USB wireless?
-
If it says "atheros" when plugged in, it's not the zyd driver, it would be the Atheros drivers, though it may be a different chip than one supported.
-
Oh, weird. I found a bunch of google hits that seemed to indicate otherwise. I did try loading ath and uath drivers, neither helped.
interface ath.1 already present in the KLD 'kernel'!
module_register: module uhub/uath already exists!Is there any way to grovel thru the usb output to see what might be going on? Thanks!
-
If it get a ugen device, no driver attached. All of the wireless drivers are in the kernel now, so you shouldn't have to load a module. If it's supported, it should just work. The "already exists" error means the driver is already there, and it can't load the module because it's already (in effect) loaded.
You can look at the output of usbconfig to see what might show up there.
-
Name brand vendors are known for switching chipsets under the hood without changing model numbers or packaging. Sometimes they don't even mark them as different versions, so it isn't surprising.
-
Odd, I rebooted and now I can't see the device at all. I thought I left it plugged in (I am not at home for several days), so I can't confirm this. I will find out what I can when I return. Thanks!
-
Okay, back home and on this now. I had in fact unplugged it. Plugging it into a freebsd8.1 VM, I see this from usbconfig:
ugen1.2: <usb2.0 wlan="" atheros="">at usbus1, cfg=0 md=HOST spd=HIGH (480Mbps) pwr=ON bLength = 0x0012 bDescriptorType = 0x0001 bcdUSB = 0x0200 bDeviceClass = 0x00ff bDeviceSubClass = 0x00ff bDeviceProtocol = 0x00ff bMaxPacketSize0 = 0x0040 idVendor = 0x0cf3 idProduct = 0x1006 bcdDevice = 0x0108 iManufacturer = 0x0010 <atheros>iProduct = 0x0020 <usb2.0 wlan="">iSerialNumber = 0x0030 <12345> bNumConfigurations = 0x0001</usb2.0></atheros></usb2.0>a USB vendor of 0x0cf3 is this:
#define USB_VENDOR_ATHEROS2 0x0cf3 /* Atheros Communications */
but grepping for that string in any and all drivers in /usr/src/sys/dev/usb/wlan shows no matches :( I am not real up on the devd stuff, so maybe that is searched elsewhere? Jimp, you said this is not a zydas device, but I found this:
http://forums.freebsd.org/showthread.php?t=11638
which referred to a TL-WN422G V2. Any thoughts?
-
Jimp, you said this is not a zydas device, but I found this:
http://forums.freebsd.org/showthread.php?t=11638
which referred to a TL-WN422G V2. Any thoughts?
See Jimp's earlier replies. DLink, Linksys and Netgear all use a number of different chipsets from different suppliers in models with the same identification. I wouldn't be surprised if less well known suppliers adopt the same nasty habit. (This habit is unfriendly to users of open source operating systems because it makes it more difficult to purchase a device which should work.)
The chip in your adapter identifies itself as being an Atheros chip: idVendor = 0x0cf3.
The FreeBSD uath driver supports at least a family of Atheros USB chips so it would appear reasonable to expect the uath driver to support your device. But the chip identifies itself: idProduct = 0x1006
which does match any of the particular IDs the uath driver recognises. Further research would be required to determine whether this particular chip is "software compatible" with those supported by the uath driver or if its something completely different.I believe FreeBSD has a facility to use Windows NDIS networking drivers. I have no experience with this facility. Perhaps you could try using it.
The only USB wireless devices I have any experience with use the rum driver and that is broken in FreeBSD 8.x if you use adhoc or hostap modes. I've had rum devices working OK with pfSense 1.2.3. I have used both the DLink DWL-G122 rev c1 and TP-Link TL-WN321G. Some other revisions of the DWL-G122 are known to use other chipsets. I don't know of other chipsets being used in the TL-WN321G but this thread makes me cautious about extrapolating from my experience.
-
People sometimes want pfSense to act as an access point. If that is part of your requirements it would probably be useful to consult jimp's table at http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AojFUXcbH0ROdHgwYkFHbkRUdV9hVWljVWl5SXkxbFE&hl=en#gid=0
I think rum and ural are the only drivers of USB devices supporting access point mode. When I looked some months ago I couldn't find any sources of devices using ural chips.
-
Thanks Wallabybob. The deal killer here is lack of hostap support, so I guess I am back to square 1 :(
-
Can anyone comment on how likely it will be for the hostap mode to be fixed in 8.x? I purchased a TP-LINK USB dongle hoping to use it as an AP interface, but it only crashes my pfsense 2.0 box when I try to connect.
