AirportMtwlm

A native macOS Wi-Fi driver for MediaTek MT7921, MT7922/RZ616 and MT7925/RZ717, based on OpenBSD's mwx(4).

AirportMtwlm is an IO80211Controller, so macOS treats the card like a built-in Apple wireless adapter. It appears in the menu bar Wi-Fi picker and uses the system's own supplicant — no Heliport and no user-space helper.

Supported hardware

PCI ID	Chip
0x7961	MT7921
0x0608	MT7921K
0x7920	MT7920
0x7922	MT7922
0x0616	RZ616 (MT7922)
0x7925	MT7925
0x0717	RZ717 (MT7925)

2.4 GHz and 5 GHz are supported, including 80 MHz VHT on 5 GHz and 160 MHz on MT7922/MT7925. 6 GHz is not supported.

Download

Grab the bundle from the latest release:

Asset	macOS
AirportMtwlm-1.0.0-classic.zip	Big Sur – Ventura
AirportMtwlm-1.0.0-sonoma.zip	Sonoma 14 and newer

Both are x86_64 builds made with Xcode 15.4. They should work from Big Sur through Sonoma; I have not tested Sequoia or Tahoe.

Installation (OpenCore)

Installing a Wi-Fi kext into /Library/Extensions is not recommended on a Hackintosh. Inject it through OpenCore instead:

1. Copy AirportMtwlm.kext to EFI/OC/Kexts/.
2. Add the kext to your config.plist. In ProperTree, the OC Refresh option adds the Kernel > Add entry for you, so you do not have to create one by hand.
3. Reboot.

Keep exactly one copy of the driver. Do not also put it in /Library/Extensions.

If the card does not appear, or does not discover your network after it loads, toggle Wi-Fi off and on from the menu bar. That is usually enough to make the card scan.

OpenCore injection does not require an Apple-signed kext, but a boot policy that forbids third-party code will still block it. If the kext never shows up in kmutil showloaded, check csr-active-config and SecureBootModel.

FAQ

Q: My network does not show up. Turn the Wi-Fi toggle off and on from the menu bar. Also make sure the network is 2.4 GHz or 5 GHz — 6 GHz is not supported.

Q: I am connected but no network traffic works. This is a transient DHCP bug in the current bring-up code. Restart the machine and it will work again.

Q: The Wi-Fi menu does not refresh its network list. Known limitation: while associated, cache scans requested by airportd are refused. Turn Wi-Fi off and on, or disconnect, to refresh the list.

Q: The card does not appear at all. Check that the kext is injected in OpenCore and that exactly one copy is present. kmutil showloaded --list-only | grep -i mtwlm should list it; if it does not, check your boot policy (SecureBootModel and csr-active-config).

Q: Throughput is lower than the link rate. TX aggregation (A-MPDU) is still disabled, so this is expected for now.

Q: Does this work on Sequoia or Tahoe? The uploaded builds were made with Xcode 15.4 and are expected to work from Big Sur through Sonoma. Sequoia and Tahoe are untested.

Building

MacKernelSDK is included as a submodule, so clone recursively:

git clone --recursive https://github.com/HackSucks/mtwlm.git
cd mtwlm

IO80211Family changed shape in Sonoma, so there are two builds of the same driver:

macOS	Command
Big Sur – Ventura	make
Sonoma 14 and newer	make V2=1

make                     # classic, host architecture
make OSVER=13            # classic, Ventura API level
make V2=1                # Sonoma and newer
make ARCH=arm64          # Apple silicon

Both produce AirportMtwlm.kext, so build one variant at a time. The classic build uses Apple's supplicant; the Sonoma build does the RSN handshake in-kernel.

scripts/syntax-check.sh [V2=1] compiles every translation unit with a stock clang on Linux and checks for duplicate or unresolved symbols. I use it to catch porting mistakes without a Mac.

Status

The driver works on real hardware. I have tested it on an MT7922 (RZ616, 14c3:0616) with the Sonoma build: the card attaches, scans, associates to a WPA2 network, completes the 4-way handshake, gets a DHCP lease and passes traffic in both directions. The classic controller and the MT7921/MT7925 paths compile, but I have not run them on hardware.

VHT is advertised when the channel supports it and the firmware receives the peer's HT/VHT records, so an 11ac AP is used at its negotiated width (up to 80 MHz) instead of falling back to HT. This lives in the shared hal_mwx/ code, so the classic and Sonoma builds behave the same.

Known limitations:

• TX aggregation (A-MPDU/ADDBA) is still disabled, so peak throughput is below what the link rate suggests.
• While associated, cache scans requested by airportd are refused. The link stays stable, but the Wi-Fi menu's network list is not refreshed until the connection drops.
• MT7925 header-translated receive frames are dropped; if the firmware enables translation in station mode, this needs a reverse-translate path.
• Sleep/wake is wired through mwx_activate() but untested.
• 6 GHz is not supported.

Debugging

log show --last 2m --predicate 'process == "kernel"' | grep -i mwx
kmutil showloaded --list-only | grep -i mtwlm

Driver messages are prefixed with mwx0:. MWX_DEBUG is 1 by default, so DPRINTF() is active; set it to 0 in hal_mwx/if_mwx.c for a quiet build.

Credits

• OpenBSD for mwx(4) and net80211
• itlwm for the macOS IO80211 glue and the net80211/BSD compatibility layer
• Acidanthera for MacKernelSDK
• Apple for macOS

License

AirportMtwlm is distributed under the GNU General Public License, version 2 — see LICENSE.

The driver body in hal_mwx/ is derived from OpenBSD's mwx(4) and keeps its ISC notice. The firmware images in firmware/ remain under their own terms.