Problems with Atheros card and hostpd

[Sam Leffler]

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?
> 
> 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?

No.  hostapd collects channel/rate information for functionality that is
linux-specific.  On freebsd hostapd is used purely as an authenticator.

> 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

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.

> 
> 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?

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.

> 
> 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'
>>>
>>>   
> 
> 
>