Which driver is required?

Chris_H

Chris_H

Greetings,

How the h3ll do I know which driver to load for a USB Wi-Fi dongle? Dmesg wasn't too informative, nor was usbconfig. :-( I did consult the HCL, but found it less than helpful (for me). I have two dongles I can use. Here's the output of usbconfig for both dongles:

Netgear WNDA3100
Code: 
#usbconfig -d ugen1.2 dump_device_desc
ugen1.2: <Remote Download Wireless Adapter Broadcom> at usbus1, cfg=0 md=HOST spd=HIGH (480Mbps) pwr=ON
  bLength = 0x0012
  bDescriptorType = 0x0001
  bcdUSB = 0x0200
  bDeviceClass = 0x00ff
  bDeviceSubClass = 0x0000
  bDeviceProtocol = 0x0000
  bMaxPackrtSize0 = 0x0040
  idVendor = 0x0846
  idProduct = 0x9011
  bcdDevice = 0x0001
  iManufacturer = 0x0001 <Broadcom>
  iProduct = 0x0002 <Remote Download Wireless Adapter>
  iSerialNumber = 0x0003 <0>
  bNumConfigurations = 0x0001

Cisco AE2500
Code: 
#usbconfig -d ugen1.2 dump_device_desc
ugen1.2: <Linksys AE2500 Cisco> at usbus1, cfg=0 md=HOST spd=HIGH (480Mbps) pwr=ON
  bLength = 0x0012
  bDescriptorType = 0x0001
  bcdUSB = 0x0200
  bDeviceClass = 0x00ff
  bDeviceSubClass = 0x0000
  bDeviceProtocol = 0x0000
  bMaxPacketSize0 = 0x0040
  idVendor = 0x13b1
  idProduct = 0x003a
  bcdDevice = 0x0001
  iManufacturer = 0x0001 <Cisco>
  iProduct = 0x0002 <Linksys AE2500>
  iSerialNumber = 0x0003 <000000000001>
  bNumConfigurations = 0x0001

Please help. A smart phone is no substitute for a FreeBSD server! :-)

Thank you!
 
First, figure out what chipset is actually in them. Some searching shows the first has an Atheros 9170 chipset. The last information I found showed that card was not yet natively supported in ath(4). That was in September, so it may be supported now. Otherwise, there's ndisgen(8). freebsd-wireless would be able to say for sure.

The second has mixed reviews and appears to be a Broadcom chipset. It's possible that bwn(4) might drive it. Broadcom is an unfortunate example of adequate hardware (some say actually pretty good) hobbled by lack of programming information.
 
Greetings wblock@, and thank you for your reply. Well, finding exactly what chipset is in either of them, is exactly what I had hoped to discover. Is there any way, outside of carving the plastic off the dongles to find this out? I'm not lazy, I'm happy to search the release notes for compatibility. :-) Anyhow, I notice the bwn driver you mention appears to be for a card. Will they work for USB?

Well, you've given me a little more to work with. Thanks for taking the time to respond! :-)
 
I didn't see any indication of multiple chipsets for the Netgear, so it's probably safe to think it's an AR9170. See uath(4), but again, the mailing list is the definitive source.

Can't recall if bwn(4) will run USB devices, don't have any Broadcom in USB form.
 
Greetings wblock@, and thanks for your reply.
Well, the bwn module loaded via:
Code: 
if_bwn_load="YES"
in loader.conf(5) w/o issue. But the bwn driver requires firmware support — which is fine, but I'm going to have to figure out how to transfer it from my smart phone, to the server (server won't be internet enabled till I get this wireless worked out) :-(
I should probably take a closer look at uath(4), before committing myself. :-P

Thanks again for your reply!
 
Really, don't count on either of those wireless cards working with FreeBSD. Maybe connect them to another system and boot that system with a Linux live CD. Or maybe Windows "connection sharing" would work. Or take the server somewhere where a wired connection is available for experimentation.
 
Greetings wblock@, and thanks for your reply.
Understood. This is clearly a risk. But I'm willing to give them a shot. I don't suppose you'd be willing to venture a recommendation (I won't hold anything against you) — really. :-)
Speaking of uath(4), What happened to Atheros? Their web site has been gone since 2007. The man(1) pages should probably be updated (remove the links to their site).

Thanks again for your thoughtful reply!
 
