Raspberry Pi ad-hoc networking - linux

Question

I want to try some networking projects with Raspberry Pis, and I need to just send packets between a pair of pis. I would be happy as a first step just being able to ping between to Raspberry Pis in ad-hoc mode. I have not successfully done this despite looking at several tutorials and examples online.
I have 2x Raspberry Pis with the Debian Wheezy OS installed. I am using the following USB adapter which I installed firmware for on both pis and tested that they work by connected them in managed mode to a router:
Bus 001 Device 004: ID 050d:945a Belkin Components F7D1101 v1 Basic Wireless Adapter [Realtek RTL8188SU]
Here are is some printouts about the networking information:
/etc/network/interfaces at each pi:
pi1#raspberrypi ~ $ cat /etc/network/interfaces
auto lo
iface lo inet loopback
iface eth0 inet dhcp
auto wlan0
iface wlan0 inet manual
address 192.168.2.1
netmask 255.255.255.0
wireless-channel 4
wireless-essid pi-ad-hoc
wireless-mode ad-hoc
pi2#raspberrypi ~ $ cat /etc/network/interfaces
auto lo
iface lo inet loopback
iface eth0 inet dhcp
auto wlan0
iface wlan0 inet manual
address 192.168.2.2
netmask 255.255.255.0
wireless-channel 4
wireless-essid pi-ad-hoc
wireless-mode ad-hoc
ifconfig at each pi:
pi1#raspberrypi ~ $ ifconfig wlan0
wlan0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr ec:1a:59:46:8e:5a
inet addr:192.168.2.1 Bcast:192.168.2.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:26 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:0 (0.0 B) TX bytes:0 (0.0 B)
pi2#raspberrypi ~ $ ifconfig wlan0
wlan0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr ec:1a:59:46:59:0a
inet addr:192.168.2.2 Bcast:192.168.2.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:6 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:0 (0.0 B) TX bytes:0 (0.0 B)
iwconfig at each pi:
pi1#raspberrypi ~ $ iwconfig wlan0
wlan0 IEEE 802.11bg ESSID:"pi-ad-hoc" Nickname:"rtl_wifi"
Mode:Ad-Hoc Cell: 02:11:87:FA:4A:02 Bit Rate:54 Mb/s
Sensitivity:0/0
Retry:off RTS thr:off Fragment thr:off
Power Management:off
Link Quality:0 Signal level:0 Noise level:0
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0
pi2#raspberrypi ~ $ iwconfig wlan0
wlan0 IEEE 802.11bg ESSID:"pi-ad-hoc" Nickname:"rtl_wifi"
Mode:Ad-Hoc Cell: 02:11:87:C4:F2:01 Bit Rate:54 Mb/s
Sensitivity:0/0
Retry:off RTS thr:off Fragment thr:off
Power Management:off
Link Quality:0 Signal level:0 Noise level:0
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0
route at one pi (identical on other pi):
pi1#raspberrypi ~ $ route
Kernel IP routing table
Destination Gateway Genmask Flags Metric Ref Use Iface
default 192.168.1.1 0.0.0.0 UG 0 0 0 eth0
192.168.1.0 * 255.255.255.0 U 0 0 0 eth0
192.168.2.0 * 255.255.255.0 U 0 0 0 wlan0
iwlist scan at each pi:
pi1#raspberrypi ~ $ sudo iwlist wlan0 scan
wlan0 Scan completed :
Cell 01 - Address: 02:11:87:FA:4A:02
ESSID:"pi-ad-hoc"
Protocol:IEEE 802.11bg
Mode:Ad-Hoc
Frequency:2.427 GHz (Channel 4)
Encryption key:off
Bit Rates:1 Mb/s; 2 Mb/s; 5.5 Mb/s; 11 Mb/s; 6 Mb/s
9 Mb/s; 12 Mb/s; 18 Mb/s; 24 Mb/s; 36 Mb/s
48 Mb/s; 54 Mb/s
Quality:0 Signal level:0 Noise level:0
Cell 04 - Address: 02:11:87:C4:F2:01
ESSID:"pi-ad-hoc"
Protocol:IEEE 802.11bg
Mode:Ad-Hoc
Frequency:2.427 GHz (Channel 4)
Encryption key:off
Bit Rates:1 Mb/s; 2 Mb/s; 5.5 Mb/s; 11 Mb/s; 6 Mb/s
9 Mb/s; 12 Mb/s; 18 Mb/s; 24 Mb/s; 36 Mb/s
48 Mb/s; 54 Mb/s
Signal level=100/100
pi2#raspberrypi ~ $ sudo iwlist wlan0 scan
wlan0 Scan completed :
Cell 01 - Address: 02:11:87:C4:F2:01
ESSID:"pi-ad-hoc"
Protocol:IEEE 802.11bg
Mode:Ad-Hoc
Frequency:2.427 GHz (Channel 4)
Encryption key:off
Bit Rates:1 Mb/s; 2 Mb/s; 5.5 Mb/s; 11 Mb/s; 6 Mb/s
9 Mb/s; 12 Mb/s; 18 Mb/s; 24 Mb/s; 36 Mb/s
48 Mb/s; 54 Mb/s
Quality:0 Signal level:0 Noise level:0
Cell 02 - Address: 02:11:87:FA:4A:02
ESSID:"pi-ad-hoc"
Protocol:IEEE 802.11bg
Mode:Ad-Hoc
Frequency:2.427 GHz (Channel 4)
Encryption key:off
Bit Rates:1 Mb/s; 2 Mb/s; 5.5 Mb/s; 11 Mb/s; 6 Mb/s
9 Mb/s; 12 Mb/s; 18 Mb/s; 24 Mb/s; 36 Mb/s
48 Mb/s; 54 Mb/s
Signal level=100/100
Ping does not work, and no networking seems to work between them. From iwconfig, you can see that they each have a different "Cell" address (not the same Cell as in the iwlist scan) which is the pseudo-base station ID that is used to define an ad-hoc network (my best understanding from what I've read). Also, from the iwlist, each pi can see their own plus the other pi's ad-hoc network. I assume they need to select the same Cell id to communicate, and I'm unsure how to get them to do this automatically. I tried statically forcing these to be the same with the following command at each pi which did not change the cell id and therefore did not work:
sudo iwconfig wlan0 ap (some address)
I also tried a solution which uses ap_scan=2 in the wpa_supplicant config which did not seem to help.
Anyone have any idea what I've done wrong?
Thanks,
Andy.

