Athp driver

[_rp]

Hey, I also have a Compex WLE600VX card installed in my pFsense with 2.5.0 Dev installed, the card I understand is a Qualcomm Atheros QCA9882 based card. I'm running the latest snapshot from yesterday.

Can anyone summarise what I need to do to make use of this card please, it's currently not showing in the device list in the GUI.

[Gertjan]

@romprod said in Athp driver:

it's currently not showing in the device list in the GUI.

GUI ?
The dialogue from @kiokoman and @stephenw10 above is "command line world only". Wifi na and ac settings in the GUI, that silence fiction right now.
Be ready to compile your own device drivers etc .
IMHO, it implies also far more knowledge then just typing 'make' in the top of a source tree.
It's also "2.5.0" ....

[_rp]

I'm born ready!

[kiokoman]

you need to build the driver, there are instructions here
https://github.com/Geramy/athp
2.5.0 is now freebsd 12.2 so you need to download freebsd 12.2 and compile the driver.
you can't compile inside pfsense so you need a virtual machine or something to do the work.
after that upload stuff to /boot/kernel/
cross your fingers and hope it works,if it work and the driver attach you can configure it using the gui

last time i checked

you need to

git clone https://github.com/Geramy/athp/tree/NEW_ATHP_ARVIF_LOCK

and not the one from erikarn, it does not build on freebsd12 but only on freebsd13

[stephenw10]

Yeah, I had significant difficulty getting that compiled. I think I was probably using the wrong branch for most of that time!

Steve

[Gektor]

AC support on FreeBSD is terrible, almost not support at all. Make virtualization (like Xen, Proxmox and etc), than setup pfSense + OpenWrt and you will get fully support of WiFi with pfSense.

[stephenw10]

Yes, currently that's true. This thread is referencing the efforts to fix that though.

[_rp]

I'm having issues while compiling this for 12.2 for some reason. I'm using Geramys build as suggested above but that doesn't seem to compile correctly, maybe something that I'm doing wrong potentially.

Does anyone have the files already that they can share for 12.2?

Ive tried the files for 12.1 but they seem to crash the OS when I try to change any of the wlan settings etc.

[_rp]

git clone -b NEW_ATHP_ARVIF_LOCK https://github.com/Geramy/athp.git
cd /usr/src
make -j12 kernel-toolchain
make -j12 kernel
make -j12 buildkernel KERNCONF=GENERIC
make -j12 installkernel KERNCONF=GENERIC
cd /root/athp/otus/freebsd/src/sys/modules/
./build_modules

root@freebsd:/usr/src # cd /root/athp/otus/freebsd/src/sys/modules/
root@freebsd:~/athp/otus/freebsd/src/sys/modules # ./build_modules
entering athp
Warning: Object directory not changed from original /root/athp/otus/freebsd/src/sys/modules/athp

/root/athp/otus/freebsd/src/sys/modules/athp/../../dev/athp/athp_idr.c:521:34: error: result of '2^30' is 28; did you mean '1 << 30' (1073741824)? [-Werror,-Wxor-used-as-pow]
        int max = end > 0 ? end - 1 : (2^30);   /* XXX */
                                       ~^~~
                                       1 << 30
/root/athp/otus/freebsd/src/sys/modules/athp/../../dev/athp/athp_idr.c:521:34: note: replace expression with '0x2 ^ 30' to silence this warning
1 error generated.
*** Error code 1

Stop.
make: stopped in /root/athp/otus/freebsd/src/sys/modules/athp

[stephenw10]

What did the crash look like with 12.1 binaries?

[kiokoman]

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1OZpFPMEPGU13_Lyz-at2ZSsXKnqVXFkU?usp=sharing

[stephenw10]

That Geramy's branch compiled for 12.2?

[kiokoman]

of course .. idk if it work ...

note: replace expression with '0x2 ^ 30' to silence this warning

[_rp]

@kiokoman Yup that works. Driver loads without crashing. So far I've quickly setup it in AP mode and everything appears to be working full speed. I'll run further tests tomorrow.

Thank you for helping.

[geramyl]

I didn't even know this topic existed until I typed in a error from one of the git issues for compiling the driver haha. Well I am making changes to the repository and upgrading to the latest head from the parent repository. We are going to do some poking at this and then I am going to attempt to verify vif is working, virtual interface and then pfsense should be able to configure the device in the GUI. I believe the freebsd kernel is missing some AC stuff for this card but I believe that was being worked on by https://github.com/erikarn/athp

[stephenw10]

Nice!
I think the biggest issue I had (once I had it compiled) was that the ifconfig parts required to actually use any of the .ac parts are not present so there's no way to test it.

Steve

[lapoberg]

Anyone have a working driver for pfSense 2.6 for the QCA9880? Or instructions on how to compile one?

[stephenw10]

Adrian is still working on it I believe: https://github.com/erikarn/athp
It's very unlikely to ever be in 2.6 though. Now 2.7 is moving to main it should be easier to pull in drivers like this.

Steve

[JonathanLee]

@stephenw10 I was reading the firmware for this card can also be updated at one point.