Raspberry Pi Wi-Fi 6E Router using Netgear AXE3000

OpenWRT org. announced that MT76 Driver update for Wi-Fi 6E in version 23.05.

https://forum.openwrt.org/t/openwrt-23-05-0-rc3-third-release-candidate/169419

The Netgear AXE3000 is Wi-Fi 6E USB adaptor. It is driven by MediaTek MT7921au driver. It is includeed OpenWRT 23.05.

https://github.com/openwrt/mt76/commit/540adbb382051a30b73b268122576a75fc80088a

In this post, I will explain about how to building the Wi-Fi 6E router using Netgear AXE3000, OpenWRT 23.05 and Raspberry Pi 4.

Specification

• Wi-Fi adaptor : Netgear AXE3000 Wi-Fi 6E USB Adaptor

• Host System : Raspberry Pi 4 Model B

• OS : Built OpenWRT 23.05 in Local Ubuntu22.04 PC.

How to build the system

Building OpenWRT OS version 23.05

• Creating a OpenWRT repositry clone

git clone https://github.com/openwrt/openwrt -b v23.05.0-rc4

• Making Menuconfig

cd openwrt
make menuconfig

1.Raspberry Pi 4 build tartget settings

[OpenWrt Wiki] Raspberry Pi

2. Adding Wireless driver for Netgear AXE3000

Kernel modules -> Wireless Drivers -> kmod-mt7921u

Like a following catured image.

The Netgear AXE3000 driver is mt7921au. This driver is included in kmod-mt7921u device table. It is referenceable from a following committed source code.

https://github.com/openwrt/mt76/commit/540adbb382051a30b73b268122576a75fc80088a

• Build

make

• Writing a built image binary to SD card using wirting tools

OpenWRT Configuration for Wi-Fi 6E using OpenWRT command uci

• Startup Raspberry Pi with the written image binary SD card
• Setting ethernet IP address

uci set network.lan.proto="dhcp"
or

uci set network.lan.ipaddr=<static IP Address of your network>
reboot

• Access Point settings for Netgear AXE3000

Viewing /etc/config/wireless file using vi, the device id ofAXE3000 is “radio1” in my system. so, wireless settiing is added in “default_radio1” config like a below.

uci set wireless.default_radio1="wifi-iface"
uci set wireless.default_radio1.device="radio1"
uci set wireless.default_radio1.network="lan"
uci set wireless.default_radio1.mode="ap"
uci set wireless.default_radio1.encryption="sae"
uci set wireless.default_radio1.key="<your passphrase>"
uci set wireless.default_radio1.ssid="RaspberryPi4_WiFi6E_Router"
uci set wireless.radio1.disabled=0

• Committing settinngs in the system and Wi-Fi system restart

uci commit wireless
wifi reload

Connecting to another system

A follwing catured image is the Wi-Fi property of connected Windows 11 system.

It is connected is Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax).

The system setup is complete.