wireless access point in FreeBSD 8.2p2

[Paul Beard]

I seem to be missing something, possibly from reading too many HOWTOs. What I am trying to do is get a system with a wireless card to stand in as a wireless AP should my aging LinkSys base station develop a tragic smoke leak. 

It's an ath0-based card and the following steps suggest it should work (it has HOSTAP capabilities and offering robust encryption). 

ifconfig wlan0 create wlandev ath0
ifconfig wlan0 list caps
drivercaps=6f85ed41<STA,FF,IBSS,HOSTAP,AHDEMO,TXPMGT,SHSLOT,SHPREAMBLE,MONITOR,MBSS,WPA1,WPA2,BURST,WME,WDS,BGSCAN,TXFRAG>
cryptocaps=f<WEP,TKIP,AES,AES_CCM>

But various permutations of rc.conf, hostap.conf and many iterations of /etc/rc.c/netif restart leave me with two ifconfig entries, one of the ath0 interface and one for wlan0. None of the examples show this so I suspect it's wrong. The IP address is pingable from the host it's installed in but not from anywhere else. And I can see the AP from another system and attach to it but it doesn't route any traffic. 

from /etc/rc.conf: 
wlans_ath0="wlan0"
create_args_wlan0="wlanmode hostap"
ifconfig_wlan0="inet 192.168.0.26 netmask 255.255.255.0 ssid lower mode 11g channel 8"

from hostap.conf: 
interface=wlan0
debug=1
ctrl_interface=/var/run/hostapd
ctrl_interface_group=wheel
ssid=lower
wpa=0

redacted results of ifconfig: 
ath0: flags=8843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> metric 0 mtu 2290
	ether 00:0d:88:93:21:3a
	media: IEEE 802.11 Wireless Ethernet autoselect mode 11g <hostap>
	status: running

wlan0: flags=8843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> metric 0 mtu 1500
	ether 00:0d:88:93:21:3a
	inet 192.168.0.26 netmask 0xffffff00 broadcast 192.168.0.255
	inet6 fe80::20d:88ff:fe93:213a%wlan0 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x7 
	nd6 options=3<PERFORMNUD,ACCEPT_RTADV>
	media: IEEE 802.11 Wireless Ethernet autoselect mode 11g <hostap>
	status: running
	ssid lower channel 8 (2447 MHz 11g) bssid 00:0d:88:93:21:3a
	regdomain FCC indoor ecm authmode AUTO privacy OFF txpower 27
	scanvalid 60 protmode CTS wme burst dtimperiod 1 -dfs

Yes, I am trying it without any encryption until I see some packets being passed. 

It seems like a lot of people are getting this to work but I'm not able to follow how they did it. 
--
Paul Beard

Are you trying to win an argument or solve a problem?