GL-RM1 USB WiFi dongle howto guide + scripts

[marcoc]

Hi all,

I've been trying to get a USB WiFi dongle (MT7601U, 148f:7601) working on my GL-RM1 following iwilly's excellent guide here:

GL-RM1 USB WiFi dongle howto guide + scripts

Hello everyone, I managed to successfully launch Wi-Fi via USB adapter based on the MT7601U chipset, below is the instruction on how to do it. !!! Use at your own risk, I am not responsible if something goes wrong !!! 1. How to install: 1.1. Go to "Toolbox" tab and access the internal shell using the "Access Terminal" button on the GL-RM1 Web page (or use SSH) 1.2. Use your PC to copy the glrm1-wifi.tar file (from the attachment below) to a USB flash drive and connect it to your GL-RM1. 1.…

The guide works on V1.5.0, but I'm on the current 1.8.1-release1 build and the WiFi subsystem appears to be entirely absent from the kernel. I've spent some time investigating and want to share findings, since they may be useful both for other users hitting this and for the GL.iNet team considering whether to enable WiFi in the 1.8.x line.

Build info

NAME=Buildroot
VERSION=rm10rc-1.8.1-release1-11-g7ecf0591b1
Kernel: 6.1.141 #2 SMP aarch64
RK_BUILD_INFO: rockchip_rv1126bp_gl_rm1_poe

What's present

• USB enumeration works correctly: lsusb shows Bus 001 Device 002: ID 148f:7601 MediaTek 802.11 n WLAN
• Firmware blobs are shipped: /lib/firmware/mt7601u.bin and /lib/firmware/ath9k_htc/ are both present
• Userspace libraries that wpa_supplicant would need are present: OpenSSL 3 (libssl.so.3, libcrypto.so.3) and libnl-3 (libnl-3.so.200.26.0, plus genl/route/nf/xfrm/idiag variants)
• Plenty of USB drivers in the kernel: btusb, usbhid, uvcvideo, cdc_acm, snd-usb-*, usb-storage, multiple USB-serial drivers

What's missing

• No 802.11 kernel modules anywhere on disk. find / -name '*.ko' returns only video/codec modules (kmpp, rockit, gl-hw-info).
• lsmod | grep -iE '7601|cfg80211|mac80211' returns nothing
• /proc/kallsyms contains zero matching symbols for cfg80211, ieee80211, or mt7601 — indicating the wireless stack is not built into vmlinux either
• /proc/config.gz is not exposed (CONFIG_IKCONFIG_PROC not set), so the kernel config can't be read directly
• No wpa_supplicant or wpa_cli binaries on the system, and Buildroot does not provide a package manager to install them
• Plugging in the MT7601U dongle results in USB enumeration but no driver bind: /sys/bus/usb/devices/1-1/driver is empty, and /sys/bus/usb/drivers/ lists every USB class except 802.11
• ifconfig wlan0 up returns SIOCSIFFLAGS: No such device because cfg80211 isn't loaded to register the wiphy

Conclusion
The 1.8.1 kernel was compiled without CONFIG_WIRELESS / CONFIG_CFG80211 / CONFIG_MAC80211 / chipset drivers. The MT7601U firmware blob is staged at /lib/firmware/mt7601u.bin, suggesting WiFi support was at some point planned or partially considered, but the kernel side is not there. There is no userspace fix — dropping in wpa_supplicant cannot help when the kernel has no nl80211 interface to talk to, and out-of-tree modules cannot be loaded against a kernel built without the wireless subsystem.

Request
Would the GL.iNet team consider enabling the following in a future 1.8.x build for the RM1?

• CONFIG_CFG80211=m (or =y)
• CONFIG_MAC80211=m (or =y)
• CONFIG_MT7601U=m (and ideally CONFIG_ATH9K_HTC=m, given ath9k_htc firmware is also staged)

The firmware blobs are already shipped, the userspace SSL/netlink libraries are already present, and there is clear demand from the community (this thread, plus the "Please include some wifi drivers in the Comet builds!" thread). For users with the RM1 deployed in locations without convenient Ethernet, this would be a substantial improvement.

In the meantime, the only working path I've found is downgrading to V1.5.0 release1, which loses other 1.8.x improvements. Would appreciate any guidance on whether WiFi support is on the 1.8.x roadmap, or whether building a custom firmware from source is the only forward path.

Thanks!
Marco