About ath10k

ath10k is the mac80211 wireless driver for Qualcom Atheros QCA988x family of chips, which support IEEE 802.11ac. It was first included in Linux 3.11-rc1 released on 2013-07-14.

The ath10k driver is located under drivers/net/wireless/ath/ath10k directory. For more information see en/users/drivers/ath10k/sources.

• Support and reporting bugs
  • Mailing list
• Sources
  • Git branches
• Submitting Patches
  • Guidelines
  • Answer to “Why?”
  • Hardware families
  • Tested-on tag
  • Patch flow
• Board Files
• FAQ
  • Q:If ath10k support ad-hoc mode?
  • Why I cannot start an AP in an 80 MHz channel / in 11ac mode?
  • Why my MAC address is 00:03:07:12:34:56?
  • How can I run latest ath10k on older kernels?
  • How do I update the firmware?
  • Why the TX rate reported to user space is wrong?
  • Can I use ath10k as a 802.11ac sniffer?
  • How do I get the best possible throughput with ath10k?
• Backports
  • Cooked monitor interface
  • Compiling custom ath10k backports
• Architecture
  • ath10k components
    • MAC
    • Host-Target Transport (HTT)
    • Wireless Module Interface (WMI)
    • Host-Target Communication (HTC)
    • Host interconnect Framework (HIF)
    • Debug
    • Tracing
    • PCI
    • Copy Engine (CE)
    • Bootloader Messaging Interface (BMI)
    • Core
• Debug
  • Debug log messages
    • Useful debug masks
  • Tracing
  • HTT statistics
  • Firmware version
  • DFS
  • Manual bitrates configuration
  • Simulating firmware crashes
  • Firmware crash dump file
• Calibration
  • Overview
  • Calibration Data
  • Board data
  • Determining calibration and board data sources
    • What’s BMI ID?
  • List of NICs, and board data / calibration data hilarity
• Firmware
  • Firmware API versions
    • Firmware API 1
    • Firmware API 2
    • Firmware API 3
    • Firmware API 4
    • Firmware API 5
    • Firmware API 6
• Configuration
  • Building
  • Loading the modules
    • hostapd
  • Building hostapd
  • Configuring hostapd
  • Mu-MIMO configuration
  • mBSSID
  • Full hostapd configuration
• Coding Style
  • Introduction
  • Tools
  • Checking code
  • Linux coding style
  • Status/error variables
  • Error path
  • Locking
  • Naming
  • Comments
  • Error messages
  • Debug messages
  • Things NOT to do
• Spectral Scan
  • Open issues
    • The spectral count issue
  • Userspace programs:
• Monitor Mode
  • Known issues
• Mesh Mode
  • Bring up Mesh Point (MP)
  • Setup open Mesh Point using iw
  • Setup Mesh Point using wpa_suppliant
• TODO
• Private Support

Supported Devices

ath10k supports Qualcomm Atheros 802.11ac QCA98xx hw2.0 and QCA6174 based devices, here’s a list of known products:

• QCA9880/QCA9882 Version 2 found in AIRETOS E98 Class by VOXMICRO MPNs: AEX-QCA9880 & AEX-QCA9882

• QCA9890/QCA9892 Version 2 found in AIRETOS E98 Class by VOXMICRO MPNs: AEX-QCA9890 & AEX-QCA9892

• QCA9888 found in 2x2 MU-MIMO 802.11ac Wave 2 Wireless Module - Compex WLE650V5-18A

• QCA9890 found in SparkLan WPEA-352ACNRBI - supports 802.11ac radio

• QCA9890 Version 2 found in A family of Dual band/Single band/high powered/extended temp radio modules from Doodle Labs

• QCA9882-BR4A found in SparkLan WPEQ-256ACN

• QCA9882-BR4A found in SparkLan WPEQ-257ACN

• QCA9892-BR4B found in SparkLan WPEQ-256ACNI

• QCA9892 Version 2 found in A family of Dual band/Single band/high powered/extended temp radio modules from Doodle Labs

• QCA9882 Version 2 found in Compex WLE600V5-27 11ac 2x2 miniPCIe Wireless Module

