Problems with Atheros card and hostpd

[Boris Kochergin]

Derek Kulinski wrote:
> Hello Boris,
>
> I checked the handbook, UPDATING, and nothing mentioned this thing,
> why? I would think I'm not the only one with this problem, or am I?
>   
Well, I learned about it because I follow the -current@ and -net@ 
mailing lists, but there is at least some mention of it in 
/usr/src/UPDATING:

20080420:
        The 802.11 wireless support was redone to enable multi-bss
        operation on devices that are capable.  The underlying device
        is no longer used directly but instead wlanX devices are
        cloned with ifconfig.  This requires changes to rc.conf files.
        For example, change:
                ifconfig_ath0="WPA DHCP"
        to
                wlans_ath0=wlan0
                ifconfig_wlan0="WPA DHCP"
        see rc.conf(5) for more details.  In addition, mergemaster of
        /etc/rc.d is highly recommended.  Simultaneous update of userland
        and kernel wouldn't hurt either.

        As part of the multi-bss changes the wlan_scan_ap and wlan_scan_sta
        modules were merged into the base wlan module.  All references
        to these modules (e.g. in kernel config files) must be removed.
> Anyway it seems to work, I'm getting:
> Starting hostapd.
> Configuration file: /etc/hostapd.conf
> wlan0: IEEE 802.11 Fetching hardware channel/rate support not supported.
> Using interface wlan0 with hwaddr 00:11:95:e5:70:df and ssid 'mayumi-ap'
>
> Is it something I should worry about?
>   
I don't think so. The same thing happens on my access points. It looks 
like the channel and rate remain properties of the underlying device, 
which makes sense, since all wlan pseudo-devices use the same channel 
and rate.
> Also how to create wlan device by hand? "ifconfig ath0 wlandev wlan0"
> doesn't seem to work.
>
> What initially was worrying me was this:
>   
>>> ath0: <Atheros 5212> mem 0xf4000000-0xf400ffff irq 3 at device 11.0 on pci0
>>> ath0: [ITHREAD]
>>> ath0: AR2413 mac 7.9 RF2413 phy 4.5
>>>       
>
> I thought that ath0 was using a different driver than it supposed to.
>
> There's one more question, though not related to this problem.
> I have an android phone, and it doesn't seem to work with my FreeBSD
> AP, while it works on others. After sniffing the traffic, it looks
> like it is a power management issue:
> https://supportforums.motorola.com/message/87903#87903
>
> Someone traced the problem to WME/WMM in his case. I don't know if
> that's the case for me yet, I tried to disable/enable wme on the AP
> but it doesn't seem to do anything. Is it possible that I might fix it
> by enabling some option?
>   
Don't know anything about this, I'm afraid.
> Anyway, thanks for everyone who helped me fix the initial issue.
>
> Derek
>
>
> Wednesday, December 16, 2009, 4:28:49 AM, you wrote:
>
>   
>> Multi-BSS support in 8.0 means that you first need to create a wlan 
>> pseudo-device, and run hostapd with that. The rc.conf lines look like this:
>>     
>
>   
>> wlans_ath0="wlan0"
>> create_args_wlan0="wlanmode hostap"
>> ifconfig_wlan0="ssid networkname media autoselect up"
>>     
>
>   
>> -Boris
>>     
>
>   
>> Derek Kulinski wrote:
>>     
>>> Hello,
>>>
>>> I just upgraded my access point (from 7.1 to 8.0) and can't make
>>> hostapd work (looks like wide-dhcp relay also has a problem with ath0):
>>>
>>> [mayumi]:/root# hostapd -P /var/run/hostapd.pid -dd /etc/hostapd.conf
>>> Configuration file: /etc/hostapd.conf
>>> Line 2: DEPRECATED: 'debug' configuration variable is not used anymore
>>> ctrl_interface_group=0 (from group name 'wheel')
>>> pcap_open_live:
>>> ifname='ath0'
>>> bsd driver initialization failed.
>>> ath0: Unable to setup interface.
>>> rmdir[ctrl_interface]: No such file or directory
>>> Exit 255
>>>
>>> Output from dmesg:
>>> ath0: <Atheros 5212> mem 0xf4000000-0xf400ffff irq 3 at device 11.0 on pci0
>>> ath0: [ITHREAD]
>>> ath0: AR2413 mac 7.9 RF2413 phy 4.5
>>>
>>> The interface seems to exist, but seems it lost some of its
>>> functionality:
>>> [mayumi]:/root# ifconfig ath0
>>> ath0: flags=8843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> metric 0 mtu 2290
>>>         ether 00:11:95:e5:70:df
>>>         media: IEEE 802.11 Wireless Ethernet autoselect (autoselect)
>>>         status: no carrier
>>> [mayumi]:/root# ifconfig ath0 list cap
>>> ifconfig: Don't know how to list cap for ath0
>>>
>>> What's going on? The card worked pretty well with 7.1.
>>>
>>> I tried to compile kernel just with "device ath_ar5212"
>>> but I'm only getting this:
>>>
>>> ah.o(.text+0x212): In function `ath_hal_rfprobe':
>>> /usr/src/sys/dev/ath/ath_hal/ah.c:142: undefined reference to `__start_set_ah_rfs'
>>> ah.o(.text+0x21f):/usr/src/sys/dev/ath/ath_hal/ah.c:142: undefined reference to `__stop_set_ah_rfs'
>>> ah.o(.text+0x235):/usr/src/sys/dev/ath/ath_hal/ah.c:142: undefined reference to `__stop_set_ah_rfs'
>>>
>>>   
>>>       
>
>
>
>