libdrc WiiU Linux Setup with rt2800usb

Prerequisits

You will need your WiiU, a WiFi stick that operates in the 5GHz band and is able to operate in AP mode. In this tutorial I will assume that you have a WiFi Stick with the rt2800usb chipset.

To be more specific I used a TP-Link TL-WDN3200. It just costs a couple of bucks and works like a charm with linux kernel >= 3.11 This is the one pictured on the right.

I will not go into details about what is happening here. Please read the official documentations. This is more or less just a log of “how I got it running”. All Kudos go out to the guys that made libdrc possible. I attended their talk at 30c3 and just needed to do this.

Preparations

Create a directory called drc in your home where all needed software will be downloaded and compiled and change into this directory.

mkdir ~/drc
cd ~/drc

Install all the needed packages from your repository (this list may not be complete)

sudo apt-get install libnl-dev firmware-ralink software-properties-common yasm libglew-dev

!!! Disable everything that may manage your WiFi devices, like network-manager !!!.

sudo service network-manager stop

If something is not working as expected, this will most likely, be the reason. Also check the trouble shooting section on the bottom if you run  into any problems.

Compile and load modified mac80211 stack

I decided I just want to use the modified mac80211 stack when playing around with the pad, so first of all, download the patched module and compile it against your kernel:

git clone https://bitbucket.org/memahaxx/drc-mac80211.git
cd drc-mac80211
make -C /usr/src/linux-headers-VERSION M=/home/USERNAME/drc/drc-mac80211/

Where VERSION is your current kernel version. This should compile without any hassle. You now need to unload the current mac80211 module.

sudo rmmod mac80211

Most likely you will first need to unload a couple of other WiFi modules that depend on it. For me, since I was doing this on a notebook, it were the modules for my other WiFi card and the modules for the rt2800usb. Since this can be quite a pain in the ass i wrote a small script to unload the modules in the correct order.

After the mac80211 module was unloaded successfully we can load the patched version and the needed modules for the rt2800usb:

sudo insmod mac80211.ko
sudo modprobe rt2800usb

We now check if the stick is up and the patched module is used:

sudo iwconfig
test -f "/sys/class/net/$WLAN/tsf" && echo 'Patched mac80211 and rt2800usb loaded.'

Where $WLAN is the name of your WiFi interface, that you should have seen via iwconfig. If “Patched mac80211 and rt2800usb loaded.” is displayed you are good to go.

Obtaining the key

We are now ready to try to pair with the WiiU. Therefore we download and compile the patched wpa supplicant:

cd ..
git clone https://bitbucket.org/memahaxx/drc-hostap.git
cd drc-hostap/wpa_supplicant/
cp defconfig .config

Open the copied config file in the editor of your choice and set the following options:

CONFIG_WPS=y
CONFIG_TENDONIN=y

and then build it:

make

Open get_psk.conf and add

ctrl_interface=/var/run/wpa_supplicant_drc
update_config=1

Make sure the WiFi is up and running and then start wpa supplicant.

sudo ifconfig $WLAN up
sudo iwlist $WLAN scan
sudo ./wpa_supplicant -Dnl80211 -i $WLAN -c get_psk.conf

In another console run the wpa cli:

sudo ./wpa_cli -p /var/run/wpa_supplicant_drc

Now we need to get into sync mode. Press sync once on the WiiU, watch the pad. A message should appear that you should press sync again to pair a pad. Press sync again. On your TV you should now see 4 symbols, note them down. the pad should state stat it is already synced.

In the wpa cli type:

scan

When you see

CTRL-EVENT-SCAN-RESULTS

you can check the results:

scan_results

Depending on the WiFi situation around you, you will see quite some access points. Look for one with an ESSID like this: WiiUAABBCCDDEEFF_STA1 Note down the BSSID.
Now calculate the pin, from the four symbols you noted down before, each symbol is associated with a number:
♠ = 0
♥ = 1
♦ = 2
♣ = 3

So ♥♣♠♠ represents 1300. The pin also has a static part, namely 5678 which is appended to the symbols, so for the previous example the pin would be 13005678. With the BSSID and the pin we can now try to obtain the WPS credentials. In the wps cli type:

wps_pin BSSID PIN

This indicates that we received the credentials:

WPS-CRED-RECEIVED
WPS-SUCCESS

Exit the wpa cli and wpa supplicant. Check get_psk.conf, you will need the essid and psk for the next step.

Run the Hotspot

It is time now to let the pad connect to our hotspot. Make sure that all programs using WiFi are closed and compile hostapd:

cd ..
cd hostapd
cp defconfig .config
make -j5

now open

../conf/wiiu_ap_normal.conf

in the editor of your choice and edit interface, ssid and wpa_psk to the values you got in the last step. Then run hostapd with this configuration. It should sit there open and wait for incoming connections:

sudo ./hostapd -dd ../conf/wiiu_ap_normal.conf

In another console type the following to set the appropriate subnet for the pad:

sudo ip a a 192.168.1.10/24 dev $WLAN
sudo ip l set mtu 1800 dev $WLAN

Now switch on your pad and you should see it connecting:

wlan1: STA de:ad:be:ef:01:01 WPA: pairwise key handshake completed (RSN)

Node the gamepads BSSID, since you will need it for the next step.

We need to set up a dhcp server to serve the pad a valid IP. Therefore we will use netboot since it is small and easy to use:

cd ~/drc
git clone https://github.com/ITikhonov/netboot.git
cd netboot
gcc -o netboot netboot.c
sudo ./netboot 192.168.1.255 192.168.1.10 192.168.1.11 BSSID_OF_PAD

Installing ffmpeg and patched H.264 codec

If you are running Ubuntu you can add the following repository the get a recent version of ffmpeg. It will also work with debian if you adapt the sources manually to use the ubuntu sources.

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:samrog131/ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install libswscale-ffmpeg-dev libavutil-ffmpeg-dev

Since the WiiU uses a not completely standard H.264 codec we need to obtain and compile a patched version:

git clone https://bitbucket.org/memahaxx/drc-x264/
cd drc-x264
./configure --prefix=$PATCHED_X264_PREFIX --enable-static
sudo make install

Installing libdrc

Before running the demos all that is left, is downloading and compiling the libdrc:

git clone https://bitbucket.org/memahaxx/libdrc
cd libdrc
PKG_CONFIG_PATH=$PATCHED_X264_PREFIX/lib/pkgconfig:$PKG_CONFIG_PATH ./configure
make
sudo make install

Running the demos

If everything went OK so far, you are now able to run the demos:

cd ~/drc/libdrc/demos/3dtest
./3dtest

You should now see a cube on screen and on your pad, that you may move with the left stick and rotate with the right stick. Try the other demos too.

That’s it, you can now develop your own stuff. Have fun.

Troubleshooting

If your scan in the wpa cli does not reveal any 5GHz Access Points or you get the following error when starting the access point:

channel [0] (36) is disabled for use in AP mode, flags: 0x57 NO-IBSS PASSIVE-SCAN

it means that your need to check your regulatroy domain. First check which one is active:

sudo iw reg get

In my case 00 was active. Set this to your regulatory domain, or for that matter to any domain that works. US, AT were tested to work.

sudo iw reg set DOMAIN

Resources

libdrc
My startup script that loads the patched mac80211 stack and starts the hostappd and netboot so you can directly connect with the pad. All config has to be done before this will work, this is basically a helper to get everything running quickly after it has once been configured.

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