Getting RTL8188SU to work on pfSense

[edmondt]

My first post :)
I have been playing around with pfSense and it is by fast the fastest and easiest to get going for my routing needs.

Previously I was setting up routing with Ubuntu 10.04 a few times, but it takes a lot longer to get it up and running…

Anyway I'm not sure if this can be done, but I compiled a driver in ubuntu for my usb wireless card using this file: RTL8188SU_usb_linux_v2.6.0006.20100625.zip from http://www.realtek.com.tw/downloads/downloadsView.aspx?Langid=1&PNid=48&PFid=48&Level=5&Conn=4&DownTypeID=3&GetDown=false&Downloads=true#2302

Is there somehow a way to compile this card in pfsense or install a vmware FreeBSD compile and drop it to pfsense? I just want to get it to work...

[cmb]

Doesn't look like there are any FreeBSD drivers on that page, so no.

[edmondt]

Doh! Oh well…

Willl this for sure work with pfSense? Its a Realtek 8187L: http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.35405

[_igor_]

You could have luck:

http://www.freebsd.org/releases/8.0R/hardware.html#ETHERNET

The urtw(4) driver supports Realtek RTL8187B/L based wireless network devices, including:
Netgear WG111v2
Safehome WLG-1500SMA5
Shuttle XPC Accessory PN20

Maybe if the driver is included in the pfsense-distri, it "should" work…

[wallabybob]

Do you want your wireless NIC to act as an access point? If so, then you probably want to use a different NIC.

I've successfully used two different USB devices based on the Ralink chipset (a DLink G122 rev C and TP Link TL-WN321G) with pfSense 1.2.3. Unfortunately I've had problems using these devices with pfSense 2.0 snapshot builds including one I downloaded about 24 hours ago. I've bought the TP Link device from a local computer shop for under US$20 (after conversion at current exchange rates). Both these devices are supported by the rum driver and will operate in access point mode.

[jimp]

urtw(4) is in 2.0 but it is not capable of being an access point.

Here is the current list of supported wireless drivers:
http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AojFUXcbH0ROdHgwYkFHbkRUdV9hVWljVWl5SXkxbFE&hl=en

[edmondt]

Actually I live very close to a Plaza where I can pickup many free open wifi by businesses :) I just want to have a bit of fun gathering them and use the USB WIFI and do a little load balancing between my own internet connection and the free ones.

I tried using Ubuntu Server, cos I can make RTL8188SU work… I played around with bonding mode 4 and tried to bond wlan1 and wlan2 together, but playing around with it a few days its not very reliable and its a bit of a pain to script the whole thing in /etc/network/interfaces, upon dropped connection you have to write a script to detect and reconnect... long story short, its a painful process (I tried ebox as well, its um...rubbish)...

pfSense is the only one I know that has a Web GUI for connecting WIFI, I haven't tried vyatta yet but hopefully the ones I just ordered from dealextreme would be detected by pfsense.

Should I write the following to enable urtw(4)?
/boot/loader.conf

if_urtw_load="YES"
wlan_wep_load="YES"
wlan_tkip_load="YES"
wlan_ccmp_load="YES"

[jimp]

It's built into the 2.0 kernel. You do not need to touch loader.conf at all.