16

I'm trying to bond 2 WIFI cards in Ubuntu 14.04.

I've installed ifenslave-2.6, then changed /etc/network/interfaces and added a /etc/wpa_supplicant0.conf and /etc/wpa_supplicant1.conf file as below.

Cannot make it work, please advise. The 2 WIFI cards show connected though, see iwconfig below. Also find below also diagnostic messages.

I tried all sorts of variations of wpa details in interfaces file, up and down with ifenslave in interfaces, no luck.

Thank you.

/etc/network/interfaces

# interfaces(5) file used by ifup(8) and ifdown(8)
auto lo
iface lo inet loopback
iface eth1 inet manual

#wlan0 is manually configured, and slave to the "bond0" bonded NIC
allow-hotplug wlan0
auto wlan0
iface wlan0 inet manual
bond-master bond0
bond-primary wlan0
wpa-conf /etc/wpa_supplicant0.conf

#wlan1 ditto, thus creating a 2-link bond.
allow-hotplug wlan1
auto wlan1
iface wlan1 inet manual
bond-master bond0
wpa-conf /etc/wpa_supplicant1.conf

# bond0 is the bonding NIC and can be used like any other normal NIC.
# bond0 is configured using static network information.
auto bond0
iface bond0 inet static
address 192.168.3.150
netmask 255.255.255.0
gateway 192.168.3.1
bond-mode balance_rr
bond-miimon 100
bond-slaves wlan0 wlan1

#up /sbin/ifenslave-2.6 bond0 wlan0 wlan1
#down /sbin/ifenslave-2.6 -d bond0 wlan0 wlan1

#bond-slaves none

/etc/wpa_supplicant0.conf

network={
ssid="MYSSID0"
bssid=88:f0:77:fd:af:81
proto=RSN
key_mgmt=WPA-PSK
pairwise=CCMP TKIP
group=CCMP TKIP
psk="MYPASS"
}

/etc/wpa_supplicant1.conf

network={
key_mgmt=NONE
ssid="MYSSID1"
}

diagnostic messages

cat /proc/net/bonding/bond0

Ethernet Channel Bonding Driver: v3.7.1 (April 27, 2011)

Bonding Mode: load balancing (round-robin)
MII Status: up
MII Polling Interval (ms): 100
Up Delay (ms): 200
Down Delay (ms): 200

Slave Interface: wlan0
MII Status: up
Speed: Unknown
Duplex: Unknown
Link Failure Count: 0
Permanent HW addr: 00:1c:df:d1:98:27
Slave queue ID: 0

sudo iwconfig

    wlan1     IEEE 802.11abg  ESSID:"MYSSID1"  
          Mode:Managed  Frequency:2.462 GHz  Access Point: 00:3A:9A:1C:1B:20   
          Bit Rate=24 Mb/s   Tx-Power=200 dBm   
          Retry  long limit:7   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
          Encryption key:off
          Power Management:off
          Link Quality=38/70  Signal level=-72 dBm  
          Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
          Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:0   Missed beacon:0

bond0     no wireless extensions.

eth0      no wireless extensions.

lo        no wireless extensions.

wlan0     IEEE 802.11bgn  ESSID:"MYSSID0"  
          Mode:Managed  Frequency:2.462 GHz  Access Point: 58:35:D9:C6:26:41   
          Bit Rate=57.8 Mb/s   Tx-Power=27 dBm   
          Retry  long limit:7   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
          Encryption key:off
          Power Management:on
          Link Quality=52/70  Signal level=-58 dBm  
          Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
          Tx excessive retries:3  Invalid misc:0   Missed beacon:0

ifconfig

bond0     Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:1c:df:d1:98:27  
          inet addr:192.168.3.150  Bcast:192.168.3.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
          inet6 addr: fe80::21c:dfff:fed1:9827/64 Scope:Link
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MASTER MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:2 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:59 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0 
          RX bytes:304 (304.0 B)  TX bytes:10695 (10.6 KB)

eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:23:5a:1a:47:8a  
          inet addr:192.168.2.1  Bcast:192.168.2.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
          inet6 addr: fe80::223:5aff:fe1a:478a/64 Scope:Link
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:2315 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:2191 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 
          RX bytes:191033 (191.0 KB)  TX bytes:172354 (172.3 KB)
          Interrupt:17 

