TP-Link - AC600 - Archer T2U

Dec 29 00:39:22 amnesia kernel: usb 1-1.2: new high-speed USB device number 8 using ehci-pci
Dec 29 00:39:22 amnesia kernel: usb 1-1.2: New USB device found, idVendor=148f, idProduct=761a
Dec 29 00:39:22 amnesia kernel: usb 1-1.2: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=3
Dec 29 00:39:22 amnesia kernel: usb 1-1.2: Product: WiFi
Dec 29 00:39:22 amnesia kernel: usb 1-1.2: Manufacturer: MediaTek
Dec 29 00:39:22 amnesia kernel: usb 1-1.2: SerialNumber: 1.0
Dec 29 00:39:22 amnesia systemd-udevd[26699]: failed to execute '/lib/udev/mtp-probe' 'mtp-probe /sys/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1a.0/usb1/1-1/1-1.2 1 8': No such file or directory
Dec 29 00:39:23 amnesia laptop-mode[26738]: enabled, not active
Dec 29 00:39:23 amnesia laptop-mode[27228]: enabled, not active

The TP-Link TL-WN823N loads the rtl8192eu driver but I can’t authenticate to the access points I have here.

I’ll try again on other access points.

#2 Updated by sajolida 2018-01-07 19:49:12

• Assignee changed from sajolida to intrigeri
• QA Check set to Info Needed

Tried again the TL-WN823N on a different access point and got the same authentication problem.

I’ll also mention here that I tried a TP-Link TL-WN725N in the past (the cheapest and smallest adapter around). It worked but MAC spoofing failed.

The conclusions from my first tests is that out of 5 of most commonly available Wi-Fi USB adapters, having all different Wi-Fi chips, none work out of the box in Tails.

Solving this is out of my skillset, mission, and comfort zone and I need guidance from the Foundations Team on what to do next:

• Buy more models in hope that we’ll find one that works. But from my initial research we might not be able to find more models that are both small and use a Wi-Fi chip that we haven’t tried yet. Apart from the TP-Link AC450 (Archer T1U) which is 5 GHz only.
• Debug the ones we already bought. I can hand them over to the Foundations Team in February.

#3 Updated by intrigeri 2018-01-09 14:53:05

• Assignee changed from intrigeri to sajolida

> The conclusions from my first tests is that out of 5 of most commonly available Wi-Fi USB adapters, having all different Wi-Fi chips, none work out of the box in Tails.

:/

> Solving this is out of my skillset, mission, and comfort zone and I need guidance from the Foundations Team on what to do next:

Deal!

> * Buy more models in hope that we’ll find one that works. But from my initial research we might not be able to find more models that are both small and use a Wi-Fi chip that we haven’t tried yet. Apart from the TP-Link AC450 (Archer T1U) which is 5 GHz only.

> * Debug the ones we already bought. I can hand them over to the Foundations Team in February.

First of all, I think we should focus on Wi-Fi adapters that have a chance to work, i.e. are supported by a driver that’s is in Linux mainline and thus part of Debian:

• the mt7610 and rtl8812au modules are not in Linux mainline nor in Debian, which explains why no driver is loaded.
• Wrt. Linksys WUSB6100M Max-Stream AC600, in the current mainline Linux tree I see it should be supported by the ath10k_usb driver (drivers/net/wireless/ath/ath10k/usb.c: {USB_DEVICE(0x13b1, 0x0042)}, /* Linksys WUSB6100M */) rather than by the rt2800usb one as the table above says. The commit that added this support 6 months ago says “WARNING: ath10k USB support is incomplete, don’t expect anything to work!” and the module is not built on Debian yet.

So sadly, there’s nothing to debug for these first 3 adapters. Let’s just keep the them around until Debian supports them (likely for the ath10k one, unlikely for the 2 other ones). Note that Ubuntu has a history of including third-party drivers so their list of supported hardware is probably not a good resource for us (sorry if I let you think otherwise or even pointed you there!).

Wrt. the last adapter (TL-WN823N), the table says rtl8192cu but you wrote “loads the rtl8192eu driver” and I see no rtl8192eu module in Tails 3.3, so I’ll assume you meant “loads the rtl8192cu driver” and/or “load the rtl8192eu firmware”. There are at least a V1 (RTL8192 CU) and a V2 (RTL8192 EU) of this device so it might help to clarify which one we’re talking about here. It would be nice to know if the firmware is correctly loaded. I’d happily take a look at the Journal to investigate a bit (no need to wait until February, I’ve had to learn how to triage hardware issues remotely). According to https://wireless.wiki.kernel.org/en/users/Drivers/rtl819x, if we’re talking about V2 with a RTL8192 EU chipset, the correct driver would be rtl8xxxu, that’s in Tails 3.3; but it might be one of those cases where multiple drivers announce support for the same hardware and one needs to help the kernel pick the right one (even worse when the manufacturer actually kept using the same device ID for both generations); if we’re in this case please unload the driver that’s automatically loaded and try to modprobe rtl8xxxu.

