Running throughput tests

Sat Apr 19 12:48:55 PDT 2014

Hi Kalle,

I also have a stable 500Mbps ++ link now :-) with peaks up to 520Mbps 
(measured with iperf UDP).
I've  made a second AP and STA with the WLE900VX cards I've exchanged 
with Ben (Thanks again!). Both have Ubuntu 12.04, ath10k from backports 
release and modified  regulatory.bin.
The AP has now 10.1.467.2-1 like you suggested and STA has still 
999.999.0.636.
In combination with, the lowest txPower and  the dipole antennas 
configured like this
"\    | /"  (same plane)
we measured 500Mbps++ in a anechoic chamber (ranged AP<->STA 20cm .. 270cm).
We observed the same speeds  at our offices now and even when we replace 
the  antennas with 1:1 coax + 20db attenuation we 've got 500Mbps++.

Sometime It can take up to 20 seconds before the link maximises, but 
once it gets there it is extremely stable :-).
I will take a look at the ath10k_core.ko debug_mask and HTT statistics 
first to see what happens.
Should I still be able to build a sniffer with the interface in monitor 
mode in combination Wireshark?

Thanks a lot,

Bart

p.s. The configuration with the sparkLAN WPEA-351AC cards still doesn't 
give the same results. Probably my bad, I will double check it again.

On 04/08/2014 02:42 PM, Kalle Valo wrote:
> Hi Bart,
>
> Bart Jooris <bart.jooris at gmail.com> writes:
>
>> On 03/28/2014 04:31 PM, Kalle Valo wrote:
>>
>>> You are providing very little information which makes it difficult to
>>> help. For starters:
>>>
>>> * What firmware version?
>> I've cloned 'recently' https://github.com/kvalo/ath10k-firmware/
>>
>> tree -D /lib/firmware/ath10k/QCA988X
>> └── [Mar 29 10:46] hw2.0
>> ├── [Feb 26 19:39] board.bin
>> ├── [Feb 26 19:39] firmware-2.bin
>> └── [Feb 26 19:39] otp.bin
> That doesn't tell anything about the firmware version. Please read this:
>
> http://wireless.kernel.org/en/users/Drivers/ath10k/debug#Firmware_version
>
> You should use 10.1.467.2-1 and see this in dmesg:
>
> [ 2651.506691] ath10k: qca988x hw2.0 (0x4100016c, 0x043202ff) fw 10.1.467.2-1 api 2 htt 2.1
>
> (Please note that the info print was changed few weeks back, so it won't
> look exactly same on 3.13.)
>
>>> * What version of ath10k are you using?
>> I compiled kernel 3.13.5.
> Ok, that's a relatively old as the version of ath10k in that release is
> from last October. We have had quite a few optimisations and fixes since
> then but you should still easily get 400 Mbps, especially on your fast
> x86 cpus.
>
>>> * Are you sure that the host is not limiting the throughput in any way?
>>>     Try to disable _all_ kernel debug options.
>> /var/log/syslog and dmesg doesn't to be packed with messages related
>> to the throughput test. I don't think to have seen the CPU being
>> overloaded during the test.
>> I'm planning to go back to the office tomorrow to verify this.
>>
>> Further I have these in my kernel config
>> CONFIG_ATH10K=m
>> CONFIG_ATH10K_PCI=m
>> # CONFIG_ATH10K_DEBUG is not set
>> CONFIG_ATH10K_DEBUGFS=y
>> CONFIG_ATH10K_TRACING=y
>>
>> I will disable the last two too.
> Ok, this looks good. But just to confirm, can you send the full kernel
> config file as well?
>
>>> * Also describe your test setup in detail.
>>>
>> Common for AP and STA:
>>
>> -DSS-1300 with i5-2540M CPU @ 2.60GHz - 8GB RAM - SSD 64GB.
>> -1 sparkLAN WPEA-351AC card with QCA9880 chip set and 3 dual band antenna's.
>> -Kernel 3.13.5 containing the ath10k modules
>> -firmwares cloned end of February
>> -iperf in udp mode used for the  throughput test
>>
>> AP only:
>> -ubuntu 12.04 LTS as crda wouldn't build on ubuntu 13.10 (libgcrypt issue).
>> -hostapd v2.2-devel
>> -modified regulatory database and crda build
>> -your Full_hostapd_configuration + channel=36 and vht_oper_centr_freq_seg0_idx=42
>>
>> STA only:
>> -ubuntu 13.10
>> -nmcli is used to connect to the AP
>>
>> Distance between AP and STA: 60 cm. Antenna's are now directed
>> orthogonal per device, antennaX (X=1..3) on both devices are pointing
>> in the same direction. Although I've played a lot with the antenna's
>> directions already and I can't remember one run where it had a lot of
>> impact...
>>
>> The spectrum analyser measured a band of almost 80MHz being used.
> This looks good as well. Is it possible for you take debug logs? First
> enable these ath10k options:
>
> CONFIG_ATH10K_DEBUG=y
> CONFIG_ATH10K_DEBUGFS=y
> CONFIG_ATH10K_TRACING=y
>
> And start ath10k with debug mask 0x432, which prints info related to
> firmware configuration:
>
> modprobe ath10k_core.ko debug_mask=0x432
>
> Also start hostapd with -dddt and connect the ath10k STA to the AP. Then
> send here both the full dmesg output, preferably starting from kernel
> boot, and hostapd debug logs here from the AP. No need to run any
> throughput tests in this case, I just want to see how we configure the
> firmware when the STA associates.
>
> And even better if you could use trace-cmd, we get more logs that way:
>
> http://wireless.kernel.org/en/users/Drivers/ath10k/debug#Tracing
>

-- 
Bart Jooris
Department of Information Technology
Internet Based Communication Networks and Services (IBCN)
Ghent University - iMinds
Gaston Crommenlaan 8 (Bus 201), B-9050 Gent, Belgium
E-mail: bart.jooris at intec.UGent.be
M: +32 474 59 53 42
Tel. +32 9 33 14900
Fax +32 9 33 14899