Re: wireless interface does not come up on boot

On Tue, 13 Sep 2022, John J. Rushford wrote:

Hi,

I am on travels so forgive if I miss things and will be selective with
my reply.

> I'm having trouble with my wireless interface on a FreeBSD 13.1-RELEASE 
> installed  Laptop.  The wlan0 interface that uses the iwlwifi driver does not 
> come up after booting.  I have to bring it up manually.  I was advised to 
> email this list as it is suspected to be some issue with the driver.
>
> I have a DELL XPS-13 9360 model laptop in which I've replaced the M2 slot 
> wifi adapter with a wifi 6e adapter using an AX210 chip, wise tiger is the 
> brand name.  I've properly configured wpa_supplicant to join an AP in my home 
> and I have the following options in /etc/rc.conf:
>
> wlans_iwlwifi0="wlan0"
> ifconfig_iwlwifi0="WPA DHCP"
>
> The interface does not come up after booting the laptop.  In troubleshooting 
> I've found that I can manualy bring the interface up using the following 
> commands:
>
>
> # ifconfig wlan0 up scan
>
> # wpa_supplicant -i wlan0 -c /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf &
>
> # dhclient wlan0
>
> Once I bring up the interface, everything works as expected.  I'm composing 
> and sending this email from the machine now that I've manually brought up the 
> interface.
>
> I have no idea, why the interface does not come up automatically following a 
> boot.  I've noticed errors loading up firmware for the adapter and was 
> wondering if this could be throwing off the timing during boot?
>
> Here are the iwlwifi messages logged during boot:
>
> iwlwifi0: <iwlwifi> mem 0xdc100000-0xdc103fff at device 0.0 on pci2
> iwlwifi0: could not load firmware image 'iwlwifi-ty-a0-gf-a0-70.ucode'

How do you load iwlwifi?  You are not by any chance doing this from
loader.conf?


> iwlwifi0: File size way too small!
> iwlwifi0: could not load firmware image 'iwlwifi-ty-a0-gf-a0-69.ucode'
> iwlwifi0: File size way too small!
> iwlwifi0: successfully loaded firmware image 'iwlwifi-ty-a0-gf-a0-68.ucode'
> iwlwifi0: api flags index 2 larger than supported by driver
> iwlwifi0: TLV_FW_FSEQ_VERSION: FSEQ Version: 0.0.2.36
> iwlwifi0: loaded firmware version 68.01d30b0c.0 ty-a0-gf-a0-68.ucode op_mode 
> iwlmvm
> iwlwifi0: Detected Intel(R) Wi-Fi 6 AX210 160MHz, REV=0x420
> iwlwifi0: successfully loaded firmware image 'iwlwifi-ty-a0-gf-a0.pnvm'
> iwlwifi0: loaded PNVM version dda57f4f
> iwlwifi0: Detected RF GF, rfid=0x10d000
> iwlwifi0: base HW address: 84:14:4d:04:e4:0d


> iwlwifi0: <iwlwifi> mem 0xdc100000-0xdc103fff at device 0.0 on pci2

Why is it attaching a 2nd time?  Is this the same boot or did you
kldunload if_iwlwifi?

> iwlwifi0: could not load firmware image 'iwlwifi-ty-a0-gf-a0-70.ucode'
> iwlwifi0: File size way too small!
> iwlwifi0: could not load firmware image 'iwlwifi-ty-a0-gf-a0-69.ucode'
> iwlwifi0: File size way too small!
> iwlwifi0: successfully loaded firmware image 'iwlwifi-ty-a0-gf-a0-68.ucode'
> iwlwifi0: api flags index 2 larger than supported by driver
> iwlwifi0: TLV_FW_FSEQ_VERSION: FSEQ Version: 0.0.2.36
> iwlwifi0: loaded firmware version 68.01d30b0c.0 ty-a0-gf-a0-68.ucode op_mode 
> iwlmvm
> iwlwifi0: Detected Intel(R) Wi-Fi 6 AX210 160MHz, REV=0x420
> iwlwifi0: successfully loaded firmware image 'iwlwifi-ty-a0-gf-a0.pnvm'
> iwlwifi0: loaded PNVM version dda57f4f
> iwlwifi0: Detected RF GF, rfid=0x10d000
> iwlwifi0: base HW address: 84:14:4d:04:e4:0d

and again...