#4 Updated by sajolida 2018-01-19 18:24:42

• Parent task deleted (Bug #11683)

#5 Updated by sajolida 2018-01-19 18:24:54

• Parent task set to Feature #14534

#6 Updated by sajolida 2018-01-19 18:25:24

• Target version set to 2018

#10 Updated by sajolida 2018-02-01 23:07:16

• File journal.pgp added
• Assignee changed from sajolida to intrigeri
• QA Check deleted (Info Needed)

I tried without MAC spoofing and with rtl8xxxu.debug=1 and got the same authentication errors. Here is the output.

#12 Updated by intrigeri 2018-02-02 14:25:52

• Assignee changed from intrigeri to sajolida
• QA Check set to Info Needed

sajolida wrote:
> I tried without MAC spoofing and with rtl8xxxu.debug=1 and got the same authentication errors. Here is the output.

I’d like to see the full Journal, please. Otherwise it’s hard for me to correlate bits and pieces about multiple attempts, scattered around the place on this ticket.

#15 Updated by sajolida 2018-03-27 17:27:21

• File DWA-131.pgp added
• File DWA-171A1.pgp added
• File TL-WN725N.pgp added
• File TL-WN821N.pgp added
• File TL-WN823N.pgp added
• File WUSB6100M.pgp added
• Description updated
• Assignee changed from sajolida to intrigeri

I bought 2 new adapters:

• DWA-131 which loads the same module and firmware as TL-WN823N and suffers from the same authentication failure.
• TL-WN821N which loads no module.

I’m attaching WhisperBack logs for each of the adapters I have now.

I’m adding to the description of this ticket a table of our findings.

I also found (but didn’t buy) an ASUS USB AC53.

#16 Updated by intrigeri 2018-03-27 19:02:55

• Assignee changed from intrigeri to sajolida

sajolida wrote:
> I bought 2 new adapters:
>
> * DWA-131 which loads the same module and firmware as TL-WN823N and suffers from the same authentication failure.

That one is idVendor=2001, idProduct=3319. Perhaps we should add such info to the table (“DWA-131” does not mean much as there are several versions of it). The logs don’t tell me more than what you’re reporting.

> * TL-WN821N which loads no module.

This seems to be a TL-WN821N v5 (idVendor=2357, idproduct=0107). I would have thought that commit 5407fd7de69f3352aed659244d4bef18e3cabf5c in linux.git added support for that one in the rtl8xxxu module but apparently it’s not the case (modprobe -c | grep -i "2357.*0107" returns nothing), which is weird because 2357:0108, that’s declared in exactly the same way in drivers/net/wireless/realtek/rtl8xxxu/rtl8xxxu_core.c, is listed (alias usb:v2357p0108d*dc*dsc*dp*icFFiscFFipFFin* rtl8xxxu).

I’m not sure what you’re expecting from me. Do you want to tell me what you should do next? If so, maybe buy one that’s flagged as supported out of the box on https://help.ubuntu.com/community/HardwareSupportComponentsWirelessNetworkCardsTP-Link? Beware of those that have multiple versions with differing support levels, unless you can be sure of what version you’re buying.

#17 Updated by sajolida 2018-04-08 09:58:01

• Description updated

#18 Updated by sajolida 2018-04-08 10:27:15

• Assignee changed from sajolida to intrigeri

>> * DWA-131 which loads the same module and firmware as TL-WN823N and suffers from the same authentication failure.
>
> That one is idVendor=2001, idProduct=3319. Perhaps we should add such info to the table (“DWA-131” does not mean much as there are several versions of it). The logs don’t tell me more than what you’re reporting.

I added the vendor and product IDs to the table and fixed a bit the
formatting.

>> * TL-WN821N which loads no module.
>
> This seems to be a TL-WN821N v5 (idVendor=2357, idproduct=0107). I would have thought that commit 5407fd7de69f3352aed659244d4bef18e3cabf5c in linux.git added support for that one in the rtl8xxxu module but apparently it’s not the case (modprobe -c | grep -i "2357.*0107" returns nothing), which is weird because 2357:0108, that’s declared in exactly the same way in drivers/net/wireless/realtek/rtl8xxxu/rtl8xxxu_core.c, is listed (alias usb:v2357p0108d*dc*dsc*dp*icFFiscFFipFFin* rtl8xxxu).

Should we investigate this more and report it upstream?

> I’m not sure what you’re expecting from me.

Me neither! :(

> Do you want to tell me what you should do next? If so, maybe buy one that’s flagged as supported out of the box on https://help.ubuntu.com/community/HardwareSupportComponentsWirelessNetworkCardsTP-Link?

Great idea!

I checked the list against:

• The TP-Link website (some models are end-of-life and some others are
  not produced anymore).
• Amazon.com to see if they were sold.

I’m tempted to buy:

• TL-WN321G which is not produced anymore but still sold on Amazon and
  only has positive reviews (and many).
• TL-WN723N which is still produced and has one positive review.

Shall I do that?

> Beware of those that have multiple versions with differing support levels, unless you can be sure of what version you’re buying.