Hey phoenix, thanks for chiming in!
Appreciate the "heads up". :-)
Pity though. Seems like the old Atheros site was a great resource. Sad to see it gone. Now all those informative links in FreeBSD's man(1) pages, are for not. :(

Thanks again for the update.
 
Chris_H said:
Greetings wblock@, and thanks for your reply.
Understood. This is clearly a risk. But I'm willing to give them a shot. I don't suppose you'd be willing to venture a recommendation (I won't hold anything against you) — really. :-)
Click to expand...

If it were me, I'd install everything needed for both, but plan on neither working. Atheros has a shot, but it's doubtful.
 
Greetings je33, and thank you for your thoughtful reply. I checked out the link. The reviews are about 50/50. The biggest complaints seen to be the results of the dongle overheating. Thirty years of experience leads me to believe that it's a low voltage issue — inadequate power supply, USB 1.1, too many devices connected to their USB ports. In any case, I'm not concerned, if it warms up, I'll cut the plastic off, and affix a heatsink — no big. I'm going to take a chance, and get a couple. if they work out, I'll get the 9 more I'll need to equip my entire server farm. :-)
Here's hoping, and thanks again!
 
wblock@ said:
If it were me, I'd install everything needed for both, but plan on neither working. Atheros has a shot, but it's doubtful.
Click to expand...

Yea, I'm stubborn like that too. :-)
I did install the drivers — to no avail. The biggest problem being, they're both 802.11N.
What probably bothers me most, is that I dropped $50.00 the other day on the Cisco AE2500. :(
I should probably donate it to the FreeBSD developers, so they can ultimately add it to the supported list of hardware, and /n too. :-)
Thanks wblock@, for all your help, and advice!
 
802.11n devices also support 802.11g. If the drivers supported that device, it would still work. Adrian Chadd and others have done a lot of work on getting 802.11n working lately, and I've actually tested it with what would now be 9-stable and some patches on an AR5008. Seemed to work fine, and 802.11g also worked. That's actually a recycled Mac mini-PCIe card on a mini-PCIe to PCIe adapter.

Hmm. http://wikidevi.com/wiki/Rosewill_RNX-N360PC says that's an AR5008: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833166067 (untested, but if somebody wants to send me one to try...)
 
je33 said:
I just completed a search for stock of dongles disclosed on the uath(4) page. I only found one avail. This must be an old chipset and coming out of old stock.

http://www.amazon.com/D-Link-DWL-G132-Compact-Wireless-Included/dp/B0006698SI?tag=duckduckgo-d-20

I picked one up on the spot. Hope it works for you.
Click to expand...

Greetings,
Mine just arrived. But I can't help but notice uath(4) says it supports
Code: 
D-Link DWL-G132
But mine says
Code: 
DWL-AG132
(note the A). Make any difference?
 
Greetings,
Appears it'll be fine.
Code: 
/boot/loader.conf
if_uath_load="YES"
Code: 
~
6:06pm
Thu, 29 wireless-host# usbconfig -d ugen1.2 dump_device_desc
Code: 
ugen1.2: <USB WLAN Device Atheros Communications Inc> at usbus1, cfg=0 md=HOST spd=HIGH (480Mbps) pwr=ON

  bLength = 0x0012
  bDescriptorType = 0x0001
  bcdUSB = 0x0200
  bDeviceClass = 0x00ff
  bDeviceSubClass = 0x0000
  bDeviceProtocol = 0x0000
  bMaxPacketSize0 = 0x0040
  idVendor = 0x2001
  idProduct = 0x3a01
  bcdDevice = 0x0001
  iManufacturer = 0x0001 <Atheros Communications Inc>
  iProduct = 0x0002  <USB WLAN Device>
  iSerialNumber = 0x0003  <1.0>
  bNumConfigurations = 0x0001
Code: 
~
7:30pm
Thu, 29 wireless-host# uathload -v -d /dev/ugen1.2
Code: 
Load firmware ar5532.bin (builtin) to /dev/ugen1.2
send block  0: 1151368 bytes remaining
                       : data...
                       : wait for ack...flags=0x14 total=153416
  ...
send block 74: 0 bytes remaining
                        : data
                        : wait for ack...flags=0x14 total=153416
ugen1.2: <Atheros Communications Inc> at usbus1 (disconnected)
 
Greetings,
Well OK, I was able to manually bring it up, and create the wlan(4) device.
But even after reading http://www.wonlity.com/~wblock/docs/html/wireless.html (thanks Wblock), and http://www.freebsd.org/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/network-wireless.html, I'm not able to bring it up, and connect automatically on a reboot (boot(8)). :(

I created the /etc/wpa_supplicant(8) file with my SSID & PSK in it.
My /boot/loader.conf(5) contains:
Code: 
if_uath_load="YES"
So what have I overlooked, that the wlan(4) device isn't created automagically?

