wireless networking - halfway solved

[Warren Block]

On Fri, 24 Oct 2014, Anthony Simm wrote:

> Hello all,
>
> based on a suggestion from Warren, I added
>
> legal.intel_ipw.license_ack=1
>
> to
>
> /boot/loader.conf
>
> and changed the entries in
>
> /etc/rc.conf to:
>
>  wlans_ipw0="wlan0"
>  ifconfig_wlan0="WPA SYNCDHCP"
>
> then I rebooted and sure enough, the wireless light is on! Yeeeeeahhh!
>
> But
>
> $ ping mail.google.com
>
> times out, and gives
>
> $ ping: cannot resolve mail.google.com: Host name lookup failure
>
> (I tried ping mail.ru as well, same result)
>
> So, there is another issue; probably has to do with the likely fact that the 
> firmware is outdated and the card does not support WPA while my brand new 
> wireless router is using that protocol.

Right.  An entry in /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf is still needed to connect 
to that particular network.  It's good that the router uses WPA, but bad 
because the card does not (normally) support it.  At least the one that 
came with my 2004-era T42 did not.

> There is a way to silently update the firmware of the wireless card under 
> Windows according to Warren and I will try to do that, and report back 
> afterwards.

I searched for firmware updates and found none.  Then I updated the 
Windows driver and surprise, the card now supported WPA.  I still have 
that T42, although it does not get used.  It worked the last time I 
tried FreeBSD on it, and I can drag it out if testing is needed.