possible issue with ath ?

Sat Feb 4 19:12:06 UTC 2012

Waitman Gobble <uzimac at da3m0n8t3r.com> wrote ..
> Kevin Oberman <kob6558 at gmail.com> wrote ..
> > On Thu, Feb 2, 2012 at 11:07 PM, Waitman Gobble <uzimac at da3m0n8t3r.com> wrote:
> > > Adrian Chadd <adrian at freebsd.org> wrote ..
> > >> :-) Cool. 11n should just be working though!
> > >>
> > >>
> > >> Adrian
> > >>
> > >
> > > You definitely make a good point there, I totally agree.
> > >
> > 
> > > OK, I think I have 11n running over 2.4GHz(11a?) but not 5GHz/11n -- Is This
> > Not possible?
> > > not sure going faster than 54M is happenin.
> > 
> > You have it wrong. 2.4GHz is 11b/g. 5GHz is 11a. 11n is orthogonal.
> > 11n may be either 11gn or 11an. 'n' is the 802.3 implementation of
> > MIMO, a method of improving performance by using multiple antennae and
> > is not linked to specific frequencies.
> -- 
> 
> Thanks, I totally appreciate it. I don't know alot about wireless / radio but I'm
> learning a bit. Hopefully I won't get kicked out of group for being ignorant.
> 
> I just read through the source code of ath9k (GNU/Linux) and then the FreeBSD ath
> driver code and picked up a few tidbits. I noticed in if_ath.c
> 
> #ifdef	ATH_ENABLE_11N
> 
> and then i remembered reading -
> 
> http://adrianchadd.blogspot.com/2011/09/wireless-update-80211n-development.html
> 
> except I'm running 10-CURRENT so I mistakenly decided that didn't apply to me...
> oops.
> ..rebuilding the kernel now. Also going to try Adrian's recently posted patches
> for net80211 and ath to see what happens.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Waitman Gobble
> San Jose California USA

Thanks again for your reply Kevin. I think you might be like a founding father of the internet :) For some reason, perhaps only because being a shop rat paid better than flipping burgers, I got into sheet metal in the mid-80's and ended up being in the 'right place at the right time' to design alot of the metal/skin for the stuff, for example att/lucent tdma/gsm/pcs cabs, etc and that broadcomm startup. among others :). It wasn't sexy work, like for example some engineer dude from whipany would show up with a denny's napkin with basic rackmount cabinet dimensions written in green marker, and I'd have to come up with all 130 components in a cad system, and figure out how to make the thing on a production line. I didn't pay much care or attention to the guts that were going into the things, i don't know much about electronics.. Maybe I should have been more into software and electronics then. But I humor myself..., it's kinda funny I think, perhaps a type of 'kurt vonnegut' da!
 rk humor.. thinking that (as an "artist") my 'work' has been 'seen' by millions of people across the globe, and even many leaders of nations. But it was all ordinary-looking grey boxes, which most people consider ugly hinderances. In this town - San Jose California - they even try to cover up the boxes with 'pretty pictures', i suppose because they are so ugly. anyway, 'glory days' i suppose. Now I'm just trying to get this cheap netbook connected to my AP. :-)  

and now, OK, got it to work. yay. I do still have some strangeness with ifconfig wlan0 scan.. but i'm now connected to 5GHz 11a HT/40

when I do a scan, my BSSID of 2.4GHz is showing up for 5GHz channel 149, the BSSID of 5GHz is not showing up in the scan, but i'm connected to it.

BOOTAY          1c:7e:e5:de:ed:52  149   54M -71:-96  100 EP   WPS HTCAP WPA RSN WME

(my original email was about both BSSIDs showing in scan as 5GHz but the BOOTAY was vanishing completely.)

anyhow, when i tried setting the channel/HT rate ifconfig said ath0 and wlan0 were both associated but I couldn't ping gw. 

ie.
ifconfig wlan0 channel 149:ht/40

when i destroyed wlan0 and recreated without specifying channel/rate it associated and i could ping gw, and get out on the internet. #1 maybe i misunderstand the channel spec:ht/40 config #2 i've just rebuilt the kernel with 
options		ATH_ENABLE_11N
(gosh it takes all night to build, i think i really need to look into setting up a penny jar for an SSD drive)

and tried it once, for the first time. (SO maybe it's just a weird harold.)

anyhow, i'm now connected to 11a

p00ntang# uname -a
FreeBSD p00ntang.waitman.net 10.0-CURRENT FreeBSD 10.0-CURRENT #0: Sat Feb  4 09:08:09 PST 2012     waitman at p00ntang.waitman.net:/usr/obj/usr/src/sys/AXE  i386

ifconfig wlan0 create wlandev ath0 ssid DARKNET
wpa_supplicant -B -i wlan0 -c /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf
ifconfig wlan0 inet 10.0.0.20 netmask 255.255.255.0
ifconfig wlan0 up scan
route add default 10.0.0.1
ping 10.0.0.1
64 bytes from 10.0.0.1: icmp_seq=0 ttl=64 time=1.136 ms

woo!

ath0: flags=8843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> metric 0 mtu 2290
	ether 00:22:43:19:35:21
	nd6 options=29<PERFORMNUD,IFDISABLED,AUTO_LINKLOCAL>
	media: IEEE 802.11 Wireless Ethernet autoselect mode 11na
	status: associated
wlan0: flags=8843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> metric 0 mtu 1500
	ether 00:22:43:19:35:21
	inet 10.0.0.20 netmask 0xffffff00 broadcast 10.0.0.255 
	nd6 options=29<PERFORMNUD,IFDISABLED,AUTO_LINKLOCAL>
	media: IEEE 802.11 Wireless Ethernet MCS mode 11na
	status: associated
	ssid DARKNET channel 149 (5745 MHz 11a ht/40+) bssid 1c:7e:e5:de:ed:52
	regdomain 96 indoor ecm authmode WPA2/802.11i privacy ON
	deftxkey UNDEF AES-CCM 2:128-bit AES-CCM 3:128-bit txpower 30 bmiss 7
	mcastrate 6 mgmtrate 6 scanvalid 450 bgscan bgscanintvl 300
	bgscanidle 250 roam:rssi 7 roam:rate 64 ampdulimit 64k ampdudensity 4
	shortgi wme burst roaming MANUAL

..now to see what's going on with those patches i put in from Adrian's email.

Have fun.

-- 
Waitman Gobble
San Jose California USA