GENERICSD snapshot on a BBB has issues with loading the if_rtwn_usb module

[Emmanuel Vadot]

On Sun, 17 Jan 2021 18:49:01 -0300
"Dr. Rolf Jansen" <freebsd-rj at obsigna.com> wrote:

> > Am 17.01.2021 um 13:45 schrieb Emmanuel Vadot <manu at bidouilliste.com>:
> > 
> > On Sat, 16 Jan 2021 15:11:28 -0300
> > "Dr. Rolf Jansen" <freebsd-rj at obsigna.com <mailto:freebsd-rj at obsigna.com>> wrote:
> > 
> >>> Am 16.01.2021 um 14:48 schrieb Emmanuel Vadot <manu at bidouilliste.com <mailto:manu at bidouilliste.com>>:
> >>> 
> >>> On Sat, 16 Jan 2021 18:43:33 +0100
> >>> Emmanuel Vadot <manu at bidouilliste.com <mailto:manu at bidouilliste.com> <mailto:manu at bidouilliste.com <mailto:manu at bidouilliste.com>>> wrote:
> >>> 
> >>>> On Sat, 16 Jan 2021 14:08:58 -0300
> >>>> "Dr. Rolf Jansen" <freebsd-rj at obsigna.com> wrote:
> >>>> 
> >>>>> I updated one of my BBB from an older 13-CURRENT (July 2020) to the latest 13-ALPHA1 snapshot from Jan, 14th ? GENERICSD-20210114-7ae27c2d6c4-255938.
> >>>>> 
> >>>>> I had successfully employed an USB-WLAN dongle based on the RTL8188eu chipset. I only added the following into /boot/loader.conf:
> >>>>> 
> >>>>> if_rtwn_usb_load="YES"
> >>>>> 
> >>>>> By that all dependend modules were loaded automatically in a snap. With ALPHA1 this doesn?t work anymore. After hours of troubleshooting, I got it working by adding the following into /etc/rc.conf:
> >>>>> 
> >>>>> kld_list="if_rtwn_usb"
> >>>>> 
> >>>>> The "Loading kernel modules:" takes apprx. 4 seconds, however, then the USB-WLAN device is enumerated correctly and it is ready to use. This makes me think that this uncommon huge delay is the culprit. I checked this with some snapshot thats I had installed already. The issue seems to have been introduced together with the switch to GENERICSD. A GENERICSD 13-CURRENT from end of December showed this issue already, while a BBB-specific snapshot (from November 2020) that I had installed on another BBB works as before by loading the modules in /boot/loader.conf.
> >>>>> 
> >>>>> I don't mind to load the modules by the way of the kld_list directive in /etc/rc.conf. However, the unusual long duration of loading the module and its dependencies might be an indication for a more fundamental issue.
> >>>>> 
> >>>>> Please feel free to ask me for doing more tests. 
> >>>>> 
> >>>>> Best regards
> >>>>> 
> >>>>> Rolf
> >>>> 
> >>>> I can reproduce that on my netbooted BBB.
> >>>> The module is correctly loaded :
> >>>> 
> >>>> Loading
> >>>> kernel... /boot/kernel/kernel text=0x1b4 text=0x68d638 text=0x1c84f0
> >>>> data=0xb4070 data=0x0+0x258000 syms=[0x4+0xa5ab0+0x4+0x119fd4] Loading
> >>>> configured modules... /boot/kernel/if_rtwn_usb.ko text=0xb960
> >>>> text=0x62c0 data=0x2cc+0x3b syms=[0x4+0x3570+0x4+0x293f] /boot/entropy
> >>>> size=0x1000 /etc/hostid
> >>>> size=0x25 Using DTB provided by EFI at
> >>>> 0x87f00000. Kernel entry at
> >>>> 0x96e00200... Kernel args:
> >>>> (null)                                                                                                 
> >>>> ---<<BOOT>>---                                                                                         
> >>>> 
> >>>> But it isn't loaded anymore after booting :
> >>>> root at bbb:~ # kldstat 
> >>>> Id Refs Address        Size Name
> >>>> 1    1 0xc0000000   d23a8c kernel
> >>>> 
> >>>> I don't think it has to do with the switch to GENERICSD, there is (at
> >>>> least shouldn't be) any difference between the old BBB image and the
> >>>> GENERICSD one.
> >> 
> >> Yes, this might well be a coincidence. I do neither have the last BBB specific snapshot nor the first GENERICSD one for testing these against each other.
> >> 
> >>> Just did a test on my OrangePi One (Allwinner H3 armv7 with 512MB of
> >>> RAM) and this is the same.
> >>> The problem seems to be module dependancy, loader only loads
> >>> if_rtnw_usb but doing a kldload also brings wlan.ko and rtwn.ko
> >> 
> >> I can confirm this. And in addition loading the if_rtwn_usb.ko module and its dependcies manually also takes now significantly longer compared to a manual load on the BBB specific 13-CURRENT from November. Perhaps something has been changed in the dependency resolver.
> >> 
> > 
> > Fixed in 0f2434ea000e
> > 
> > Thanks for reporting.
> 
> Unfortunately, this did not resolve the issue. I updated my working copy with git pull and verified that your changes made it into my source tree. Then I built a new kernel and replaced the original ALPHA1 kernel from 2021-01-14 by this new one. The rtwn-modules are still not loaded by the if_rtwn_usb_load="YES" directive in /boot/loader.conf.
> 
> Best regards
> 
> Rolf

 You need to update loader.efi on the ESP partition.

-- 
Emmanuel Vadot <manu at bidouilliste.com> <manu at freebsd.org>