pfSense requires at least two interfaces: LAN and WAN. In your case, if sis0 (the onboard Ethernet) is your "LAN" then ath0 (your Atheros mini-PCI card) is your "WAN".

easy way of checking for atheros chipset…...anything thats 108mb is a atheros chipset they own 108mb

Thanks, that worked.

I tend to say "pfsense is perfect to handle any access point !"  :D

If you trust the client that connect / use your pfsense box, daisy chain any access points that you would like - with WPA(2), DraftN - Long range, you name it, just chose the right AP for your needs.
Just check that the access point shouldn't be a router, just a plain access point.
Use AP to focus on your needs (like DraftN mentioned here).

Another solution, if you do not trust your clients, like any bar/hotel/public AP setup : throw in your pfsense any (third) Ethernet card (a 5 $ solution), give it a static IP, and you could use access control, portal management, protect your LAN, and even more.

Trying to use a Wifi-card into the pfsense box brings up the fact that the card should be supported by BSD 7 (Draft N isn’t there yet), and that the Wifi coverage will be far less (a circle around the pfsense box).

For myself, I'm covering 5 levels building, 4800 square metre surface, with a set-it-and-forget-it-solution – using 6 AP’s.

That is something that could be added in the Central Management Interface bounty since it talks about remotely managing multiple pfsense boxes from a central location?  Adding to the bounty for this feature if it is important will help push it along.

I have some basic config files located on this post.
http://forum.pfsense.org/index.php/topic,10077.0.html

mrbostn enabled "Advanced outbound NAT" and didnt specify a rule for the OPT1-subnet.
–> he routed the OPT1 subnet insted of NATing it.

What you're talking about (I think) is more suited to a product like DDWRT designed for war-driving etc where it will scan and auto-attach to wifi..

Okay, once again not a PFSense problem it appears.. migrated to a new box, and now it seems to be working okay.. terminal showed ural0: Cisco-Linksys … etc connected
ural0: MAC/BP RT257u0
ural0: Ethernet Address [mac]
ural0: if_start running deferred for Giant

then started listing the bridge MAC's as i configured it… only issue is it's now DIRT slow.. 700kbps slow.. I know it's USB but there's only one wifi client, it's USB 2.0... etc...  Any insights?  I'm ecstatic it's working, and works for web browsing, but even pandora radio it out at this point... lol

thanks for the reply. will look into this.

Thanks. Apparently I didn't know that all windows computers have to be on the same subnet to see each other's resources through "my network places".

I changed my wireless network IP addresses to be in the space of my LAN IP addresses.

Now every things works fine.

Thanks.

No, i had that function in the Linksys WRT54GL router. The Wireless survey shows nearby Wifi spots. Oh wel, n/m i guess. What do i care what nearby me is up or not. But i have notice after reboot router and entering The Wifi Status page right after, sometimes nearby Wifi network shows and after exit that page and enterig again, is gone. Clueless…

Then again... (who cares?) .... Just a thought that maybe cool to have to see how far my Wifi pfSense is talking though this function.

WifiStatus.jpg
WifiStatus.jpg_thumb

I've just noticed some additional details. I fired up a wireless client just now, and wasn't able to get to the internet. I also couldn't ping that wireless device from my LAN. I logged into the pfSense box and couldn't ping the device from their either. However, I then pinged the IP address of the DI-524 (192.178.107.2) and as soon as I did that, pings from the LAN to the wireless device started working, and the wireless device could reach the internet.

I stopped traffic (no pings or web requests) and wait a moment or so. Next request fails, and no ping responses from wireless client. As soon as I ping 192.168.107.2 from the pfSense box, everything immediately starts working.

Nothing shows up in the logs during this time.

It definitely sounds like a routing issue, but I'm not sure what to do to solve it. From what I understand, I shouldn't need a static route configured since everything on the WLAN is part of the same network that is assigned to the WLAN interface.

Any other tips or pointers? Anywhere else I can look to figure out what is going on?

Thanks,
-Ed

It depends on how you get the public IP's from your ISP.

Do you have a public subnet that gets routed to a public IP you have?
Or do you just have some public IP's out of another range?

In the first case just disable NAT and route the IP's.
In the second case you might bridge the WLAN to the WAN and use pfSense as a filtering bridge.

You can do it with 1 ethernet interface and one wireless interface (i just set up 10 such systems).

First you assigne the ath0 as WAN and the sis0 as LAN.
You now can access the webinterface.
Create rules so you can acces the pfSense from the WAN.
Now swap the LAN and the WAN interfaces.
You should be able to access the pfSense from the WAN now and configure the ath0 as LAN.

i use a D-Link card , and it works perfectly, this card have an atheros chipset … i just have a litle problem with
i try to enter to the webconfig when im connected via Athros interface, bridge with LAN and with my english  ;D, but this hardware
works in pfSense ... like any atheros chipset nic... i use D-Link DWL-G520

Saludos

You may want to try out pfSense 1.2.1 which uses FreeBSD7. For me it has fixed the disconnect issues.
Link to download pfSense 1.2.1 can be found here http://blog.pfsense.org/?p=207

Update: 6.3 Fix all my connectivity issues.

Seems unlikely. They have a drop out of any functionality. I have something odd going on where pings seem to make it come 'unstuck'.

Don't suppose anyone wants to buy an ALIX 2C2 with mini-pci wireless etc?  :D

Motherboard:      GA-PCV2
Memory:              512MB
Wireless Card:      TP-Link TL-WN651G
Wireless Chipset:  ath0: <atheros 5212="">…
Wireless Mode:    AP
Problem:            None known
$ athstats
905044 tx management frames
73185 tx frames discarded prior to association
6417 tx failed 'cuz FIFO underrun
71328 tx failed 'cuz bogus xmit rate
810843 tx frames with rts enabled
94307 tx frames with an alternate rate
45 tx frames with 11g protection
5142838 rx failed 'cuz of FIFO overrun
79 rx failed 'cuz frame too short
74587 rx management frames
19003302 beacon setup failed 'cuz no mbuf
379584516 beacons transmitted
64921 periodic calibration failures
8289 tx used alternate antenna
Antenna profile:
[2] tx  506092 rx  219413
[3] tx  465718 rx    3015
$ uptime
8:48AM  up 22 days, 13 hrs, 1 user, load averages: 0.22, 0.11, 0.03</atheros>