Qualcomm Atheros QCA6174

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The Qualcomm Atheros QCA6174 is a 802.11ac Wireless Network Adapter which is used in some laptops.

To make it work it needs the kernel driver and firmware.

Kernel

Precondition

Activate at least cfg80211 (CONFIG_CFG80211) and mac80211 (CONFIG_MAC80211).

KERNEL linux-4.19 example
[*] Networking support  --->
    [*] Wireless  --->
        <M>   cfg80211 - wireless configuration API
        [ ]     nl80211 testmode command
        [ ]     enable developer warnings
        [ ]     cfg80211 certification onus
        [*]     enable powersave by default
        [ ]     cfg80211 DebugFS entries
        [ ]     support CRDA
        [ ]     cfg80211 wireless extensions compatibility
        <M>   Generic IEEE 802.11 Networking Stack (mac80211)
        [*]   Minstrel
        [*]     Minstrel 802.11n support
        [ ]       Minstrel 802.11ac support
              Default rate control algorithm (Minstrel)  --->
        [ ]   Enable mac80211 mesh networking (pre-802.11s) support
        -*-   Enable LED triggers
        [ ]   Export mac80211 internals in DebugFS
        [ ]   Trace all mac80211 debug messages
        [ ]   Select mac80211 debugging features  ----

Minstrel and its 802.11n support is a rate control algorithm. Some wireless drivers might require it enabled.

Important
In case the wireless configuration API (CONFIG_CFG80211) is built into the kernel (<*>) instead as a module (<M>), the driver won't be able to load regulatory.db from /lib/firmware resulting in broken regulatory domain support. Please set CONFIG_CFG80211=m or add regulatory.db and regulatory.db.p7s (from net-wireless/wireless-regdb) to CONFIG_EXTRA_FIRMWARE.

Kernel driver

Enable Atheros 802.11ac wireless cards support (CONFIG_ATH10K) and Atheros ath10k PCI support (CONFIG_ATH10K_PCI) as modules <M>:

KERNEL Wireless configuration, linux-4.8
Device Drivers  --->
    [*] Network device support  --->
        [*]   Wireless LAN  --->
            [*]   Atheros/Qualcomm devices
            <M>     Atheros 802.11ac wireless cards support
            <M>       Atheros ath10k PCI support

Set it as a module <M> as shown here. After changes on kernel configuration do not forget to rebuild the kernel.

After rebuilding the kernel and reboot the selected options could be verified (needs Kernel/IKCONFIG support) like

user $zgrep 'ATH10K' /proc/config.gz

lspci should then display the adapter like:

root #lspci -nnkv
02:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Qualcomm Atheros QCA6174 802.11ac Wireless Network Adapter [168c:003e] (rev 32)
        Subsystem: Bigfoot Networks, Inc. QCA6174 802.11ac Wireless Network Adapter [1a56:1535]
        Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 141
        Memory at ed200000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=2M]
        Capabilities: [40] Power Management version 3
        Capabilities: [50] MSI: Enable+ Count=8/8 Maskable+ 64bit-
        Capabilities: [70] Express Endpoint, MSI 00
        Capabilities: [100] Advanced Error Reporting
        Capabilities: [148] Virtual Channel
        Capabilities: [168] Device Serial Number 00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00
        Capabilities: [178] Latency Tolerance Reporting
        Capabilities: [180] L1 PM Substates
        Kernel driver in use: ath10k_pci
        Kernel modules: ath10k_pci
Important
In case the driver is built into the kernel (<*>) instead of as a module (<M>), then the firmware needs to be built into the kernel as well.
Do not forget to rebuild the kernel after changing its configuration.

Firmware

The Qualcomm Atheros Killer N1525 Wireless-AC requires Linux firmware files.

root #emerge sys-kernel/linux-firmware

Find out more on GitHub kvalo/ath10k-firmware.

Network interface name (optional)

Warning
This section is obsolete. See Udev#Optional: Disable_or_override_predictable_network_interface_naming for updated instructions.

Network device names such as eth0 or wlan0 as provided by the kernel are normally changed on system boot (see dmesg) by the /lib/udev/rules.d/80-net-name-slot.rules udev rule.

To keep the classic naming this rule can be overwritten with an equally named empty file in the /etc/udev/rules.d directory:

root #touch /etc/udev/rules.d/80-net-name-slot.rules


Testing

After a reboot with the new kernel or after loading the modules, the device can be checked for availability by using following methods:

/sys file system

Get the device name by listing the /sys/class/net directory contents using ls -al or the tree command (provided by the app-text/tree package):

user $tree /sys/class/net
/sys/class/net/
├── enp2s14 -> ../../devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1e.0/0000:02:0e.0/net/enp2s14
├── lo -> ../../devices/virtual/net/lo
├── sit0 -> ../../devices/virtual/net/sit0
└── wlp8s0 -> ../../devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1c.0/0000:08:00.0/net/wlp8s0

ip command

To obtain the device name and verify that the wireless card is detected, execute the following ip command:

user $ip addr
3: wlan0:   ...

ifconfig command

The ifconfig command is provided through the sys-apps/net-tools package. Use ifconfig -a to list all detected network cards, even those that are not enabled/active yet:

user $ifconfig -a
wlan0     ...

A network card can be activated as follows:

root #ifconfig -v wlan0 up
SIOCSIFFLAGS: Operation not possible due to RF-kill
WARNING: at least one error occurred. (-1)

In this example, enabling the wireless card failed as a radio frequency kill state is set (usually to keep power consumption at bay and not connect by accident to a wireless network).

iw command

If the wireless network card driver supports the nl80211 stack, then the iw command as offered by the net-wireless/iw package can show the detected wireless cards:

root #iw dev
   phy#0
	Interface wlan0
		ifindex 4
		type managed

See also

  • Wi-Fi — describes the setup of a Wi-Fi (wireless) network device.

External resources

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