Intel AX200 wNIC appears as 3-streamed in Catalsyt 9800

JPavonM — Mon, 05 Jul 2021 20:00:50 GMT

Hi community,

As per Intel specs, WiFi6 adpater AX200 is a 2x2 radio wNIC: https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/products/docs/wireless/wi-fi-6-ax200-module-brief.html

I've noticed something weird reported by c9800 running 17.3.1 as these devices are connecting to AP4800 using 3 spatial streams:

c9800#show wireless client mac aabb.ccdd.eeff details
(...)
Protocol : 802.11ac
Channel : 64
(...)
Client Active State : In-Active
Power Save : ON
Current Rate : m8 ss3
Supported Rates : 6.0,12.0,18.0,36.0,48.0,54.0
(...)

I'm trying to do some packet captures to see the association requests and responses for some clients to see the information in the headers.

Maybe I need to open a feaure review for this topic to Cisco.

Re: Intel AX200 wNIC appears as 3-streamed in Catalsyt 9800

Scott Fella — Thu, 14 Jan 2021 14:08:09 GMT

I would also look at an OTA capture to see if the country is reporting incorrectly.

Re: Intel AX200 wNIC appears as 3-streamed in Catalsyt 9800

JPavonM — Wed, 20 Jan 2021 10:15:43 GMT

Hi community.

After some investigation I have found that IOS-XE code 17.3.x reports 802.11ax devices with wrong spatial streams when these adapters are 2x2:2. In all cases the AP country code was setup to ES, and this is the country code shown in the beacons.

This is a packet dissection of an Intel AX200 wNIC showing that:

These are my findings after further investigation on this issue testing with different access points:

Intel AX200 association information to AP3700 as seen on C9800 CLI

In this case everything is fine and client device is shown with proper specs:

C9800#sh wireless client mac-address aabb.ccdd.eeff detail
Client MAC Address : aabb.ccdd.eeff
(...)
Protocol : 802.11ac
Channel : 36
(...)
Current Rate : m9 ss2
Supported Rates : 6.0,12.0,18.0,36.0,48.0,54.0
(...)
Max Client Protocol Capability: Wi-Fi6 (802.11ax)

Intel AX200 association information to AP3800 as seen on C9800 CLI

The spatial stream information is reported badly when looking the details of the client and returns 3 spatial streams capable device.

C9800#sh wireless client mac-address aabb.ccdd.eeff detail
Client MAC Address : aabb.ccdd.eeff
(...)
Protocol : 802.11ac
Channel : 136
(...)
Current Rate : m9 ss3
Supported Rates : 6.0,12.0,18.0,36.0,48.0,54.0
(...)
Max Client Protocol Capability: Wi-Fi6 (802.11ax)

Intel AX200 association information to AP3800 as seen on AP CLI

The spatial stream information is reported properly by the AP on the MAC status with 2SS, but not on the statistics field where the AP returns a 3SS capable device:

AP4800#show controllers dot11Radio 1 client AA:BB:CC:DD:EE:FF
             mac radio vap aid state       encr Maxrate Assoc Cap is_wgb_wired      wgb_mac_addr
AA:BB:CC:DD:EE:FF     1   1   1   FWD AES_CCM128 MCS92SS   VHT  HE        false 00:00:00:00:00:00
Configured rates for client AA:BB:CC:DD:EE:FF
Legacy Rates(Mbps): 6 12 18 24 36 48 54
HT Rates(MCS):M0 M1 M2 M3 M4 M5 M6 M7 M8 M9 M10 M11 M12 M13 M14 M15
VHT Rates: 1SS:M0-9 2SS:M0-9
(...)
Statistics for client AA:BB:CC:DD:EE:FF
              mac   intf TxData TxMgmt TxUC TxBytes TxFail TxDcrd TxCumRetries RxData RxMgmt RxBytes RxErr                  TxRt(Mbps)               RxRt(Mbps) idle_counter stats_ago expiration
AA:BB:CC:DD:EE:FF apr1v1   1638      2 1638  367856      0      0            0   2053      1  430777     0 VHT-40,3SS,MCS9,SGI,BF(600) VHT-40,3SS,MCS9,SGI(600)          300  4.196000      53595

Intel AX200 association information to C9120 as seen on C9800 CLI

The spatial stream information is reported badly when looking the details of the client and returns 1 spatial stream only for the device.

