# FreeBSD 8.0 Wireless Ifconfig Issue (maybe noob)



## sc362 (Jul 16, 2009)

Hi,

I hope someone can help as this is giving me major grief today. I was running updates (I think I am going to stop doing this now as it has caused other issues). I rebuilt my kernel after the update as the old one wouldn't rebuild. I have been very careful and included all of the old wireless bits. The wireless which has been working fine now doesn't work. When I do an ifconfig It says that it wont scan and when I try to use wpa_supplicant I get an ioctl error. I have seen a few instances of this across the net but no solutions.

I am using a Netgear WPN511 with an Atheros 5212 (to my knowledge) chipset. It has been running fine but has now decided to crap out since the update. One important thing I did notice is that now I think on boot it is saying that I am running v8 where I had 7.1 before. This was all after running the security updates from the manual. Im sure my configs work as they were working fine before this update. I did hear a vicious roumer somewhere that 8 doesn't have a working wireless implementation yet.

Any thoughts?


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## phoenix (Jul 16, 2009)

That is an unfounded, baseless, rumour.  Wireless works fine in 8.0, and has several new features compared to 7.x.

Start with this thread for instance.


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## aragon (Jul 16, 2009)

Yup, FreeBSD 8.0 wireless support is better than 7.x, but your 7.x wireless configuration won't work in 8.0 - you need to update it.


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## sc362 (Jul 18, 2009)

I knew that was probably a load of rubbish. It would be silly for wireless to be supported in 7 but not 8.

I looked at that thread you suggested. It was super helpful and I grabed the solution that you guys came to but the card is still not connecting to my network. Well I tried to create the wlan0 interface as described in the solution to the post phoenix suggested but it doesn't seem to create it, its rather confusing.


Just on the off chance you wouldn't happen to know why my BSD has suddenly decided to stop responding to shutdown -p and halt -p. The screen goes black but the unit is still powered? Its wierd and again has only started happening since I updated, it was fine before.


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## aragon (Jul 19, 2009)

You say you were running 7.1, but are now running 8.0.  What happened?  How was your system updated?  Was /etc updated with mergemaster?


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## sc362 (Jul 19, 2009)

Thats a fair question. I have checked back to the handbook because I updated exactly as the handbook recommended.

First I ran:


```
freebsd-update fetch
```

Then I ran:


```
freebsd-update install
```

(I just thought it would be good practice to keep up to date)

