Wireless connection hangs using FreeBSD as AP

Michael C. Cambria mcc at fid4.com
Sun Feb 10 17:13:01 PST 2008


I have quite a few Soekris machines as wireless AP's using the PCMCIA 
NL-2511 CD EXT card (wi0 in hostap mode) found at Netgate.  I also have 
a desktop with a similar setup, to debug prior to flashing for Soekris. 
  All run FreeBSD 4.10-Stable.

I'm suddenly seeing a problem where wireless connections just hang. 
However, the only time this happens is with clients that use non NL-2511 
wireless cards .  All my gear is NL-2511, all from Netgate.

The problem is, just recently, friends and family come by with newer 
laptops, they associate just fine, but connections just hang.  In all 
cases, the clients are XP (home or Pro), using newer laptops that have 
Intel based 802.11a/b/g type cards.  All work just fine to off the shelf 
AP's around the globe.  Only to my FreeBSD AP is there an issue.

Netgate suggested it was the wi driver, so another desktop was setup to 
test as an AP.  This uses FreeBSD 7 (just prior to any RC).  The result 
seems to be the same.

The prism firmware for all prism cards is 1.4.9.

Has anyone else seen this?  Since all my personal gear is the same 
family, I never experienced a problem until now.

I do plan on moving to 802.11g, and migrating existing gear to FreeBSD 
6.3/7.0 in the very near future.  However, I'd like to get to the bottom 
of this if possible.

Thanks,
MikeC




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