Thank you for all your time and consideration.

--Chris_H
 
wblock@ said:
/etc/rc.conf
Code: 
wlans_ath0="wlan0"

should create it. Please show the output of
% ifconfig
Click to expand...

Greetings wblock, and thank you for your reply!
Code: 
~
12:32pm
Fri, 30 wireless-host# ifconfig
Code: 
re0: flags=8843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> metric 0 mtu 1500
        options=389b<RXCSUM,TXCSUM,VLAN_MTU,VLAN_HWTAGGING,VLAN_HWCSUM,WOL_UCAST,WOL_MCAST,WOL_MAGIC>
...
plip0: flags=8810<POINTOPOINT,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> metric 0 mtu 1500
lo0: flags=8049<UP,LOOPBACK,RUNNING,MULTICAST> metric 0 mtu 16384
        options=3<RXCSUM,TXCSUM>
        inet 127.0.0.1 netmask 0xff000000 
        inet6 ::1 prefixlen 128 
        inet6 fe80::1%lo0 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0xa 
        nd6 options=3<PERFORMNUD,ACCEPT_RTADV>
uath0: flags=8843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> metric 0 mtu 2290
        ether 00:19:5b:7e:27:7e
        media: IEEE 802.11 Wireless Ethernet autoselect mode 11g
        status: associated
wlan0: flags=8843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> metric 0 mtu 1500
        ether 00:19:5b:7e:27:7e
        inet6 fe80::219:5bff:fe7e:277e%wlan0 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0xc 
        inet 192.168.1.106 netmask 0xffffff00 broadcast 192.168.1.255
        nd6 options=3<PERFORMNUD,ACCEPT_RTADV>
        media: IEEE 802.11 Wireless Ethernet OFDM/54Mbps mode 11g
        status: associated
        ssid deadlink channel 1 (2412 MHz 11g) bssid 90:21:55:07:e8:19
        country US authmode WPA2/802.11i privacy ON deftxkey UNDEF
        AES-CCM 2:128-bit txpower 0 bmiss 7 scanvalid 450 bgscan
        bgscanintvl 300 bgscanidle 250 roam:rssi 7 roam:rate 5 protmode CTS
        roaming MANUAL
Code: 
~
12:32pm
Fri, 30 virus#

P.S. I'm using uath(4), and already have
Code: 
wlans_uath0="wlan0"
in my /etc/rc.conf(5) file. Do I also need the ath(4) driver (as you noted), as well?

Thanks again!

--Chris_H
 
Greetings,

Well, I found the problem. I'm required to load the firmware every time, via uathload(8), before I can create a wlan(4) device. Seems to make automagically starting wireless, a no-go in FreeBSD, if using the uath(4) driver/module. :(

--Chris_H
 
Greetings,

Well, after searching al of the forums here for an answer without success. I searched the interweb, and found a hint as to what might be a problem. Turns out to be the /etc/devd/uath.conf was the problem. After a buildworld && build || installkernel, I perform a mergemaster(8) -p. But I tend to err on the side of caution, leaving much of what is created in /var/tmp/temproot there, for later perusal. As such, the /etc/devd/uath.conf wasn't there. So a quick trip to /var/tmp/temproot and a [cmd=""]cp etc/devd/uath.conf /etc/devd[/cmd] followed by a reboot boot(8), solved the problem. :-)

--Chris_H
 
Really, do not work on one of these wireless cards to leave with FreeBSD. Maybe they connect to another system and boot a Linux live CD. Or maybe "connection sharing" Windows does not work. Or take the server in a location where a cable connection is available for experimentation.
 
Greetings,
I'm not sure I follow you. My last post was an attempt to indicate that the uath(4) wifi dongle I was struggling with works now, as intended. :-)
 
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