I lost ath0 support on current sometime between Sept 20 and Sept 26.

[Edwin L. Culp W.]

I started this thread on current but I lost it to Ashish Shukla so I'm
going to try here and see if I can explain it better and solve this
strange issue.

I was happily using Sam's ath_hal-20080528 patch and IIRC the
committed ath_hal fixes until Sept 20.  I didn't build another new
kernel until Sept 26.  From that date on I have been unable to get it
working.  The sept 20 kernel still works great. I'm using it to send
this email.  I don't have to change anything I just start kernel.old
and run it rather than today's kernel that has no problems other than
bringing up ath0/wlan0.

Some general info for both kernels that I can find no important
differences and now really doubt that the problem is hal_ath but
something else that has changed and is causing the problem. I have
thought of dhcp, ifconfig, ???  The general information for both
follows:


FreeBSD 8.0-CURRENT #50: Thu Oct  9 05:27:41 CDT 2008
    root at ed.local.net.mx:/usr/obj/usr/src/sys/ENCONTACTO

rc.conf that doesn't change and works for sept 20 kernel but not todays:

     wlans_ath0=wlan0
     ifconfig_wlan0="DHCP ssid virus wepmode on wepkey 1:0x2373FE9515
weptxkey 1"

ifconfig with todays kernel for ath0 and wlan0:


ath0: flags=8843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> metric 0 mtu 2290
        ether 00:1d:d9:27:5c:e5
        media: IEEE 802.11 Wireless Ethernet autoselect mode 11g
        status: associated
wlan0: flags=8843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> metric 0 mtu 1500
        ether 00:1d:d9:27:5c:e5
        media: IEEE 802.11 Wireless Ethernet OFDM/48Mbps mode 11g
        status: associated
        ssid virus channel 6 (2437 Mhz 11g) bssid 00:1d:7e:51:e1:4d
        regdomain 101 indoor ecm authmode OPEN privacy ON deftxkey 1
        wepkey 1:40-bit txpower 16 bmiss 7 scanvalid 450 bgscan
        bgscanintvl 300 bgscanidle 250 roam:rssi 7 roam:rate 5 protmode CTS
        wme burst roaming MANUAL

The part of the dmesg that show ath0 and wlan0 with hal

ath_hal: 0.10.5.10 (AR5210, AR5211, AR5212, AR5416, RF5111, RF5112,
RF2413, RF5413, RF2133, RF2425, RF2417)

ath0: <Atheros 5424/2424> mem 0xd0400000-0xd040ffff irq 19 at device 0.0 on pci5
ath0: [ITHREAD]
ath0: WARNING: using obsoleted if_watchdog interface
ath0: mac 14.2 phy 7.0 radio 10.2

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The same information for the Sept 20 kernel.

FreeBSD ed.local.net.mx 8.0-CURRENT FreeBSD 8.0-CURRENT #34: Sat Sep
20 05:37:05 CDT 2008
root at ed.local.net.mx:/usr/obj/usr/src/sys/ENCONTACTO  i386

rc.conf is the same.

If config for Sept 20 kernel:

ath0: flags=8843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> metric 0 mtu 2290
        ether 00:1d:d9:27:5c:e5
        media: IEEE 802.11 Wireless Ethernet autoselect mode 11g
        status: associated
wlan0: flags=8843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> metric 0 mtu 1500
        ether 00:1d:d9:27:5c:e5
        inet 172.16.0.7 netmask 0xffffff00 broadcast 172.16.0.255
        media: IEEE 802.11 Wireless Ethernet DS/5.5Mbps mode 11g
        status: associated
        ssid virus channel 6 (2437 Mhz 11g) bssid 00:1d:7e:51:e1:4d
        regdomain 101 indoor ecm authmode OPEN privacy ON deftxkey 1
        wepkey 1:40-bit txpower 16 bmiss 7 scanvalid 60 bgscan bgscanintvl 300
        bgscanidle 250 roam:rssi 7 roam:rate 5 protmode CTS wme burst

Same parts of the dmesg form Sept 20 kernel.

ath_hal: 0.10.5.10 (AR5210, AR5211, AR5212, AR5416, RF5111, RF5112,
RF2413, RF5413, RF2133, RF2425, RF2417)

ath0: <Atheros 5424/2424> mem 0xd0400000-0xd040ffff irq 19 at device 0.0 on pci5
ath0: [ITHREAD]
ath0: WARNING: using obsoleted if_watchdog interface
ath0: mac 14.2 phy 7.0 radio 10.2

Thanks,

ed