FriendlyElec R5C RTL8822CE WiFi chip does not support 5GHz AP mode.
Both wlan0 and wlan1 locked to 2.4GHz-only (mode 2) by firmware/driver.
Tested:
- Channel 149 (5GHz): fails with 'mode (2) not found'
- Channel 36 (5GHz): fails with 'mode (2) not found'
- Both wlan0 and wlan1: same limitation
- Regulatory domain persistence doesn't change mode
Solution: Configure hostapd for 2.4GHz (hw_mode=g, channel 6)
- VanLink2 now on wlan1, 2.4GHz channel 6
- VanLink2-2G still on wlan2, 2.4GHz channel 6
- Both working stably
R5C not recommended for 5GHz AP use; consider Pi 5 or other board
if 5GHz dual-band AP is required.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Haiku 4.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Problem: RTL8822CE driver caused kernel panic (watchdog hard LOCKUP) when
hostapd tried to use VHT 802.11ac with 80MHz channel width on channel 149.
Root cause: Driver/firmware instability with VHT capabilities on this chip.
Solution: Disable VHT, use HT40+ (802.11n) only.
- Removes ieee80211ac (VHT), ieee80211ax (802.11ax), and 80MHz channel width
- Keeps HT40+ with Short GI for reasonable performance
- Stable operation on channel 149 (5745 MHz)
This allows the 5GHz AP to start and beacon without lockup on R5C hardware.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Haiku 4.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Problem: R5C spontaneously rebooted due to hardware watchdog timeout
Cause 1: van-gps-owntracks in infinite restart loop (MQTT connect failed)
Cause 2: mosquitto only listening on localhost, so clients couldn't connect
Solution:
- Add restart limits to van-gps-owntracks and van-li3-battery services
(max 3 restarts per 5 minutes prevents infinite restart loops)
- Configure mosquitto to listen on all interfaces (0.0.0.0:1883)
- Deploy mosquitto listener config via deploy.sh
- Restart mosquitto during deploy to apply config changes
This prevents the system from hitting the 11-second hardware watchdog timeout
when services crash and systemd auto-restarts them indefinitely.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Haiku 4.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
- deploy.conf templates interface names/USB IDs (@TOKEN@ substitution) across
ap/* configs so a dongle swap only needs deploy.conf edited, not the repo
configs themselves; drops ap/rtw88.conf (old 2.4GHz dongle retired for the
DWA-171, which needs no such power-save override).
- failover/van-wlan-watchdog: recovers wlan0 from NM's post-boot no-secrets
wedge (a boot-time supplicant race, not a real credential failure).
- deploy.sh: warn() collects dependency/config warnings (missing python3-gps,
python3-paho-mqtt, mobile-broadband-provider-info, grpcurl, gpsd; netplan
drift; unedited example configs) into /var/lib/vanlink/deploy-warnings.json,
rendered as an amber Cockpit card so they're visible without reading deploy
output.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Starlink's USB ethernet shares a hub with the rtw89 Wi-Fi adapter; when Starlink
flaps, the hub re-enumerates and tears the radio down, so hostapd loses its
interface and exits. Two stock defaults left the AP dark: Restart=on-failure
misses clean exits, and the 5-in-10s start limit makes systemd give up during a
re-enumeration storm.
- hostapd-restart.conf drop-in: Restart=always, RestartSec=5, StartLimitIntervalSec=0
so hostapd retries forever until the interface returns (verified: SIGKILL -> back
to state=ENABLED in ~7s).
- van-ap-watchdog daemon: backstop for the case systemd can't see (hostapd running
but radio wedged). Polls hostapd_cli status; restarts hostapd if the iface is
present but not ENABLED, waits it out if the iface is mid-re-enumeration.
- hostapd.conf: add ctrl_interface so the watchdog can read the real AP state.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Add a wired LAN port on the same 10.42.0.0/24 segment as VanLink WiFi by
bridging both into br0. The gateway IP, dnsmasq, and NAT move off the wlan name
onto br0; hostapd (not networkd) enslaves the wlan via bridge=br0, since a
station-mode wlan can't be bridged until it's in AP mode. NM leaves the wired
port unmanaged so networkd owns it. Failover/Starlink (enxd8ec5eeb3512)
untouched.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>
andreasandClaude Haiku 4.5
Andreas WredeandClaude Sonnet 5