WiFi suddenly gone (ath0 beacon stuck)

JonathanLee

@johnpoz I want to because I think the airport extreme AP I have could becone infected with a container based virus as it's from 2009. The AP operates under it's own software that can communicate over the firewall as the AP is running in bridge mode. Again, I suspect it could be an issue. Moreover, anything on the LAN side over WiFi that attempts to communicate with other LAN side devices don't have to follow the firewall rules as they use only the AP to communicate with each other without the firewall for some reason. This is when the AP is even in bridge mode. The AP allows intra device communication as the AP is also a time machine (NAS). When in bridge mode that software still functions. On the other side if PfSense is handling WiFi all the access control lists for device to device communication are compartmentalized and strictly controlled at the firewall and not on some 3rd party AP.

provels

@JonathanLee I may be mistaken, but I believe your Airport Extreme contains the same AR5BXB112 (AR9380 chip) card that you mentioned earlier as one you'd want to get. Might just take it apart, I'm sure Steve Jobs wouldn't care anymore...

JonathanLee

@provels I purchased one, If I could just use the open source code that is sitting on GitHub and fully utilize it on PfSense it would work perfectly.

johnpoz

@JonathanLee said in WiFi suddenly gone (ath0 beacon stuck):

and fully utilize it on PfSense it would work perfectly.

That would be a matter of opinion ;)

anything on the LAN side over WiFi that attempts to communicate with other LAN side devices don't have to follow the firewall rules

My wifi networks are not on my lan - the different ssids I run are all on their own vlans and rules set appropriate for what I want the different networks to be able to talk to, etc.

One of ssids uses eap-tls to auth, and this comes from the management IP of the AP - to the freerad instance listening on that vlans interface on pfsense. That is completely different network than other wifi networks. Only my trusted devices that have certs used to auth to the eap-tls setup are on that vlan. And that vlans is not my lan network either.. But the rules on that vlan are lighter and printer seats on that vlan so phones and tablets (trusted devices) can print, etc..

If I was more paranoid I would run that management completely different than any of my wifi networks - but to get on that network you have to auth via cert.. I am fairly confident its pretty freaking secure.. But sure that management vlan should prob be completely isolated from any wifi at all.

provels

@stephenw10 I know! I found some your discussion about that from back then in various places. But I guess I'll be waiting a while unless someone packages athp for 14. I tried the 12.2 version that @kiokoman posted back here (https://forum.netgate.com/post/942133) and failed. I'd be happy to get even N running. Never compiled anything.

JonathanLee

@johnpoz we did vlans in class a whole bunch, at home I am only running LAN for wireless on everything. It's just my AP is so old they don't even update it anymore.

JonathanLee

@provels Apple iMac Mac A1311 A1312 Wireless WiFi Card 2011 AR5BXB112 607-7211-A 661-5946
arrived in the mail however the system does not detect it as usable.

It does however work with the Compex WLE200NX Wireless A/B/G/N Network Mini PCIe Adapter (A4343) just fine.

stephenw10

An AR5BXB112? Does it work in anything else? Under another OS?

JonathanLee

@stephenw10 I will have to check something else to see if its the card.

stephenw10

Hmm, are you running that in the 2100? I don't believe it will work there. The wle200nx is the only wifi card I have seen work on that platform.

JonathanLee

@stephenw10 Yes I have the 2100 with arm architecture. Is that the problem ?? So other appliances support the other set of cards? Should the 2100 also support the other cards listed?

stephenw10

Yes that card should work in anything x86. arm (aarch64 here) platforms require far for specific code so if you want the PCIe bus to work that has to be setup. There is a conflict in that setup in 2100 which means some (most) PCIe cards are not seen on the bus. Since we never sold it with a wifi card, and the only card we have sold in recent memory was the wle200nx there is not huge incentive to correct it. It's non-trivial!

Steve

JonathanLee

@stephenw10 Thanks for the info. I will have to put the old card back, I got that other card hoping to use three antenna or test the diversity settings to see if they would turn on for the 2100. Dang :(

JonathanLee

@stephenw10 Is there anyway to enable that card or no?

stephenw10

Do you see the card in the output of pciconf -lv ?

If not does it show in the PCI output in uboot? For example:

Marvell>> pci
Scanning PCI devices on bus 0
BusDevFun  VendorId   DeviceId   Device Class       Sub-Class
_____________________________________________________________
00.00.00   0x168c     0x0030     Network controller      0x80

JonathanLee

@stephenw10

@stephenw10 said in WiFi suddenly gone (ath0 beacon stuck):

pciconf -lv

pciconf -lv showed none. I already put the compex back

stephenw10

Ok. I don't believe it will work in the 2100 but if you did want to dig further the next step would be to check that uboot sees it.

provels

@JonathanLee said in WiFi suddenly gone (ath0 beacon stuck):

@provels Apple iMac Mac A1311 A1312 Wireless WiFi Card 2011 AR5BXB112 607-7211-A 661-5946
arrived in the mail however the system does not detect it as usable.

It does however work with the Compex WLE200NX Wireless A/B/G/N Network Mini PCIe Adapter (A4343) just fine.

Just saw this. The Apple AR5BXB112 I have works at N speed in my x86 FW. Of course, I have pulled it out and put in my Compex 600, which now doesn't work either, sad face.

none1@pci0:5:0:0:       class=0x028000 rev=0x00 hdr=0x00 vendor=0x168c device=0x003c subvendor=0x0000 subdevice=0x0000
    vendor     = 'Qualcomm Atheros'
    device     = 'QCA986x/988x 802.11ac Wireless Network Adapter'
    class      = network

I tried the binaries compiled but failed due to my own ignorance. Any hints from @stephenw10 if available about what and where to put them would be appreciated. Trying to learn to compile but my compiling is a pile...
Anyway, here's a pic of my Apple card.

stephenw10

@provels said in WiFi suddenly gone (ath0 beacon stuck):

I tried the binaries compiled but failed due to my own ignorance.

The athp driver? Been a long time since I tried that. There is a thread for it with some details. I have no idea what the current state is though.

provels

@stephenw10
athp-driver
Yes, read through that thread several times. You referred to putting the files in the "correct locations"? Are those /boot/kernel for the if_athp.ko and /boot/modules for the rest? Do I need to do anything else to get it recognized? Can I even use the old binaries with 14?

KLD if_athp.ko: depends on kernel - not available or version mismatch
linker_load_file: /boot/kernel/if_athp.ko - unsupported file type

I don't care if it runs any better than N at this point. Appreciate any assist, but don't let it interfere with your day job!