Problems with Atheros card and hostpd

[Sam Leffler]

Derek Kulinski wrote:
> Hello Sam,
> 
> Sunday, December 27, 2009, 12:05:34 PM, you wrote:
> 
>> I didn't see anything in the thread to point a finger at freebsd but
>> given the debug msg log shows "ath0" instead of "wlan0" I'm guessing
>> whatever version was being used was pre-8.x.
> 
> I think I was the only one in thread who used FreeBSD as an AP, also
> that was before 7.x when I made the log. So I'm not saying it's
> FreeBSD specific problem, I don't even think it's a BSD problem, but
> perhaps some kind of incompatibility and I was hoping for some
> workaround.

AP mode power save was broken for a time in 7.x (IIRC the aging of 
frames on the PS q was incorrectly calculated causing them to be tossed 
prematurely)--but that was unrelated to WME/WMM.

> 
>> Unlikely.  Try collecting a packet trace of a failure w/ wireshark or
>> tcpdump from a 3rd sta and send it to me.  Be sure to collect data at
>> the 802.11 layer (e.g. -y IEEE802_11_RADIO).  You might also learn
>> something by enabling power save debug msgs on the ap w/ wlandebug.
> 
> Well, I actually managed it to work. Since the phone was rooted I
> changed settings and disabled WME on the phone. I associated it and it
> worked. Now there's a weird thing that I don't really get. After I saw
> that phone was working with WME disabled, I went back and changed it
> to the way it originally was, I also restarted the phone. To my
> surprise the phone continued to work (with WME enabled), and I still
> don't understand why.
> 
> Perhaps it stored some information necessary? I think I'll deassociate
> the phone and make it forget the AP and see if it works.
> 

Can't even guess w/o a packet trace and/or debug log.  WME should be 
immaterial to FreeBSD unless crypto was involved in which case you 
might've hit a bug w/ h/w crypto+WME that's long since been fixed 
(certain ath parts require the MIC be handled in s/w when WME is used). 
  The best thing to do wrt FreeBSD is run 8.0 or later for much better 
wireless support.

	Sam