ath11k: QCN9074: Incompatible board-2.bin for 6GHz

[Sven Eckelmann]

Hi,

I wanted to use an 8devices Pineapple6 device on x86. But the board_id of this 
card came always in as 255 (and not as a valid 6GHz capable board_id). I've 
contacted the support and they told me to use the QCA BDF with the board_id 
162 for this card. So I've downloaded 
2.4.0.1.r1/WLAN.HK.2.4.0.1.r1-00019-QCAHKSWPL_SILICONZ-1/board-2.bin [1], 
extracted it and moved it to /lib/firmware/ath11k/QCN9074/hw1.0/board.bin. 
I've also added the (not yet upstreamed) 6GHz regulatory support to 
ath11k [2]. But to my surprise, the WMI_REG_CHAN_LIST_CC_EXT_EVENTID never 
came in. Instead, a WMI_REG_CHAN_LIST_CC_EVENTID was received. This resulted 
in a output like:

    ath11k_pci 0000:01:00.0: No reg rules available
    ath11k_pci 0000:01:00.0: failed to extract regulatory info from received event
    ------------[ cut here ]------------
    WARNING: at drivers/net/wireless/ath/ath11k/wmi.c:7255

The warning from ath11k (which breaks the device btw) is from

    if (!(reg_info->num_2g_reg_rules + reg_info->num_5g_reg_rules)) {
    	ath11k_warn(ab, "No regulatory rules available in the event info\n");
    	kfree(tb);
    	return -EINVAL;
    }

I found out that this is actually caused by the BDF. If I've extracted the 
board.bin from the TIP board-2.bin [3] (which seems to come from the QCA 
ATH.11.4 CS release). With this version, it seems to work fine. I haven't yet 
found out what the relevant change is - but if someone has hints then this 
would could be interesting for other devices which should be added to things 
like OpenWrt.

Maybe Kalle Valo could upload a new board-2.bin for QCN9074 hw1.0 which has
the problem solved.


And it would also be nice when the authors of the 
WMI_REG_CHAN_LIST_CC_EXT_EVENTID support would send this stuff upstream. I 
just find it interesting that the assoc patches are already part of
upstream [4,5] - even when the reg support is still missing. There are a lot 
more patches in there which are missing upstream.

Kind regards,
	Sven

[1] https://github.com/kvalo/ath11k-firmware/commit/ae4f4f64ed14097dc24a8d686fa60e932cba4868/QCN9074/hw1.0/testing/2.4.0.1.r1/WLAN.HK.2.4.0.1.r1-00019-QCAHKSWPL_SILICONZ-1/board-2.bin
[2] https://source.codeaurora.org/quic/qsdk/oss/system/feeds/wlan-open/tree/mac80211/patches/302-ath11k-Add-support-to-parse-new-wmi-event-for-6G-reg.patch?h=NHSS.QSDK.11.4.0.5
[3] https://github.com/Telecominfraproject/wlan-ap/blob/main/feeds/wifi-ax/ath11k-firmware/files/QCN9000/board-2.bin
[4] https://source.codeaurora.org/quic/qsdk/oss/system/feeds/wlan-open/tree/mac80211/patches/206-ath11k-add-6ghz-params-in-peer-assoc-cmd.patch?h=NHSS.QSDK.11.4.0.5
[5] https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/?id=c3a7d7eb4c9853bb457b792cef42ddd4a029a914
[6] https://source.codeaurora.org/quic/qsdk/oss/system/feeds/wlan-open/tree/mac80211/patches/302-ath11k-add-177-channel-to-5G-channel-list.patch?h=NHSS.QSDK.11.4.0.5