Atheros AR9280 Wireless N problem with pfSense 2.1

localhostx

Hi all,

I have been using pfsense 2.1 with AR9280 Atheros based mini pcie network card. It works fine in 802.11 a/b/g modes. However, when I set the wireless mode to 802.11ng or na wireless goes down with the following two error logs.

/interfaces.php: The command '/sbin/ifconfig ath0_wlan1 up mode '11ng' ssid 'my_SSID' protmode 'off' 
channel '3' mediaopt hostap -mediaopt adhoc hidessid -pureg -puren -apbridge -mediaopt turbo wme authmode 
open wepmode off ' returned exit code '1', the output was 'ifconfig: SIOCS80211: Invalid argument'


hostapd: ath0_wlan1: IEEE 802.11 Fetching hardware channel/rate support not supported.

I have one more Atheros NIC (I don't remember its chipset but it is also supported and 802.11n capable) and it has the same problem also.

AR9280 is a supported NIC for freeBSD 8.3. Do you have any idea about why I am getting these errors?

wallabybob

Probably because 802.11n is not supported in FreeBSD 8.3. I suspect the support is "incomplete" in that ifconfig apparently accepts one or more 802.11n mode parameters but some of the other required pieces either don't recognise them or don't take appropriate action on them.

localhostx

In the below page, it is said that it is supported. Do I understand it wrong?

https://wiki.freebsd.org/dev/ath%284%29

wallabybob

FreeBSD 8.3 was released about a year ago. The source code was feature frozen some months before that.

The linked page reporting on the "in-tree" (development) device driver is dated 6-Apr-2013. It is not necessarily an accurate indication of the capabilities of the driver in FreeBSD 8.3. The ath driver in FreeBSD 9.1 (released Dec 2012) probably has a capability set close to that listed in the linked page than the driver in FreeBSD 8.3.

localhostx

Thanks wallabybob, I was about to go crazy since I thought the it is supported but I couldn't make it work.