Wierd issues with wifi in hostap mode in FreeBSD 11

[Christian Schwarz]

On Wed, Aug 03, 2016 at 01:52:16PM +0200, Kurt Jaeger wrote:
> Hi!
> 
> > But wat is very strange for me is that I do not see ath0 device on ifconfig:
> 
> The listing of the hardware specific interfaces, like ath0 etc
> was removed in 11.
> 
> There's a sysctl for it now, I don't remember which one 8-(
> 
> -- 
> pi at opsec.eu            +49 171 3101372                         4 years to go !


See freebsd-stable:

> sysctl net.wlan.devices

--
Christian Schwarz

----

From: Ben Woods <woodsb02 at gmail.com>
Date: Tue, 2 Aug 2016 07:02:05 +0800
Message-ID: <CAOc73CCHdeNhKZA2ahUAiOPK8dTERuRYsBBMokzgjGHCWQQj-g at mail.gmail.com>
Subject: Release notes and handbook changes for identifying wireless adapters
To: freebsd-stable at freebsd.org
List-Id: Production branch of FreeBSD source code <freebsd-stable.freebsd.org>
ender: owner-freebsd-stable at freebsd.org

Hi,

FreeBSD wireless users who are upgrading to FreeBSD 11.0 will likely get a
surprise when they try and identify which wireless adapters are available
in their computer by using ifconfig. Neither the FreeBSD 11 release notes
or the FreeBSD handbook currently explain this change.

For example, if you have an atheros wireless driver, you would
previously be able to see it using ifconfig, even before configuring the
wlan0 clone device.

% ifconfig | grep -B3 -i wireless


That was changed with commit r287197:
https://svnweb.freebsd.org/base?view=revision&revision=287197

The new way to show which wireless adapter is available is:
% sysctl net.wlan.devices

Whilst the configuration in /etc/rc.conf required to activate a wireless
adapter has not changed, people may run into the hurdle of not even finding
which wireless adapter to configure in the first place. This can be seen
here:
https://bugs.freebsd.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=203271

Regards,
Ben