• QCA9880 Version 2 found in SparkLan WPEA-352ACNRB - supports 802.11ac radio

• QCA9880 Version 2 found in Compex acWave: WPJ344 - supports 802.11ac radio

• QCA9880 Version 2 found in Compex WLE900V5-18

• QCA9880 Version 2 found in Compex WLE900V5-27

• QCA9880 Version 2 found in Compex WLE900VX [1]

• QCA9880 Version 2 found in Unex: DAXA-O1

• QCA9882 Version 2 found in Compex WLE600V5-18

• QCA9882 Version 2 found in Compex WLE600V5-27

• QCA9882 Version 2 found in Compex WLE600VX

• QCA9880 Version 2 found in TP-Link : Archer C7 v2.x

• QCA9880 Version 2 found in TP-Link : WDR7500 v3.0

• QCA9880/QCA9890 found in jjPlus JWX6052 and jjPlus JWX6053

• QCA9882/QCA9892 found in jjPlus JWX6055 and jjPlus JWX6056

• QCA9880/QCA9890 found in EmWicon JWX6052(3x3) and EmWicon JWX6053(3x3 Industrial Grade)

• QCA9882/QCA9892 found in EmWicon JWX6055(2x2) and EmWicon JWX6056(2x2 Industrial Grade)

• QCA9377-5 found in SparkLan WNFQ-158ACN(BT)

• QCA9886 found in WLE650V5-18

• QCA6174A-5 found in AIRETOS E61 Class by VOXMICRO MPNs: AFX-QCA6174

• QCA6174 / QCA6174A found in Compex WLT674 and Bointec DPE109A

• QCA6174A-5 found in SparkLan WPEA-251ACNI(BT)

• QCA6174A-5 found in SparkLan WPEQ-261ACNI(BT)

• QCA6174A-5 found in SparkLan WPEQ-262ACNI(BT) high power

• QCA6174A-5 found in SparkLan WPEQ-261ACNI(BT)

• QCA6174A-5 found in SparkLan WNFQ-261ACNI(BT)

• QCA6174A-5 found in SparkLan WNFQ-262ACNI(BT)

• QCA6174A-5 found in SparkLan WNFQ-258ACN(BT)

• QCA6174A-5 found in SparkLan WNSQ-261ACN(BT)

• QCA6174A-5 found in SparkLan WPEQ-261ACN(BT)

• QCA6174A-5 found in jjPlus JWX6058 and jjPlus JWW6051

• QCA6174A-5 found in EmWicon JWX6058(mPCIe) and EmWicon JWW6051(M.2)

• QCA9984 /QCA9994 found in Compex WLE1216V5-20

• QCA9984 /QCA9994 found in EmWicon WMX6401/WMX6402

• IPQ4018 found in 8Devices Jalapeno module

[1] The Compex WLE900VX card enumerates as PCI device on some PCs but not for some other PCs. The reason could possibly be PC hardware or kernel version. Detailed info: https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=84821. The Chaos Calmer wpj344a_150827_vCC.img provided by http://www.compex.com.sg/downloads/ can detect and enable the WLE900VX card with ath10k.

Not supported

ath10k does NOT support older QCA98xx hw1.0 chips found, for example, from these devices:

• QCA9880 Version 1 found in TP-Link WDR-7500 v2 and Archer C7 v1.x

Any SDIO or USB devices are not supported, but work is ongoing to add that.

Known bugs/limitations

• firmware does not support association to the same AP from different virtual STA interfaces (driver prints “ath10k: Failed to add peer XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX for VDEV: X” in that case)

• packet injection isn’t supported yet

• applying ath9k regulatory domain hack patch from OpenWRT causes firmware crash (reason: regulatory hint function is never called and ath10k never sends scan channel list to the firmware which in turn causes firmware to crash on scan)

• tx rate is reported as 6mbps due to firmware limitation (no tx rate information in tx completions); instead see /sys/kernel/debug/ieee80211/phyX/ath10k/fw_stats

• WEP doesn’t work with AP_VLANs - frames are sent unencrypted (observed on: 999.999.0.636, 10.2.4.20-1, 10.1.467.2-1)

• TX speeds are extremely poor on certain chips (QCA6174 is one). A patch solves the issue in most cases (source)