The first time I noticed my distro was reading 8.0 was when I booted it the other day, after I had done the update. Here is a copy of my dmesg:


```
Copyright (c) 1992-2009 The FreeBSD Project.
Copyright (c) 1979, 1980, 1983, 1986, 1988, 1989, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994
	The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved.
FreeBSD is a registered trademark of The FreeBSD Foundation.
FreeBSD 8.0-CURRENT #3: Thu Jul 16 10:35:25 BST 2009
    sc362@home.gateway.com:/usr/obj/usr/src/sys/MYIBM2
Timecounter "i8254" frequency 1193182 Hz quality 0
CPU: Intel Pentium III (696.98-MHz 686-class CPU)
  Origin = "GenuineIntel"  Id = 0x683  Stepping = 3
  Features=0x383f9ff<FPU,VME,DE,PSE,TSC,MSR,PAE,MCE,CX8,SEP,MTRR,PGE,MCA,CMOV,PAT,PSE36,MMX,FXSR,SSE>
real memory  = 536805376 (511 MB)
avail memory = 516337664 (492 MB)
acpi0: <PTLTD   RSDT> on motherboard
acpi0: [ITHREAD]
acpi0: Power Button (fixed)
acpi0: reservation of 0, a0000 (3) failed
acpi0: reservation of 100000, 1ff00000 (3) failed
Timecounter "ACPI-safe" frequency 3579545 Hz quality 850
acpi_timer0: <24-bit timer at 3.579545MHz> port 0x1008-0x100b on acpi0
acpi_ec0: <Embedded Controller: GPE 0x9, GLK> port 0x62,0x66 on acpi0
acpi_lid0: <Control Method Lid Switch> on acpi0
acpi_button0: <Sleep Button> on acpi0
pcib0: <ACPI Host-PCI bridge> port 0xcf8-0xcff on acpi0
pci0: <ACPI PCI bus> on pcib0
pcib1: <ACPI PCI-PCI bridge> at device 1.0 on pci0
pci1: <ACPI PCI bus> on pcib1
vgapci0: <VGA-compatible display> mem 0xf0000000-0xf7ffffff irq 11 at device 0.0 on pci1
cbb0: <TI1450 PCI-CardBus Bridge> mem 0x50000000-0x50000fff irq 11 at device 2.0 on pci0
cardbus0: <CardBus bus> on cbb0
pccard0: <16-bit PCCard bus> on cbb0
cbb0: [FILTER]
cbb1: <TI1450 PCI-CardBus Bridge> mem 0x50100000-0x50100fff irq 11 at device 2.1 on pci0
cardbus1: <CardBus bus> on cbb1
pccard1: <16-bit PCCard bus> on cbb1
cbb1: [FILTER]
fxp0: <Intel 82559ER Pro/100 Ethernet> port 0x1800-0x183f mem 0xe8120000-0xe8120fff,0xe8100000-0xe811ffff irq 11 at device 3.0 on pci0
miibus0: <MII bus> on fxp0
inphy0: <i82555 10/100 media interface> PHY 1 on miibus0
inphy0:  10baseT, 10baseT-FDX, 100baseTX, 100baseTX-FDX, auto
fxp0: Ethernet address: 00:d0:b7:ad:15:0b
fxp0: [ITHREAD]
pci0: <simple comms, UART> at device 3.1 (no driver attached)
pci0: <multimedia, audio> at device 5.0 (no driver attached)
isab0: <PCI-ISA bridge> at device 7.0 on pci0
isa0: <ISA bus> on isab0
atapci0: <Intel PIIX4 UDMA33 controller> port 0x1f0-0x1f7,0x3f6,0x170-0x177,0x376,0x1850-0x185f at device 7.1 on pci0
ata0: <ATA channel 0> on atapci0
ata0: [ITHREAD]
ata1: <ATA channel 1> on atapci0
ata1: [ITHREAD]
uhci0: <Intel 82371AB/EB (PIIX4) USB controller> port 0x1860-0x187f irq 11 at device 7.2 on pci0
uhci0: [ITHREAD]
usbus0: <Intel 82371AB/EB (PIIX4) USB controller> on uhci0
pci0: <bridge> at device 7.3 (no driver attached)
acpi_tz0: <Thermal Zone> on acpi0
atrtc0: <AT realtime clock> port 0x70-0x73 irq 8 on acpi0
atkbdc0: <Keyboard controller (i8042)> port 0x60,0x64 irq 1 on acpi0
atkbd0: <AT Keyboard> irq 1 on atkbdc0
kbd0 at atkbd0
atkbd0: [GIANT-LOCKED]
atkbd0: [ITHREAD]
psm0: <PS/2 Mouse> irq 12 on atkbdc0
psm0: [GIANT-LOCKED]
psm0: [ITHREAD]
psm0: model Generic PS/2 mouse, device ID 0
battery0: <ACPI Control Method Battery> on acpi0
acpi_acad0: <AC Adapter> on acpi0
acpi_ibm0: <IBM ThinkPad ACPI Extras> on acpi0
cpu0: <ACPI CPU> on acpi0
acpi_throttle0: <ACPI CPU Throttling> on cpu0
smist0: <SpeedStep SMI> on cpu0
pmtimer0 on isa0
orm0: <ISA Option ROMs> at iomem 0xc0000-0xcbfff,0xcc000-0xcd7ff,0xe0000-0xeffff pnpid ORM0000 on isa0
sc0: <System console> at flags 0x100 on isa0
sc0: VGA <16 virtual consoles, flags=0x300>
vga0: <Generic ISA VGA> at port 0x3c0-0x3df iomem 0xa0000-0xbffff on isa0
ppc0: parallel port not found.
Timecounter "TSC" frequency 696976275 Hz quality 800
Timecounters tick every 1.000 msec
usbus0: 12Mbps Full Speed USB v1.0
ugen0.1: <Intel> at usbus0
uhub0: <Intel UHCI root HUB, class 9/0, rev 1.00/1.00, addr 1> on usbus0
ad0: 38154MB <HTS424040M9AT00 MA2OA71A> at ata0-master UDMA33
acd0: DVDROM <TOSHIBA DVD-ROM SD-C2302/1127> at ata1-master UDMA33
ath0: <Atheros 5212> mem 0x88000000-0x8800ffff irq 11 at device 0.0 on cardbus0
ath0: [ITHREAD]
ath0: AR2413 mac 7.9 RF2413 phy 4.5
uhub0: 2 ports with 2 removable, self powered
Trying to mount root from ufs:/dev/ad0s1a
WARNING: /mnt/root was not properly dismounted
WARNING: /tmp was not properly dismounted
WARNING: /usr was not properly dismounted
/usr: mount pending error: blocks 8 files 2
WARNING: /var was not properly dismounted
/var: mount pending error: blocks 0 files 1
pid 1334 (initial thread) is using legacy pty devices
pid 1364 (nepomukservicestub), uid 1001: exited on signal 11 (core dumped)
fxp0: link state changed to UP
pid 2436 (gnome-pty-helper) is using legacy pty devices
```

Here are copies of my rc.conf and my loader.conf

rc.conf:


```
# ======================================
# CUSTOM BOOT LOADER CONFIG
# ======================================


#	Wireless Loads
# --------------------------------------
if_ath_load="YES"
wlan_wep_load="YES"
wlan_ccmp_load="YES"
wlan_tkip_load="YES"
if_vlan_load="YES"


#	Beastie Enable
# --------------------------------------
autoboot_delay="3"
loader_logo="beastie"
```

rc.conf:


```
blanktime="300"
hostname="home.gateway.com"
ifconfig_fxp0="DHCP"
pccard_enable="YES"

# Atheros Wireless Card Settings
vaps_ath0="wlan0"
wlans_ath0="wlan0"
ifconfig_wlan0="WPA DHCP"

keymap="uk.iso"
linux_enable="YES"
moused_enable="YES"
moused_port="/dev/sysmouse"
moused_type="auto"
saver="logo"
scrnmap="NO"
hald_enable="YES"
dbus_enable="YES"
```

I hope this helps shed some light on my situation!


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## phoenix (Jul 19, 2009)

Remove the vaps_ath0 line.  You need one or the other (vlans_ath0 or wlans_ath0) and not both.


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## sc362 (Jul 20, 2009)

I've just tried it with just wlans_ath0, no joy. I then tried it with just the vlans_ath0, obviously with the vlans_ath0="YES", and no joy either. This is frustrating seeing how it was working fine the other day lol.

One odity I have noticed is that even with that in the config ath0 still shows up in the ifconfig (with no wlan0). Also now that I have modified my confs it doesn't even attempt a connection on startup.


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## sc362 (Jul 22, 2009)

Solution:

Hi guys, I was ripping my hair out with this one so I decided to re-install. I think your suggestions would have worked if I had done a fresh 8.0 install but It was just having none of it, thanks for all your help


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