C9800# sh wireless client mac-address aabb.ccdd.eeff detail
Client MAC Address : aabb.ccdd.eeff
(...)
Protocol : 802.11ax - 5 GHz
Channel : 40
(...)
Current Rate : m11 ss1
Supported Rates : 6.0,12.0,18.0,36.0,48.0,54.0
(...)
Max Client Protocol Capability: Wi-Fi6 (802.11ax)

Intel AX200 association information to C9120 as seen on AP CLI

The spatial stream information is reported properly by the AP on the MAC status with 2SS. This time there is no information about the spatial streams on the statistics field of the output:

C9120AP#show controllers dot11Radio 1 client AA:BB:CC:DD:EE:FF
              mac radio vap aid state       encr  Maxrate Assoc Cap is_wgb_wired      wgb_mac_addr
AA:BB:CC:DD:EE:FF     1   1   1   FWD AES_CCM128 MCS112SS    HE  HE        false 00:00:00:00:00:00
Configured rates for client AA:BB:CC:DD:EE:FF
Legacy Rates(Mbps): 6 12 18 24 36 48 54
HT Rates(MCS):M0 M1 M2 M3 M4 M5 M6 M7 M8 M9 M10 M11 M12 M13 M14 M15
VHT Rates: 1SS:M0-9 2SS:M0-9
HE Rates: 1SS:M0-11 2SS:M0-11
(...)
Statistics for client AA:BB:CC:DD:EE:FF
              mac   intf TxData TxMgmt TxUC TxBytes TxFail TxDcrd TxCumRetries RxData RxMgmt RxBytes RxErr TxRt(Mbps) RxRt(Mbps) idle_counter stats_ago expiration
AA:BB:CC:DD:EE:FF apr1v1    852      2  852  207750      0      0           47   1234      1  246437     0         42         43          290 10.582000       1280
(...)

Smartphone with Randomized MAC association information to C9120 as seen on C9800 CLI

The spatial stream information is reported badly when looking the details of the client and returns 1 spatial stream only for the device:

C9800#sh wireless client mac-address 36:F8:76:E0:19:DC details
Client MAC Address : 0011.2233.4455
(...)
Protocol : 802.11ax - 5 GHz
Channel : 64
(...)
Current Rate : m11 ss1
Supported Rates : 18.0,36.0,48.0,54.0
(...)
Max Client Protocol Capability: Wi-Fi6 (802.11ax)

Smartphone with Randomized MAC association information to C9120 as seen on AP CLI

The spatial stream information is reported properly by the AP on the MAC status with 2SS:

C9120AP#show controllers dot11Radio 1 client 00:11.22:33:44:55
              mac radio vap aid state       encr  Maxrate Assoc Cap is_wgb_wired      wgb_mac_addr
00:11.22:33:44:55     1   2   1   FWD AES_CCM128 MCS112SS    HE  HE        false 00:00:00:00:00:00
Configured rates for client 00:11.22:33:44:55
Legacy Rates(Mbps): 12 18 24 36 48 54
HT Rates(MCS):M0 M1 M2 M3 M4 M5 M6 M7 M8 M9 M10 M11 M12 M13 M14 M15
VHT Rates: 1SS:M0-9 2SS:M0-9
HE Rates: 1SS:M0-11 2SS:M0-11
(...)
Statistics for client AA:BB:CC:DD:EE:FF
              mac   intf TxData TxMgmt TxUC TxBytes TxFail TxDcrd TxCumRetries RxData RxMgmt RxBytes RxErr TxRt(Mbps) RxRt(Mbps) idle_counter stats_ago expiration
00:11.22:33:44:55 apr1v2     48      4   48   18613    111    111          666     27      2    3092     0         42         24          155  5.896000      53700

In parallel, AireOS 8.10 reports it properly.

Intel AX200 association information to AP3800 as Mobility Express Controller

In this case, the information reported by the controller matches client capability:

(CISCOME) >show client detail AA:BB:CC:DD:EE:FF
Client MAC Address............................... AA:BB:CC:DD:EE:FF
(...)
Channel.......................................... 136
(...)
Current Rate..................................... m9 ss2
Supported Rates.................................. 6.0,12.0,18.0,24.0,36.0,48.0,
    ............................................. 54.0
(...)
Client Capabilities:
      Radio Capability........................... 802.11ax

HTH
-Jesus
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