lo        Link encap:Local Loopback  
          inet addr:127.0.0.1  Mask:255.0.0.0
          inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
          UP LOOPBACK RUNNING  MTU:65536  Metric:1
          RX packets:407 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:407 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0 
          RX bytes:43747 (43.7 KB)  TX bytes:43747 (43.7 KB)

wlan0     Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:1c:df:d1:98:27  
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING SLAVE MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:2 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:59 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 
          RX bytes:304 (304.0 B)  TX bytes:10695 (10.6 KB)

wlan1     Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:1c:df:d1:98:27  
          inet6 addr: fe80::21c:dfff:fed1:9827/64 Scope:Link
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:4 errors:0 dropped:4 overruns:0 frame:26088
          TX packets:7 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 
          RX bytes:684 (684.0 B)  TX bytes:805 (805.0 B)
          Interrupt:18

ping 8.8.8.8

PING 8.8.8.8 (8.8.8.8) 56(84) bytes of data.
From 192.168.3.150 icmp_seq=1 Destination Host Unreachable
From 192.168.3.150 icmp_seq=5 Destination Host Unreachable
From 192.168.3.150 icmp_seq=6 Destination Host Unreachable
From 192.168.3.150 icmp_seq=7 Destination Host Unreachable
From 192.168.3.150 icmp_seq=8 Destination Host Unreachable
6
  • 1
    Well for starters, wlan1 isn't connected, probably because you didn't provide the password etc for it in wpa_supplicant0.conf. Also do you really have two different access points using different channels and configured in infrastructure mode, plugged into the same router?
    – psusi
    May 2, 2014 at 22:26
  • Thank you for your comments. wlan1 connects when testing it manually with ifenslave, bond0, and wpa_supplicant1.conf ; sometimes it tries a few times though before succeeding. Maybe there is a retry setting that I could put in interfaces? I have one internal wireless card and one usb, both working and connecting fine individually to their different respective ssid, as specified in their respective wpa_supplicant conf files.
    – siliond
    May 3, 2014 at 14:08
  • 1
    @psusi I've managed to get both wireless interfaces to connect, but cat /proc/net/bonding/bond0 still only lists wlan0 as slave, same as originally. I presume I've done some bonding related mistakes in /etc/network/interfaces, but don't know what other variations of it to try. Please advise.
    – siliond
    May 5, 2014 at 11:54
  • if your idea is to connect two wifi interfaces at the same time to sum their brandwwitch, i am afraid that it simply cannot be done so easly.
    – kcdtv
    Apr 26, 2018 at 14:44
  • 1
    +1 for giving full information. Can you please move your comments here up into the question, perhaps under a line like this: Enter,---,Enter then "New Information:"
    – SDsolar
    May 6, 2018 at 21:42

2 Answers 2

2

because mostly the "association" ( connection on the "physical link layer" , like plugging an ethernet cable) to wireless network is done via the mac address and thus spoofing / sending with a wrong packet will be tricky

the following hints may be helpful:

  • many routers ( and bridges) have STP ( Spanning Tree Protocol) enabled , preventing loopings at link level , but also filtering situations like the one you want ( packet comes from another port where router doesn't expect it ) STP Wikipedia Entry

  • the balance_xx modes from the bonding driver needs promiscious mode, refer here for getting your wifi card into this mode

  • the router needs client isolation off , and maybe also a patched hostapd/wpa-supplicant to accept packets that do not belong to the associated MAC address

  • as a workaround: try tinc or gretap to have an IP endpoint ,and connect this virtual tunnels to a bridge on the router side

-3

You cannot make it work because it is not possible

7
  • 3
    This doesn't really answer the question. If its not possible, then this post having no answers would suffice. Jul 25, 2018 at 4:51
  • @Zzzach well one can stop waiting for an answer and start to look for a different approach. For sure telling why it is not possible would help Oct 1, 2018 at 7:50
  • have a think about it , bonding ethernet works because you add more wire which gives you move bandwidth , bonding wireless won't work because you are only dividing the bandwidth further.
    – Amias
    Oct 1, 2018 at 13:36
  • @user1708042 This question is over 4 years old. If there's no solution at the moment, a comment describing it as such is sufficient. If you are looking for an answer to this question as well, post a new one with your own research / situation. Oct 2, 2018 at 10:20
  • @Amias You are only considering sharing connection on a single network. What about different networks? Different channels? Even difference frequencies (5Ghz and 2.4GHz). Definitely possible, but I wouldn't know how. Bonding wireless cards would make sense and would provide faster or more reliable connection. Oct 2, 2018 at 10:23

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .