ath12k: recommended regulatory country source for embedded AP products?

[vitor]

Hi,


On Wed, 2026-07-29 at 10:29 +0100, Vitor Soares wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> I'm integrationg the Silex SX-PCEBE module (Qualcomm WCN7850, ath12k) on the
> ARM-based Toradex Aquila SoM family, using a recent mainline kernel (7.2-rc).
> 
> Hardware/firmware: wcn7850 hw2.0 (PCI),
> WLAN.HMT.1.1.c7-00108-QCAHMTSWPL_V1.0_V2.0_SILICONZ_UPSTREAM-3
> (fw_version 0x1103006c).
> 
> I'm trying to understand the intended way to set the regulatory country for
> ath12k on embedded products where the country is configured by the integrator of
> our SoM or at deployment time by the end user.
> 
> My current understanding is that ath12k registers the wiphy as self-managed, but
> userspace regulatory hints, e.g. "iw reg", are ignored in ath12k_reg_notifier()
> unless CONFIG_ATH_REG_DYNAMIC_USER_REG_HINTS=y, which in turn depends on
> CONFIG_CFG80211_CERTIFICATION_ONUS.
> 
> The SMBIOS coounty-code path, looks intended for fixed regional SKUs, However,
> it is not available on our ARM platform.
> 
> So, I have 2 related questions:
> 
> 1 - Is the expected ath12k model for this type of product to enable 
> ATH_REG_DYNAMIC_USER_REG_HINTS and use userspace regulatory hints before
> starting hostapd, with the regulatory responsibility on the product/integrator?
> 
> 
> Or is there another mechanism you would recomment for this use case?
> 
> 2 - Since ath12k is a self-managed regulatory device and the firmware owns and
> enforces the regulatory database, is the CFG80211_CERTIFICATION_ONUS gate
> intended to apply to this case as well?
> 
> In other words, should a userspace-selected country for a self-managed ath12k
> device be treated the same as dynamic user regulatory hints for non-self-managed
> devices, or is this dependency inherited from the common ath regulatory model?
> 
> Without a country, the ath12k falls back to world "00", where 5 GHz AP operation
> is blocked by NO_IR.
> 
> Thanks,
> Vitor Soares


A follow-up with some new information, as this now blocks 5/6 GHz AP
support for our customers.

I checked the Qualcomm Linux kernel (linux-qcom), used by meta-qcom:
it enables both CONFIG_CFG80211_CERTIFICATION_ONUS and
CONFIG_ATH_REG_DYNAMIC_USER_REG_HINTS by default for all arm64
machines, in arch/arm64/configs/qcom.config.

General-purpose distributions, on the other hand, keep
CFG80211_CERTIFICATION_ONUS disabled. Some of our customers run Debian
on our modules: with the Debian kernel, the WCN7850 stays in the world
domain whatever country is configured in hostapd, so it cannot start
an AP on 5 GHz or 6 GHz.

I understand that ATH_REG_DYNAMIC_USER_REG_HINTS was added in commit
94e7876daa43 ("ath: add support for proper dynamic regulatory hints")
to keep user regulatory changes behind CFG80211_CERTIFICATION_ONUS.

Would it be acceptable to update the Kconfig dependency or help text,
or to add an ath12k specific option, so that distributions can enable
it?

Alternatively, Luis sent a patch for the same problem that allows user
hints only while the firmware reports the world domain:
https://lore.kernel.org/all/20260228201023.116947-1-lxluxo23@gmail.com/

Either approach would unblock us. Any guidance on how to proceed
would be much appreciated, and I'm happy to help with the patch.

Thanks,
Vitor