Wireless interface

[Ernie Luzar]

Carmel NY wrote:
> Okay, I had some free time today, so I decided to try and get the
> wireless interface up and running on my FreeBSD 12.0 / amd 64 machine.
> I thought I correctly configured the "wpa_supplicant.conf" file and
> entered the correct into into the "/etc/rc.conf" file, but it is still
> not working correctly. Anyway, this is the output when I attempt to restart the
> network.
> 
> # service netif restart
> Stopping dhclient.
> dhclient not running? (check /var/run/dhclient/dhclient.wlan0.pid).
> Stopping Network: lo0 em0 wlan0.
> lo0: flags=8048<LOOPBACK,RUNNING,MULTICAST> metric 0 mtu 16384
>         options=680003<RXCSUM,TXCSUM,LINKSTATE,RXCSUM_IPV6,TXCSUM_IPV6>
>         groups: lo
>         nd6 options=21<PERFORMNUD,AUTO_LINKLOCAL>
> em0: flags=8c02<BROADCAST,OACTIVE,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> metric 0 mtu 1500
>         options=81249b<RXCSUM,TXCSUM,VLAN_MTU,VLAN_HWTAGGING,VLAN_HWCSUM,LRO,WOL_MAGIC,VLAN_HWFILTER>
>         ether 00:1a:a0:89:ca:e4
>         media: Ethernet autoselect (100baseTX <full-duplex>)
>         status: active
>         nd6 options=21<PERFORMNUD,AUTO_LINKLOCAL>
> wlan0: flags=8802<BROADCAST,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> metric 0 mtu 1500
>         ether 00:1b:fc:81:85:7f
>         groups: wlan
>         ssid Scorpio-2g channel 3 (2422 MHz 11g)
>         regdomain FCC country US authmode OPEN privacy OFF txpower 30
>  bmiss 7 scanvalid 60 bgscan bgscanintvl 300 bgscanidle 250 roam:rssi 7
>         roam:rate 5 protmode CTS
>         media: IEEE 802.11 Wireless Ethernet autoselect (autoselect)
>         status: no carrier
>         nd6 options=29<PERFORMNUD,IFDISABLED,AUTO_LINKLOCAL>
> Destroyed wlan(4) interfaces: wlan0.
> Created wlan(4) interfaces: wlan0.
> sendmsg on em0: Permission denied
> sendmsg on em0: Permission denied
> sendmsg on em0: Permission denied
> Starting Network: lo0 em0 wlan0.
> lo0: flags=8049<UP,LOOPBACK,RUNNING,MULTICAST> metric 0 mtu 16384
>         options=680003<RXCSUM,TXCSUM,LINKSTATE,RXCSUM_IPV6,TXCSUM_IPV6>
>         inet6 ::1 prefixlen 128
>         inet6 fe80::1%lo0 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x2
>         inet 127.0.0.1 netmask 0xff000000
>         groups: lo
>         nd6 options=21<PERFORMNUD,AUTO_LINKLOCAL>
> em0: flags=8843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> metric 0 mtu
>  1500
>  options=81249b<RXCSUM,TXCSUM,VLAN_MTU,VLAN_HWTAGGING,VLAN_HWCSUM,LRO,WOL_MAGIC,VLAN_HWFILTER>
>  ether 00:1a:a0:89:ca:e4 inet6 fe80::21a:a0ff:fe89:cae4%em0 prefixlen
>  64 scopeid 0x1 inet 192.168.0.101 netmask 0xffffff00 broadcast
>  192.168.0.255 media: Ethernet autoselect (100baseTX <full-duplex>)
>         status: active
>         nd6 options=23<PERFORMNUD,ACCEPT_RTADV,AUTO_LINKLOCAL>
> wlan0: flags=8843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> metric 0 mtu
>  1500 ether 00:1b:fc:81:85:7f
>         groups: wlan
>         ssid Scorpio-2g channel 9 (2452 MHz 11g)
>         regdomain FCC country US authmode OPEN privacy OFF txpower 30
>  bmiss 7 scanvalid 60 bgscan bgscanintvl 300 bgscanidle 250 roam:rssi 7
>         roam:rate 5 protmode CTS bintval 0
>         media: IEEE 802.11 Wireless Ethernet autoselect (autoselect)
>         status: no carrier
>         nd6 options=29<PERFORMNUD,IFDISABLED,AUTO_LINKLOCAL>
> 
> The "/var/run/dhclient/dhclient.wlan0.pid" exists, so I am not sure
> what that error message is all about. Plus, I have no idea what the
> "sendmsg on em0: Permission denied" repeated three times is referring
> to.
> 
> The "wpa_supplicant.conf file:
>      network={
>              ssid="Scorpio-2g"
>              scan_ssid=1
>              key_mgmt=WPA-PSK
>              psk="SECRET"
>      }
> 
>>From the "/etc/rc.conf file":
> ## Wireless
> wlans_bwi0="wlan0"
> ifconfig_wlan0="ssid Scorpio-2g DHCP"
> 
> the "dmesg" output for this device:
> bwi0: <Broadcom BCM4318 802.11b/g Wireless Lan> mem 0xfdefe000-0xfdefffff irq 16 at device 1.0 on pci2
> bwi0: BBP: id 0x4318, rev 0x2, pkg 0
> bwi0: MAC: rev 9
> bwi0: PHY: type 2, rev 7, ver 3
> bwi0: RF: manu 0x17f, type 0x2050, rev 8
> bwi0: invalid antenna gain in sprom
> 
> It is situations like this that make me love
> Microsoft. Connecting a wireless network should not require user
> intervention other than choosing the network and entering the password.
> 

I had this problem when I followed the handbook instructions for 
configuring a wifi card I plugged into my machine back in January 2017. 
Through trial and error with a lot of tcpdump logs finally figured out 
that; my firewall was blocking a igmp packet to 224.0.0.22.

Whats happening is the wifi device on the host is trying to verify that 
the wifi device has public internet access as part of the start up 
process. It tries 3 times and then gives up without issuing any 
meaningful error message.

Be aware that the wifi setup info in the handbook is very out dated.