Turn on Wifi after installation?

J

JayArr

Hi All

I've got a Thinkpad P71 running FreeBSD 14.2 quite nicely but I think I declined to setup wifi when I installed. (Why go wireless when there is a 1GB cat cable on your desk?) Now I can't figure out how to turn it on.

I will be moving across country in a travel trailer for the next month and then I'll be off grid at my new property while I build the house. I've got a Starlink dish but need to turn the laptop wifi on so I can connect to it's router.

I feel like I need to re-run that install program again but when I tried running bsdinstall it wanted to reformat my hard drive.
 
running below command :
bsdconfig ----->then select network to configure it. ---->
or :
configure wireless in your /etc/rc.conf as below
wlans_iwlwifi0="wlan0"
ifconfig_wlan0_ipv6="inet6 accept_rtadv"
ifconfig_wlan0="WPA DHCP"

then create below file for wireless
cat /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf
--------------------below was wpa_supplicant.conf content-------
ctrl_interface=/var/run/wpa_supplicant
eapol_version=2
ap_scan=1
fast_reauth=1

network={
ssid="ty099"
scan_ssid=0
psk="321"
priority=5
}

network={
ssid="xxx"
scan_ssid=0
psk="123"
priority=5
}

network={
ssid="youiher"
scan_ssid=0
psk="g31"
priority=5
}
 
Thanks fff, bsdconfig was what I was looking for.

New problem, when I try to configure wireless in bsdconfig

I get a "no devices found" message.

I opened the laptop panel on the bottom and confirmed that I have an Intel 8265NGW Lan card.

I checked https://www.freebsd.org/releases/14.2R/hardware/ and it says this card is supported by the iwm driver.

I hesitate to do your manual install because I notice you use wlans_iwlwifi0="wlan0" which may use the iwl driver instead of iwm?


Do I need to somehow manually start the iwm driver to get BSD to see the card?
 
JayArr said:
I checked https://www.freebsd.org/releases/14.2R/hardware/ and it says this card is supported by the iwm driver.

I hesitate to do your manual install because I notice you use wlans_iwlwifi0="wlan0" which may use the iwl driver instead of iwm?
Click to expand...
Doing sysctl net.wlan.devices should show driver name of your wireless device if it's detected, then you can configure the wlans_<drivername>="wlan0" and others in /etc/rc.conf.

JayArr said:
Do I need to somehow manually start the iwm driver to get BSD to see the card?
Click to expand...

I don't think so because there is that firmware in /boot/kernel.
 
We have progress!


sysctl net.wlan.devices


returned

net.wlan.devices: iwm0

so then I edited rc.conf and added:

Code: 
wlans_iwm0="wlan0"
Code: 
ifconfig_wlan0_ipv6="inet6 accept_rtadv"
Code: 
ifconfig_wlan0="WPA DHCP"

and then I created /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf


vi /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf


Code: 
ctrl_interface=/var/run/wpa_supplicant
eapol_version=2
ap_scan=1
fast_reauth=1

REBOOT

and now the interface is recognized and comes up!
 
JayArr said:
We have progress!


sysctl net.wlan.devices


returned

net.wlan.devices: iwm0

so then I edited rc.conf and added:

Code: 
wlans_iwm0="wlan0"
Code: 
ifconfig_wlan0_ipv6="inet6 accept_rtadv"
Code: 
ifconfig_wlan0="WPA DHCP"

and then I created /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf


vi /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf


Code: 
ctrl_interface=/var/run/wpa_supplicant
eapol_version=2
ap_scan=1
fast_reauth=1

REBOOT

and now the interface is recognized and comes up!
Click to expand...
Nice!
 
Still can't connect to anything.

Does this code in rc.conf set me up for both IPV6 and my older routers running IPV4?

Code: 
ifconfig_wlan0_ipv6="inet6 accept_rtadv"
ifconfig_wlan0="WPA DHCP"

Should it be ?

Code: 
ifconfig_wlan0=WPA2 DHCP
 
JayArr said:
Still can't connect to anything.

Does this code in rc.conf set me up for both IPV6 and my older routers running IPV4?

Code: 
ifconfig_wlan0_ipv6="inet6 accept_rtadv"
ifconfig_wlan0="WPA DHCP"
Click to expand...
I wouldn't recommend using the line with ipv6 unless you actually use ipv6 and/or have a dedicated public ipv6 address.

Otherwise it seems fine but, i assume the /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf you posted is censored, i mean it's cut off at some point to hide SSID and password i believe. If i'm wrong and you didn't define any SSID and password ( wifi name + password ) in that file, you would be unable to connect.

Example:
Code: 
# wpa_passphrase mywifi mypassword
network={
        ssid="mywifi"
        #psk="mypassword"
        psk=f7170c7cf32060e75d4a0a9dad35640ee513c4d3706f55b4358f31c4b768ed21
}
 
Thanks, it's not censored, it's just not filled in. I thought that I would be able to connect, log in and the file would be appended to remember. I'll add in a section with my network and password and eliminate the IPV6 line.
 
Thanks Scottro, I printed that page out and tucked it into the back of my config ledger.

I eliminated the line for IPV6 in my
rc.conf
file and I added a network section with ssid and psk for my router to
/etc/wpa_supplicant.conf
and everything is working.

Thanks all!
 
JayArr
JayArr said:
Code:
Code: 
ctrl_interface=/var/run/wpa_supplicant
eapol_version=2
ap_scan=1
fast_reauth=1
Click to expand...

you just forget define network ... this network must configure with your wireless ssid and password.

below content was enable your wireless can accept ipv6 , don't effect your ipv4 network. don't worry.
ifconfig_wlan0_ipv6="inet6 accept_rtadv"
ifconfig_wlan0="WPA DHCP"

nice to see you solve the problem.
 
One more question...

I haven't been able to figure out how to reboot/reload/refresh things after a wpa_supplicant.conf edit.

Background: I'm on the road and in a different location each night so the ssid of the wifi is constantly changing. Initially I boot up and have no wifi, then I go to a console, start mc and edit wpa_supplicant.conf to add the local wifi name and then I have been rebooting to get online.

How can I edit the .conf file and then use a command to get the file re-read?

I've tried ifconfig and some service commands but no luck so far, google hasn't revealed any concise answers either.
 
JayArr said:
One more question...

I haven't been able to figure out how to reboot/reload/refresh things after a wpa_supplicant.conf edit.

Background: I'm on the road and in a different location each night so the ssid of the wifi is constantly changing. Initially I boot up and have no wifi, then I go to a console, start mc and edit wpa_supplicant.conf to add the local wifi name and then I have been rebooting to get online.

How can I edit the .conf file and then use a command to get the file re-read?

I've tried ifconfig and some service commands but no luck so far, google hasn't revealed any concise answers either.
Click to expand...
Maybe # service restart wpa_supplicant? Note that I am not on my computer. You may also need to restart netif and/or dhclient services.
 
service wpa_supplicant restart -v returns that it is not running, then it tries to start it then it tells me it failed.

service inetd restart -v tells me to use onestart or edit rc.conf, which indicates it's not running.

service dhclient restart wlan0 -v does renew the license but makes no mention of
wpa_supplicant.conf
 
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