stuck beacon with if_ath: old but unresolved issue

Martin Lesser ml-freebsd-wireless at bettercom.de
Wed Dec 21 20:35:56 UTC 2011


Hi all,

I'm wondering if anyone has an idea how to fix 
http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/query-pr.cgi?pr=kern/155100 - it's occuring 
on newer kernels as well as on older ones:

[ml at fs ~]$ uname -a
FreeBSD fs.bettercom.de 8.2-RELEASE-p3 FreeBSD 8.2-RELEASE-p3 #0: Tue 
Sep 27 18:07:27 UTC 2011 
root at i386-builder.daemonology.net:/usr/obj/usr/src/sys/GENERIC  i386

[ml at fs ~]$ ifconfig wlan0
wlan0: flags=8843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> metric 0 mtu 1500
         ether 00:1b:11:0d:69:2f
         inet 192.168.100.1 netmask 0xffffff00 broadcast 192.168.100.255
         media: IEEE 802.11 Wireless Ethernet autoselect mode 11g <hostap>
         status: running
         ssid BC_Home2 channel 5 (2432 MHz 11g) bssid 00:1b:11:0d:69:2f
         regdomain ETSI country DE indoor ecm authmode WPA1+WPA2/802.11i
         privacy MIXED deftxkey 3 TKIP 2:128-bit TKIP 3:128-bit txpower 30
         scanvalid 60 protmode CTS wme burst dtimperiod 1 -dfs

Extract from /var/log/messages:

ath0: <Atheros 5413> mem 0xd4000000-0xd400ffff irq 17 at device 4.0 on pci5
ath0: AR5413 mac 10.5 RF5413 phy 6.1
...
Dec 21 19:43:56 fs kernel: ath0: stuck beacon; resetting (bmiss count 4)
Dec 21 19:44:12 fs kernel: ath0: stuck beacon; resetting (bmiss count 4)
Dec 21 19:46:31 fs last message repeated 3 times
Dec 21 19:51:09 fs last message repeated 2 times
Dec 21 20:04:33 fs kernel: ath0: stuck beacon; resetting (bmiss count 4)
Dec 21 20:05:01 fs last message repeated 11 times
Dec 21 20:07:10 fs last message repeated 32 times
Dec 21 20:11:49 fs last message repeated 32 times

Extract from /etc/rc.conf:

wlans_ath0="wlan0"
create_args_wlan0="wlanmode hostap country DE"
ifconfig_wlan0="inet 192.168.100.1 netmask 255.255.255.0 up channel 5:g"

I'm not living in a crowded area instead my FreeBSD-box has channel 5 
"exclusiv"; only 2 or 3 other APs are in range of the box but working on 
another frequency (channels 1,2 and 11).

BUT: The lines above from messages occured when the box sent bytes via 
another AP on channel 1 to which the BSD-box is connected via ethernet. 
This other AP has another bssid. So no traffic was sent on wlan0 
interface but ath0 was affected by traffic generated nearby as you can 
see above. Finally the error may crash the box if wireless traffic keeps 
on a high rate (former postings about this issue state that too).

What can I provide to get this bug in if_ath.c fixed? I would really 
like to use my BSD-box also as AP but in the moment I cannot do that 
reliable. At the moment I'm concerned whether a 3rd may be able to crash 
my BSD-box by producing a large amount of wireless traffic...

Regards

Martin


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