> iwlwifi0: <iwlwifi> mem 0xdc100000-0xdc103fff at device 0.0 on pci2
> iwlwifi0: could not load firmware image 'iwlwifi-ty-a0-gf-a0-70.ucode'
> iwlwifi0: File size way too small!
> iwlwifi0: could not load firmware image 'iwlwifi-ty-a0-gf-a0-69.ucode'
> iwlwifi0: File size way too small!
> iwlwifi0: successfully loaded firmware image 'iwlwifi-ty-a0-gf-a0-68.ucode'
> iwlwifi0: api flags index 2 larger than supported by driver
> iwlwifi0: TLV_FW_FSEQ_VERSION: FSEQ Version: 0.0.2.36
> iwlwifi0: loaded firmware version 68.01d30b0c.0 ty-a0-gf-a0-68.ucode op_mode 
> iwlmvm
> iwlwifi0: Detected Intel(R) Wi-Fi 6 AX210 160MHz, REV=0x420
> iwlwifi0: successfully loaded firmware image 'iwlwifi-ty-a0-gf-a0.pnvm'
> iwlwifi0: loaded PNVM version dda57f4f
> iwlwifi0: Detected RF GF, rfid=0x10d000
> iwlwifi0: base HW address: 84:14:4d:04:e4:0d

and again...

> iwlwifi0: <iwlwifi> mem 0xdc100000-0xdc103fff at device 0.0 on pci2
> iwlwifi0: could not load firmware image 'iwlwifi-ty-a0-gf-a0-70.ucode'
> iwlwifi0: File size way too small!
> iwlwifi0: could not load firmware image 'iwlwifi-ty-a0-gf-a0-69.ucode'
> iwlwifi0: File size way too small!
> iwlwifi0: successfully loaded firmware image 'iwlwifi-ty-a0-gf-a0-68.ucode'
> iwlwifi0: api flags index 2 larger than supported by driver
> iwlwifi0: TLV_FW_FSEQ_VERSION: FSEQ Version: 0.0.2.36
> iwlwifi0: loaded firmware version 68.01d30b0c.0 ty-a0-gf-a0-68.ucode op_mode 
> iwlmvm
> iwlwifi0: Detected Intel(R) Wi-Fi 6 AX210 160MHz, REV=0x420
> iwlwifi0: successfully loaded firmware image 'iwlwifi-ty-a0-gf-a0.pnvm'
> iwlwifi0: loaded PNVM version dda57f4f
> iwlwifi0: Detected RF GF, rfid=0x10d000
> iwlwifi0: base HW address: 84:14:4d:04:e4:0d

These next three were problems mostly from the past... I have not seen
them or heard from them in a while...

> iwlwifi0: No beacon heard and the session protection is over already...
> iwlwifi0: Not associated and the session protection is over already...
> iwlwifi0: Not associated and the session protection is over already...
>
> I hope someone here can help me to resolve this issue.

Most of these issues have been solved in main and (pending MFC for some)
will be sorted in stable/13 for 13.2.


So the 1st problem seems to be getting iwlwifi loaded and running and
wlan0 created.

The 2nd issue seems to be able to get wpa_supplicant to get it up and
then dhclient to get you an address.

Now the driver + LinuxKPI framework in 13.1-R (first release this
shipped after not too much time of having started to work) are missing
things and have bugs.

The other thing is that wpa_supplicant also got changes since.  You
could try the port for that and see if it helps a bit but I fear you may
have to switch to stable/13 more likely (especially after MFCs are
done).


You can probably try to search the archive here or check
https://wiki.freebsd.org/WiFi/Iwlwifi
if there were any good workarounds found at that time.
I frankly have gone through too many details of all those to remember
at the moment.

hope this helps (at leats until next week),
/bz

-- 
Bjoern A. Zeeb                                                     r15:7