Netgate XG7100-1U : Atheros AR5B22 (AR9460 - AR9462 Wireless Network Adapter)

lerriuqs

I realize that trying to get wifi in FreeBSD is somewhat advanced, but in case anyone else is thinking of trying an Atheros AR5B22 in the Netgate XG7100-1U, I tried one recently as an "Access Point" (hostap mode) but I found that although it showed up OK as far as FreeBSD is concerned, none of my wifi devices "saw" the SSID when it was in the XG7100-1U (whereas the card works OK quite well in a Debian 11 machine).

pciconf -lv

ath0@pci0:3:0:0:        class=0x028000 card=0x662111ad chip=0x0034168c rev=0x01
hdr=0x00
    vendor     = 'Qualcomm Atheros'
    device     = 'AR9462 Wireless Network Adapter'
    class      = network
ix0@pci0:5:0:0: class=0x020000 card=0x00008086 chip=0x15c48086 rev=0x11 hdr=0x00

In "g" mode the "ifconfig" looked like this:

ifconfig ath0_wlan0

ath0_wlan0: flags=8843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> metric 0 mtu 1500
        description: Atheros_AR5B22
        ether 24:fd:52:5e:0c:e4
        inet6 fe80::26fd:52ff:fe5e:ce4%ath0_wlan0 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x17
        inet 192.168.70.1 netmask 0xffffff00 broadcast 192.168.70.255
        groups: wlan
        ssid penlug channel 8 (2447 MHz 11g) bssid 24:fd:52:5e:0c:e4
        regdomain 106 indoor ecm authmode WPA2/802.11i privacy MIXED
        deftxkey 2 AES-CCM 2:128-bit AES-CCM 3:128-bit txpower 20 scanvalid 60
        protmode OFF wme burst -apbridge dtimperiod 1 -dfs
        parent interface: ath0
        media: IEEE 802.11 Wireless Ethernet autoselect mode 11g <hostap>
        status: running
        nd6 options=21<PERFORMNUD,AUTO_LINKLOCAL>

The boot messages looked like this:

ath0: [HT] enabling HT modes
ath0: [HT] enabling short-GI in 20MHz mode
ath0: [HT] 1 stream STBC receive enabled
ath0: [HT] 1 stream STBC transmit enabled
ath0: [HT] LDPC transmit/receive enabled
ath0: [HT] 2 RX streams; 2 TX streams
ath0: AR9460 mac 640.2 RF5110 phy 0.0
ath0: 2GHz radio: 0x0000; 5GHz radio: 0x0000
pcib4: <ACPI PCI-PCI bridge> mem 0xdff40000-0xdff5ffff irq 23 at device 17.0 on pci0

I also tried System->Advanced->System Tunables and added these, but they didn't seem to make any difference:

hw.ath.bstuck = 8
hw.ath.longcal = 30

I did see some weird errors (as follows), but usually no errors were seen after a reboot:

ath0_wlan0: ieee80211_new_state_locked: pending RUN -> SCAN transition lost
ath0: device timeout
ath0_wlan0: ieee80211_new_state_locked: pending RUN -> SCAN transition lost
ath0_wlan0: ieee80211_new_state_locked: pending INIT -> SCAN transition lost
ath0: device timeout
ath0_wlan0: ieee80211_new_state_locked: pending RUN -> SCAN transition lost
ath0: device timeout

It's strange that none of the devices "see" the SSID. Could it be that the slot doesn't provide enough power to the card? Any idea what are those slots on the back of the motherboard are meant for? Is there some other wifi card that might work OK?

The list of channels looked like this:

