Cannot get wireless atheros card to be recognized in pfSense 2.0.1

chriv

I read some similar threads, including this one: http://forum.pfsense.org/index.php?topic=12807.0, but I didn't find any answers.

Simple problem: pfSense 2.0.1 doesn't load the driver for my atheros wireless card in my Acer netbook.

Here's some applicable output:

#: dmesg | grep -i ath
ath0: <atheros 2424="" 5424=""> irq 17 at device 0.0 on pci3
ath0: 0x10000 bytes of rid 0x10 res 3 failed (0, 0xffffffff).
ath0: cannot map register space
device_attach: ath0 attach returned 6</atheros>

#: pciconf -lv
...
ath0@pci0:3:0:0:        class=0x020000 card=0xe00d105b chip=0x001c168c rev=0x01 hdr=0x00
    class      = network
    subclass   = ethernet

Anybody have any ideas? I haven't the foggiest clue how to recompile the kernel without the atheros driver to slip in the atheros kernel module, so that won't work for me without some pretty explicit instructions. I don't think it would fix these errors anyway.

wallabybob

@chriv:

Simple problem: pfSense 2.0.1 doesn't load the driver for my atheros wireless card in my Acer netbook.

Wrong diagnosis. The driver is already built in the kernel and it is effectively reporting the I/O subsystem is not correctly setup for the card.

#: dmesg | grep -i ath
ath0: <atheros 2424="" 5424=""> irq 17 at device 0.0 on pci3
ath0: 0x10000 bytes of rid 0x10 res 3 failed (0, 0xffffffff).
ath0: cannot map register space
device_attach: ath0 attach returned 6</atheros>

After a quick look through the FreeBSD source code I suspect this means something like:
1. There isn't enough kernel address space or page table entries to map the 0x10000 (64k) bytes of PCI memory address space on the ath device into kernel memory space; or
2. An upstream PCI bridge doesn't have enough memory address space to allow access to all its downstream devices AND this device;

Is this card a mini PCI-Express card replacing the netbook's standard WiFi card?

Is pfSense running in some kind of virtual environment?

Was the card in the system at boot time?

Have you tried a snapshot build of pfSense 2.1?