Show HN: wfb-link, a userspace WiFiBroadcast radio stack for macOS(github.com)

5 pointsby mhamannvor 2 Monaten3 comments

Show HN: wfb-link, a userspace WiFiBroadcast radio stack for macOS

https://github.com/arc-edge/wfb-link/

Hi HN, I’ve been working on a Rust userspace radio stack for running WFB-style links from macOS using RTL8812AU USB adapters. Full disclosure: I'm a software engineer, but not really a hardware or embedded systems engineer, so Codex GPT 5.5 has done the lion-share of the work here along with a bit of help from Claude Opus 4.7 here and there. It's taken about 1.5 to 2 weeks to get from zero to this first release.

macOS doesn't expose the monitor-mode / packet-injection path that WFB systems normally rely on. I really didn't like the idea of needing a separate linux box just to talk WFB to other edge devices, like drones. This talks to the ALFA AWUS036ACH as a USB peripheral directly, initializes the RTL8812AU, submits raw 802.11 WFB frames over bulk OUT, receives frames over bulk IN, and bridges them to WFB-NG’s distributor/aggregator UDP protocols.

Basically, this is what's working (you can see more detail in the readme):

- native macOS userspace RTL8812AU bring-up

- TX/RX of WFB datagrams

- production-ish service runtime

- macOS utun bridge helper (if you need an IP-based link)

- RF diagnostics, telemetry, LED heartbeat, TDD airtime controls

There's a GitHub alpha release with arm64 macOS binaries

This is definitely still alpha. The direct-radio path is currently macOS-focused and tested with ALFA AWUS036ACH adapters on both sides (the other side is a Raspberry Pi 5 running Bookworm). macOS 26 works through IOUSBHost as libusb is not reliable there. Linux should still use native WFB-NG + rtl88xxau monitor mode rather than this USB bridge. Long-range RF quality and calibration work are ongoing. So far, some short range profiles are showing pretty good results.

I’m sharing early because getting WFB-like radio links working from a Mac seemed unlikely when I started, and the path turned out to be more interesting than expected.

My goal is for this to be cross-platform as-needed. Next up is an attempt at Android support via USB-OTG. We'll see how that goes.

3 comments

rachelradulovor 2 Monaten

Super cool approach. What ended up being the hardest part of bypassing macOS’s lack of monitor mode—was it USB throughput constraints or getting reliable timing for TX/RX?

mhamannvor 2 Monaten

Reliable timing across TX/RX was by far the biggest hurdle. Raw USB access and overall throughput really hasn't been as big of an issue as I thought it would be.

bobbyradfordvor 2 Monaten

This is very cool. I'm excited to see where this goes.