Answer 1

After some searching I found that the Belkin USB adapter I was using apparently didn't have ad-hoc mode support with the linux drivers. I bought some other wireless USB adapaters that worked great "Edimax EW-7811Un 150 Mbps Wireless 11n Nano Size USB Adapter". They are cheaper, smaller, and they worked in ad-hoc mode without even needing to worry drivers. The details I put for troubleshooting can be used as a guide if you are also wanting to do ad-hoc raspberry PI projects.

Answer 2

This works for me in /etc/network/interfaces:
auto wlan0
allow-hotplug wlan0
iface wlan0 inet static
wireless-essid "MYPINET"
wireless-channel 3
wireless-mode ad-hoc
wireless-ap 11:5F:02:38:5C:45
address 192.168.10.1
netmask 255.255.255.0
The essid, channel and ap can be any valid value (same on all your Pi's). Make sure to assign different addresses on the same subnet to your different Pi's and you should be fine. The ap defines the cell ID that was mentioned above. FWIW I am using a TP-link WN725N. It has the RTL8188CUS chipset and works fine out of the box even though dmesg indicates the Pi is treating it as an RTL8192.

Answer 3

I was unsuccessful with any adapter using the RTL8188CUS chipset. Luckily, I had a number of Ralink RT5370 dongles (from this kit) that support the nl80211 interface and ad-hoc mode.
My solution involves using wpa_supplicant and is configured with 2 files. Ensure that the nl80211 driver is installed:
sudo apt-get install libnl1
Next, create the following wpa_supplicant configuration file called /etc/wpa_supplicant-adhoc.conf on each Pi:
ctrl_interface=DIR=/run/wpa_supplicant GROUP=netdev
update_config=1
ap_scan=2
network={
ssid="pihoc_wpa"
mode=1
frequency=2462
proto=WPA
key_mgmt=WPA-NONE
pairwise=NONE
group=TKIP
psk="password"
}
where you can choose the ssid, frequency (look here for valid values), and psk. Make sure that you are part of the user group net-dev using the command
getent group netdev
and if not, you can add yourself using
sudo usermod -a -G netdev userName
Next, add the following block to the /etc/network/interfaces file on each Pi:
auto wlan0
allow-hotplug wlan0
iface wlan0 inet static
address 10.10.2.1
netmask 255.255.255.0
pre-up wpa_supplicant -B -D nl80211 -i wlan0 -c /etc/wpa_supplicant-adhoc.conf
where each Pi has a different address field beginning with 10.10.2.. Also, if your RT5370 adapter is using an interface other than wlan0 (e.g. wlan1, wlan2, etc.), be sure to use that interface name instead.
At this point, the Pis should automatically join the network upon being rebooted. Test the connection by pinging or using ssh, for example run the following from the agent with IP address 10.10.2.1:
ssh 10.10.2.2
to access the agent with IP address 10.10.2.2.
The steps listed here are adapted from this Arch Linux wiki article and this Raspberry Pi forum discussion.