# 8.1-RELEASE - (AR9285) ath0 status: no carrier



## cicciopasticcio (Jan 22, 2011)

Hello,

I'm coming from Linux and I'm pretty new to FreeBSD. I have installed a new 8.1 RELEASE on an ASUS UL30A notebook, everything looks fine except the AR9285 WiFi nic - I cannot associate it to my AP.

Below I put some logs and commands output:


```
[B]# dmesg |grep ath[/B]
ath0: <Atheros 9285> mem 0xfeaf0000-0xfeafffff irq 17 at device 0.0 on pci2
ath0: [ITHREAD]
ath0: AR9285 mac 192.2 RF5133 phy 14.0

[B]#cat /boot/loader.con[/B]
ath_load="YES"
wlan_wep_load="YES"
wlan_ccmp_load="YES"
wlan_tkip_load="YES"
if_vlan_load="YES"

[B]# cat /etc/rc.conf[/B]
# -- sysinstall generated deltas -- # Fri Jan 21 17:50:16 2011
# Created: Fri Jan 21 17:50:16 2011
# Enable network daemons for user convenience.
# Please make all changes to this file, not to /etc/defaults/rc.conf.
# This file now contains just the overrides from /etc/defaults/rc.conf.
font8x14="NO"
font8x16="NO"
font8x8="NO"
inetd_enable="NO"
keymap="it.iso"
moused_enable="YES"
moused_port="/dev/psm0"
moused_type="auto"
sshd_enable="YES"
vaps_ath0="wlan0"
wlans_ath0="wlan0"
ifconfig_wlan0="DHCP"

[B]# ifconfig -a[/B]
ath0: flags=8843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> metric 0 mtu 2290
        ether 1c:4b:d6:85:f9:9f
        media: IEEE 802.11 Wireless Ethernet autoselect mode 11g
        status: associated
alc0: flags=8802<BROADCAST,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> metric 0 mtu 1500
        options=c3198<VLAN_MTU,VLAN_HWTAGGING,VLAN_HWCSUM,TSO4,WOL_MCAST,WOL_MAGIC,VLAN_HWTSO,LINKSTATE>
        ether 48:5b:39:6b:a3:d8
        media: Ethernet autoselect
lo0: flags=8049<UP,LOOPBACK,RUNNING,MULTICAST> metric 0 mtu 16384
        options=3<RXCSUM,TXCSUM>
        inet6 fe80::1%lo0 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x3
        inet6 ::1 prefixlen 128
        inet 127.0.0.1 netmask 0xff000000
        nd6 options=3<PERFORMNUD,ACCEPT_RTADV>
wlan0: flags=8843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> metric 0 mtu 1500
        ether 1c:4b:d6:85:f9:9f
        media: IEEE 802.11 Wireless Ethernet autoselect (autoselect)
        status: no carrier
        ssid "" channel 4 (2427 MHz 11g)
        regdomain 96 indoor ecm authmode OPEN privacy OFF txpower 20 bmiss 7
        scanvalid 60 bgscan bgscanintvl 300 bgscanidle 250 roam:rssi 7
        roam:rate 5 protmode CTS wme burst bintval 0

[B]# pciconf -lv[/B]
ath0@pci0:2:0:0:        class=0x028000 card=0x10891a3b chip=0x002b168c rev=0x01 hdr=0x00
    vendor     = 'Atheros Communications Inc.'
    device     = 'Atheros [I]AR9285[/I] Wireless LAN 802.11 a/b/g/n Controller (AR928x)'
    class      = network

[B]# kldstat -v | grep wla[/B]
                342 wlan
                341 wlan_wep
                340 wlan_tkip
                339 wlan_ccmp
                338 wlan_amrr
                343 wlan_sta

[B]# kldstat -v | grep ath[/B]
                93 pci/ath
                277 uhub/uath

[B]# uname -a[/B]
FreeBSD  8.1-RELEASE FreeBSD 8.1-RELEASE #0: Mon Jul 19 02:36:49 UTC 2010     ro
ot@mason.cse.buffalo.edu:/usr/obj/usr/src/sys/GENERIC  amd64

[B]# ifconfig wlan0 list scan[/B]
SSID/MESH ID    BSSID              CHAN RATE   S:N     INT CAPS
Liberty         00:4f:67:03:64:c0    6   54M -77:-96  100 EPS  RSN

[B]# ifconfig wlan0 ap 00:1f:1f:15:a6:ab ssid MY_SSID wepmo
de on wepkey 0x_MY_HEX_KEY[/B]
```

The strange fact is when I _scan_ for new APs, I see only the _Liberty_ network (not mine), and the rest of WiFi networks (around 10) are missing in the output.
Yes, I've been googling and reading forums, but all the info I found on the web are useless for my case.

In my Linux box and Window$ the WiFi nic is working fine, even if my AP is located a little bit far away from my station.

Many thanks.


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## cheme (Feb 22, 2011)

Hello,

I setup my system using the FreeBSD Handbook's wireless networking section.  The documentation is excellent! http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/network-wireless.html#NETWORK-WIRELESS-WEP

Our setup appears to be slightly different so you may have to change some of this information to meet your needs.  I am currenlty using 8.2-RC3 and wpa, it looks like you are using 8.1 and wep encyption.  I don't know if I can hep but here is my current configuration.


```
[B]#uname -a[/B] 
FreeBSD FreeBSD 8.2-RC3 FreeBSD 8.2-RC3 #0: Sun Jan 30 06:28:31 UTC 2011    root@mason.cse.buffalo.edu:/usr/obj/usr/src/sys/GENERIC  amd64

[B]#dmesg | grep ath[/B]
ath0: <Atheros 9285> mem 0xf4000000-0xf400ffff irq 19 at device 0.0 on pci5
ath0: [ITHREAD]
ath0: AR9285 mac 192.2 RF5133 phy 14.0

[B]#cat /boot/loader.conf[/B]
if_ath_load="YES"
wlan_wep_load="YES"
wlan_ccmp_load="YES"
wlan_tkip_load="YES"

[B]#cat /etc/rc.conf[/B]
hostname="YourHostName"
ifconfig_re0="DHCP"  
sshd_enable="YES"
hald_enable="YES"
dbus_enable="YES"
wlans_ath0="wlan0"
ifconfig_wlan0="WPA SYNCDHCP"
OSS_enable="Yes"

[B]#cat /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf[/B]
ctrl_interface=/var/run/wpa_supplicant
ctrl_interface_group=wheel
network={
        ssid="yourssid"
        psk="yourkey"
        }
```

Try changing your wireless settings in /boot/loader.conf and /etc/rc.conf to match up with mine.  

Now issue the following commands and see what you get.  

`#  /etc/rc.d/netif restart`
`# ifconfig wlan0 scan`


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## cicciopasticcio (Feb 25, 2011)

Thanks for the reply and for the suggestion.
I'll try as soon as I'll get my grub working....recently I've upgraded to grub2 and I'm not able to dual boot Debian/FreeBSD anymore 0.o


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## cheme (Mar 13, 2011)

I was able to connect to a WEP encrypted network with the following configuration.


```
[B]# cat /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf[/B] 

network={
	ssid="YourSSID"
	key_mgmt=NONE
	wep_key0=password
	wep_tx_keyidx=0
	}
```


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