luci-mod-network: add WiFi 7 (802.11be / EHT) advanced configuration options

[prokowsoftware]

Summary

PR #7302 (merged Oct 2024) added basic 802.11be mode selection (EHT htmodes) but did not expose advanced EHT-specific configuration options in the UI. This PR adds the missing options.

New options in the Advanced tab (radio device):

• Disable EHT (802.11be) (disable_eht) — fall back to 802.11ax (WiFi 6 / HE)
• Punctured Channel Bitmap (punct_bitmap) — bitmask of 20 MHz sub-channels to exclude; shown only for EHT160 and EHT320 modes
• EHT SU Beamformer (eht_su_beamformer) — enable Single-User Transmit Beamformer capability
• EHT MU Beamformer (eht_mu_beamformer) — enable Multi-User Transmit Beamformer capability

New option in the Wireless Security tab (interface):

• SAE Password Element (sae_pwe) — selects the mechanism for SAE password element derivation (H&P, H2E, or both); H2E is required for WiFi 7 on 6 GHz; shown only for sae and sae-mixed encryption modes

Testing

Tested on a Radxa device with QCN9274 (802.11be) card running OpenWrt.

[castiel652]

• Disable EHT (802.11be) (disable_eht) — fall back to 802.11ax (WiFi 6 / HE)

Is this for client mode?

[prokowsoftware]

• Disable EHT (802.11be) (disable_eht) — fall back to 802.11ax (WiFi 6 / HE)

Is this for client mode?

No, disable_eht here is for AP mode only. In a typical deployment, the AP advertises its capabilities via beacons and the client adapts accordingly — so disabling EHT on the AP side is sufficient to fall back to 802.11ax (HE).

disable_eht is also supported by wpa_supplicant (client mode), but that use case is niche — it would only be needed if you want a station to avoid EHT even when the AP offers it (e.g. for debugging or compatibility testing). We didn't include it here as it's outside the scope of this PR.

[castiel652]

No, disable_eht here is for AP mode only. In a typical deployment, the AP advertises its capabilities via beacons and the client adapts accordingly — so disabling EHT on the AP side is sufficient to fall back to 802.11ax (HE).

Okay so what's the point of this option?
Just select AX mode?

[prokowsoftware]

Good question. The difference is subtle but useful in practice:

When you set htmode to an HE (WiFi 6) mode, you reconfigure the entire radio — channel width, beamforming, everything — for 802.11ax.

disable_eht lets you keep your EHT channel configuration (e.g. EHT320) but disable the 802.11be-specific features, so the AP falls back to HE for client associations. This is useful for:

• Compatibility testing — verifying how your network behaves without EHT without changing the channel plan
• Mixed environments — keeping a wide channel (320 MHz) while serving older clients that struggle with EHT negotiation
• Debugging — isolating whether an issue is EHT-specific

If you want to permanently run in WiFi 6 mode, yes — just select an HE htmode. disable_eht is more of a diagnostic/transitional toggle.

[prokowsoftware]

To be honest, the main motivation for this PR was sae_pwe. We were unable to properly configure our AP with WPA3/SAE — clients kept failing to associate — until we set sae_pwe=2 (H&P + H2E). Without this option exposed in the UI, it required manual UCI editing every time.

The EHT options came along naturally as we were already working with WiFi 7 hardware (QCN9274) and the wireless configuration page.

[prokowsoftware]

We are also waiting for a newer kernel in OpenWrt (6.12+) to properly support MLO (Multi-Link Operation). Once that lands in a stable release, we plan to extend this with MLO configuration options as well.

[castiel652]

• Mixed environments — keeping a wide channel (320 MHz) while serving older clients that struggle with EHT negotiation

320MHz is EHT only.

until we set sae_pwe=2 (H&P + H2E).

Which version of OpenWrt are you using?
AFAIK this is the default since 22.03.

[systemcrash]

And the additional options are available in the wifi scripts?