-
I am aware of a FreeBSD patch that at least makes the rum driver better behaved. With the patch I haven't been able to get the rum driver to panic my 2x800MHz PIII system but I know of someone who was seeing panics on their q6600 system when running a shell script to repeatedly 'netif start' a rum interface. Its nice to have the system 'bulletproof' but running such a script is a pretty unusual thing to do. I'm hoping the patch will be accepted on the grounds that although it doesn't make the rum driver bulletproof it appears to considerably improve the robustness of the rum driver.
-
Can anyone comment on how likely it will be for the hostap mode to be fixed in 8.x? I purchased a TP-LINK USB dongle hoping to use it as an AP interface, but it only crashes my pfsense 2.0 box when I try to connect.
The rum driver didn't exist until 8.x. It isn't there in 8.1 as far as I can tell, so if it will ever be fixed, it may not be anytime soon. Certainly not in pfSense 2.0.
-
The rum driver didn't exist until 8.x. It isn't there in 8.1 as far as I can tell, so if it will ever be fixed, it may not be anytime soon. Certainly not in pfSense 2.0.
You might be thinking of the run (RUN) driver. I have two different USB sticks I can plug into my pfSense 1.2.3 system and both are attached by the rum (RUM) driver.
-
Ah, yeah, you're right. That's what I get for replying to a thread so early on a Saturday :-)
Actually I'm not even sure what I was thinking of there… They didn't even mention a device type in that post, just the model of that device.
goes back to sleep -
I haven't had a chance to test yet, but this appears to address the rum driver issues:
http://redmine.pfsense.org/issues/839
-
I managed to get AP mode working, in 2.0 BETA, using a D-Link DWA-140. I was able to pick one up off of eBay for around $15 with the shipping. The only thing that I had to do was to make a file named /boot/loader.conf.local which contains the following line:
runfw_load="YES"
You can read more about that requirement here:
http://forum.pfsense.org/index.php?topic=27744.0
-
Since we are at wireless question, I new to pfsense, I just got my wyse system install with pfsense 2.0 RC1.
I plug a USB Wireless G dongle from Airlink. I able to see it in the interface and enable from the interface let call it OPT4Wireless. So I setup all the requirement for it to act as AP. I bridge LAN and OPT4wireless together. Is there any else I need to do to turn on the wireless signal. On the Dash board, I can see the OPT4wireless interface but it show disabled. How do I enable my wireless. Any tips from here. Thank. -
OPT4 wireless interface is enabled in the GUI?
Perhaps you are trying to set a characteristic your device doesn't support and it doesn't enable?
Which Airlink device are you trying to use and (more importantly) what FreeBSD device name does it have? Apparently some Airlink USB devices use a Zydas chipset and FreeBSD (and hence pfSense) doesn't support AP mode on that chipset.
-
wallabybob, you are right the USB wireless doesn't support as AP. If you don't mind, may I ask what is the infrastructure on one of the choices? I not familiar with that term. I know what an ad hoc is but have never use it. My current setup work fine. modem-pfsense-switch-AP. All dhcp and filter handled by pfsense. I just want to create a separate wireless zone for guest because my current wireless setup require MAC filter. It just too work to add them to the filtered list. My wireless AP is an Engenius EB3500, I think it has VLAN setting in it. I have never use VLAN before so I don't know it can separate the guest from the main network. I don't want to put a MAC filter on the guest, just ssid/password would be fine. If VLAN can solve my issue, then my next task is openvpn. Thank you for fast reply.
-
infrastructure means uses an Access Point.
I suggest you consider the following alternatives:
-
Replace your existing USB WiFi NIC by a TP-LINK TL-WN321G or a Tenda W311U. The first is supported by pfSense 1.2.3 and both are supported by pfSense 2.0. Both can operate as Access Points. Both are available retail where I live for well under the equivalent of US$20. I have used both as APs in my house.
-
Put another NIC card in your pfSense card (or swap one of your existing NIC cards for a dual port model) and use your existing Engenius AP connected to the new port.
-
If you have a VLAN capable switch, configure the switch so the port connecting to the Engenius is in a separate VLAN from the rest of your ports, configure two suitable VLANs on your pfSense.
The first is definitely the most straightforward. I would forget the third option unless you are prepared to put some effort into learning about VLANs. Note its not recommended to mix VLAN and "non VLAN" traffic on the same physical interface, especially when bridging is involved.
-