That’s a shame because I’m afraid it might be very hard for our users to
shop for a given model of an adapter. That’s why I filtered the ones who
only have positive reviews, as a beginning…

#20 Updated by intrigeri 2018-04-10 08:11:30

• related to Feature #14544: Spend software developer time on smallish UX improvements added

#23 Updated by sajolida 2018-05-14 19:29:21

• Assignee changed from intrigeri to goupille

> When setting such priorities […]

My wild guess (and personal experience) is that the support for internal Wi-Fi interfaces is much better than what I found out for easily available USB Wi-Fi adapters. I guess that that the few people who have a broken internal Wi-Fi, either give up on Tails or Wi-Fi in Tails but that didn’t found a USB Wi-Fi adapter (or never tried to get one) to replace it.

> So perhaps we should ask them?

Help desk: roughly how frequent are complains about Wi-Fi not working compaired to graphics card not working?

>> It’s also on our roadmap.
>
> Absolutely. Note however that when we added it to our roadmap, it was supposed to be done as volunteer work and it was not clear that engineering work would be required.

I added it (git grep 11683) in 2016 with a ‘$’ when I was alone on the issue. In 2017 BitingBird put her name with a ‘♥’. It might be one of these occurrences where I thought that it would be weird to work in a mixed team of paid/unpaid people and joined the unpaid side by default. The fact now is that:

• I’ve never heard back from BitingBird.
• This happened to be much more work than expected because of issues I don’t really have the skills to debug.

So yeah… I moved it to my UX plate without waiting for the summit to clarify that I’m not ready to do this as volunteer alone. Maybe I should have been more explicit or I should stop working on this for now seeing that it’s much more work than expected.

> I did, mostly because at the summit, this was deemed to be a blocker for the “Spend less time on handling individual support requests” change in help desk’s mission. Otherwise I would not have dared counting this as FT work unless there was budget left for this.

Thanks for the clarification.

>> For me this issue is much more critical than a “smallish UX improvement”.
>
> Ouch, I think there’s been a misunderstanding! I really did not meant this ticket is not important / not critical. The way I meant it when proposing Feature #14544 for our roadmap, “smallish” meant “small amount of dev work required”, i.e. low hangin fruits, and not “small impact / not very important”. It looks like you instead mean (and perhaps meant) “smallish” applies to the impact/importance, not to the amount of work required. In this case, I don’t know about the impact (I’d like help desk to help us define it) but wrt. amount of dev work needed, what we’ve seen so far on this ticket leads me to think that it definitely won’t be “smallish”.

We’re already discussing on Feature #14544 about the meaning that I had in mind when I wrote “smallish” on this post-it. Both times your version of “smallish” seemed much smaller than what I had in mind originally. For me “smallish” could mean pretty much anything that wouldn’t be worth justifying on its own in a grant application :)

#25 Updated by goupille 2018-05-15 12:05:29

• Assignee changed from goupille to sajolida

I can only give you a rough estimation, I’d say there are between one and three reports a month about wi-fi not working, and at least ten reports a month for graphic issues…

#26 Updated by sajolida 2018-05-18 20:36:52

• QA Check deleted (Info Needed)

Thanks for the quick info goupille.

I think that I’ll go on and buy one TL-WN723N online. If it doesn’t work either, then I’ll stop working on this ticket until we have more engineering resources to dedicate to it.

This ticket would have proven much more difficult than expected and we should reconsider it’s cost/benefit when updating our roadmap this summer.

#29 Updated by sajolida 2018-06-25 16:27:02

• blocks Feature #15411: Core work 2018Q2 → 2018Q3: Technical writing added

#33 Updated by sajolida 2018-09-09 19:20:05

• blocks Bug #11683: Improve installation instructions when Wi-Fi is not working (especially on macOS) added

#34 Updated by sajolida 2018-09-11 17:57:15

• blocked by deleted (Feature #15411: Core work 2018Q2 → 2018Q3: Technical writing)

#35 Updated by sajolida 2018-09-11 17:57:18

• related to Feature #15941: Core work 2018Q4 → 2019Q2: Technical writing added

#36 Updated by sajolida 2018-09-11 17:57:26

• related to deleted (Feature #15941: Core work 2018Q4 → 2019Q2: Technical writing)

#37 Updated by sajolida 2018-09-11 17:57:28

• blocks Feature #15941: Core work 2018Q4 → 2019Q2: Technical writing added

#38 Updated by sajolida 2018-11-18 17:42:31

• Target version changed from 2018 to Tails_3.11

#39 Updated by sajolida 2018-12-10 15:47:07

• Target version changed from Tails_3.11 to Tails_3.12

#40 Updated by sajolida 2018-12-17 13:19:43

• Assignee deleted (sajolida)

I think we should document only the Panda Wireless adapters while still keeping an eye on adapters commonly available on brick and mortar shops.

#41 Updated by sajolida 2018-12-17 13:19:56

• Status changed from Confirmed to Resolved

#42 Updated by sajolida 2019-01-16 18:00:12

• Blueprint set to https://tails.boum.org/blueprint/wi-fi_adapters/

I summarizes all this in a blueprint: https://tails.boum.org/blueprint/wi-fi_adapters/.