ifconfig -v ath0_wlan0 list channel

Channel   1 : 2412      MHz 11b          Channel  56 : 5280*D    MHz 11a ht/20
Channel   1 : 2412      MHz 11g          Channel  56 : 5280*D    MHz 11a ht/40-
Channel   1 : 2412      MHz 11g ht/20    Channel  60 : 5300*D    MHz 11a
Channel   2 : 2417      MHz 11b          Channel  60 : 5300*D    MHz 11a ht/20
Channel   2 : 2417      MHz 11g          Channel  60 : 5300*D    MHz 11a ht/40+
Channel   2 : 2417      MHz 11g ht/20    Channel  64 : 5320*D    MHz 11a
Channel   3 : 2422      MHz 11b          Channel  64 : 5320*D    MHz 11a ht/20
Channel   3 : 2422      MHz 11g          Channel  64 : 5320*D    MHz 11a ht/40-
Channel   3 : 2422      MHz 11g ht/20    Channel 100 : 5500*D    MHz 11a
Channel   4 : 2427      MHz 11b          Channel 100 : 5500*D    MHz 11a ht/20
Channel   4 : 2427      MHz 11g          Channel 100 : 5500*D    MHz 11a ht/40+
Channel   4 : 2427      MHz 11g ht/20    Channel 104 : 5520*D    MHz 11a
Channel   5 : 2432      MHz 11b          Channel 104 : 5520*D    MHz 11a ht/20
Channel   5 : 2432      MHz 11g          Channel 104 : 5520*D    MHz 11a ht/40-
Channel   5 : 2432      MHz 11g ht/20    Channel 108 : 5540*D    MHz 11a
Channel   6 : 2437      MHz 11b          Channel 108 : 5540*D    MHz 11a ht/20
Channel   6 : 2437      MHz 11g          Channel 108 : 5540*D    MHz 11a ht/40+
Channel   6 : 2437      MHz 11g ht/20    Channel 112 : 5560*D    MHz 11a
Channel   7 : 2442      MHz 11b          Channel 112 : 5560*D    MHz 11a ht/20
Channel   7 : 2442      MHz 11g          Channel 112 : 5560*D    MHz 11a ht/40-
Channel   7 : 2442      MHz 11g ht/20    Channel 116 : 5580*D    MHz 11a
Channel   8 : 2447      MHz 11b          Channel 116 : 5580*D    MHz 11a ht/20
Channel   8 : 2447      MHz 11g          Channel 116 : 5580*D    MHz 11a ht/40+
Channel   8 : 2447      MHz 11g ht/20    Channel 120 : 5600*D    MHz 11a
Channel   9 : 2452      MHz 11b          Channel 120 : 5600*D    MHz 11a ht/20
Channel   9 : 2452      MHz 11g          Channel 120 : 5600*D    MHz 11a ht/40-
Channel   9 : 2452      MHz 11g ht/20    Channel 124 : 5620*D    MHz 11a
Channel  10 : 2457      MHz 11b          Channel 124 : 5620*D    MHz 11a ht/20
Channel  10 : 2457      MHz 11g          Channel 124 : 5620*D    MHz 11a ht/40+
Channel  10 : 2457      MHz 11g ht/20    Channel 128 : 5640*D    MHz 11a
Channel  11 : 2462      MHz 11b          Channel 128 : 5640*D    MHz 11a ht/20
Channel  11 : 2462      MHz 11g          Channel 128 : 5640*D    MHz 11a ht/40-
Channel  11 : 2462      MHz 11g ht/20    Channel 132 : 5660*D    MHz 11a
Channel  12 : 2467*     MHz 11b          Channel 132 : 5660*D    MHz 11a ht/20
Channel  12 : 2467*     MHz 11g          Channel 132 : 5660*D    MHz 11a ht/40+
Channel  12 : 2467*     MHz 11g ht/20    Channel 136 : 5680*D    MHz 11a
Channel  13 : 2472*     MHz 11b          Channel 136 : 5680*D    MHz 11a ht/20
Channel  13 : 2472*     MHz 11g          Channel 136 : 5680*D    MHz 11a ht/40-
Channel  13 : 2472*     MHz 11g ht/20    Channel 140 : 5700*D    MHz 11a
Channel  36 : 5180*D    MHz 11a          Channel 140 : 5700*D    MHz 11a ht/20
Channel  36 : 5180*D    MHz 11a ht/20    Channel 149 : 5745*     MHz 11a
Channel  36 : 5180*D    MHz 11a ht/40+   Channel 149 : 5745*     MHz 11a ht/20
Channel  40 : 5200*D    MHz 11a          Channel 149 : 5745*     MHz 11a ht/40+
Channel  40 : 5200*D    MHz 11a ht/20    Channel 153 : 5765*     MHz 11a
Channel  40 : 5200*D    MHz 11a ht/40-   Channel 153 : 5765*     MHz 11a ht/20
Channel  44 : 5220*D    MHz 11a          Channel 153 : 5765*     MHz 11a ht/40-
Channel  44 : 5220*D    MHz 11a ht/20    Channel 157 : 5785*     MHz 11a
Channel  44 : 5220*D    MHz 11a ht/40+   Channel 157 : 5785*     MHz 11a ht/20
Channel  48 : 5240*D    MHz 11a          Channel 157 : 5785*     MHz 11a ht/40+
Channel  48 : 5240*D    MHz 11a ht/20    Channel 161 : 5805*     MHz 11a
Channel  48 : 5240*D    MHz 11a ht/40-   Channel 161 : 5805*     MHz 11a ht/20
Channel  52 : 5260*D    MHz 11a          Channel 161 : 5805*     MHz 11a ht/40-
Channel  52 : 5260*D    MHz 11a ht/20    Channel 165 : 5825*     MHz 11a
Channel  52 : 5260*D    MHz 11a ht/40+   Channel 165 : 5825*     MHz 11a ht/20
Channel  56 : 5280*D    MHz 11a

I also tried a WLE200NX but that had a lot of timeout errors and had status "no carrier" in the ifconfig output.

stephenw10

Hmm, curious. I would expect that to work though it's certainly unusual to see it in the XG-7100.

The WLE200NX will often work where no other card does so that's also a surprising result.

Nothing in that output really looks like a problem.

What antennas are you using?

Steve

lerriuqs

@stephenw10 Thanks for taking a look. I tried the antennas from a couple of Alfa AWUS038NHA 802.11 b/g/n Long-Range USB adapters, as well as one of the standalone Alfa antennas (it's about 15 inches long and has a little stand, with a long wire "pigtail" coming from it which I tried connected to both CH0 and CH1 on the card). It's indeed curious to not "see" the ssid. At the moment for wifi I'm using a Linksys WRT1900AC V2 running openwrt and connecting it to the OPT6 port on the add-in 4-port expansion card, but it would still be nice to find some way to add builtin wifi to the XG7100-1U (for doing things like packet capture).

stephenw10

That wifi card definitely works OK in something else?

There is nothing special about the XG-7100 that should be any problem there.

Steve