# if_ipw problems on 8.0-RELEASE



## Zare (Nov 23, 2009)

Today i upgraded my work laptop to 8.0, better said reinstalled and restored, because P4M 1.5GHz would rebuild ports for days. The card was not operational afterwards, ifconfig can't scan networks, exits with error, and wpa_supplicant doesn't work, reports IOCTL error against the driver.

Note, i "restored" the system, meaning after newfs-ing the 7.2 root partition and 8.0 installation on it, i restored original relevant files to /etc tree. Therefore, the module load line and legal acknowledgment line are there.

The module dumps "ipw0 : no firmware" at debug console. Man page refers to ipwfw(4) as firmware module but there is no man page found. I found no such module in boot/kernel so i went installing the firmware via ports, in net/ipw-firmware-kmod, and the port just reported that the module is included in base install. Found the module sources in /usr/src/sys/modules/ipwfw, made a make / make install, and got three files, ipw_ibss, ipw_bss, and ipw_monitor, loaded them all before loading if_ipw, still same "no firmware" error.

Am i missing something here?


----------



## billt (Nov 28, 2009)

*Same here.*

I'm having the same problem.

kldstat shows the following:

```
Id Refs Address    Size     Name
 1   38 0xc0400000 b6dfe0   kernel
 2    1 0xc0f6e000 c6c4     if_ipw.ko
...
```

...and /var/log/messages says:

```
ipw0: no firmware
```

wpa_supplicant will not start either (I suppose because the firmware is not recognized.

ALSO: I have the following in /boot/loader.conf (which might help the parent to this reply):

```
legal.intel_ipw.license_ack="1"
```
...I previously had:

```
legal.intel_ipw.license_ack=1
```
...both of which fail to let the system know the firmware should be loaded.

Thanks for any help.


----------



## billt (Dec 29, 2009)

*Almost there...*

Ok, I got the firmware to start working but wpa_supplicant just does not work. Rather, my Sofaware Safe@Office wireless access points complains about something missing.

Here is how I got the firmware to function (followed by the wpa_supplicant problem):

In /boot/loader.conf:

```
if_ipw_load="YES"
```

In /etc/rc.conf.local:

```
wlans_ipw0="wlan0"
ifconfig_wlan0="WPA x.x.x.x netmask 0xffffff00"
```

Here is my Safe@Office's event log message about it:

```
WLAN client <my mac> disconnected from wlan network. Initiator: AP, Reason: Invalid information element
```

The /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf file is the same as exists in my FreeBSD 7.2 server and that also works in a Linux installation.

Running wpa_supplicant with the -dd option is not showing errors. But, wpa_suppliment normally gives these lines in /var/log/messages:

```
(timestamp host) wpa_supplicant[PID]: CTRL-EVENT-SCAN-RESULTS
(timestamp host) wpa_supplicant[PID]: Trying to associate with <safe@office mac> (SSID='my ssid' freq=2437 MHz)
(timestamp host) wpa_supplicant[PID]: Authentication with <safe@office mac> timed out.
```

I hope someone figures this one out soon.


----------

