ATHEROS -- 802.11a/b/g Wireless Lan Mini PCI Express -- 6459-CTO

[Scott Lambert]

On Sun, Sep 14, 2008 at 02:50:50AM -0400, freebsd_user at guice.ath.cx wrote:
> On Sun, Sep 14, 2008 at 01:48:13PM +1000, Ian Smith wrote:
> > On Sat, 13 Sep 2008, freebsd_user at guice.ath.cx wrote:
> >  > MACHINE: THINKPAD T61P
> >  > MACHINE TYPE: 6459-CTO
> >  > NETWORK ADAPTER: 11a/b/g Wireless Lan Mini PCI Express (windows)
> >  > -
> >  > FreeBSD 7.0-RELEASE i386 <== fresh install
> >  > -
> >  > ==> pciconf -l -v |grep -i atheros
> >  >     vendor     = 'Atheros Communications Inc.'
> >  >     device     = 'AR5212 Atheros AR5212 802.11abg wireless'
> >  > 
> > 
> > Looks rather like an Atheros AR5212 :)
> > 
> >  > ath0: flags=8843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> metric 0 mtu 1500
> >  > 	ether 00:1f:3a:4d:45:d1
> >  > 	inet 192.168.1.111 netmask 0xe1ffff00 broadcast 222.168.1.255
> > 
> > For starters, this netmask (and thus, broadcast address) is rubbish.
> > 
> > What's your ifconfig setup for this interface in /etc/rc.conf?
> 
> Nothing for 'ath0' in /etc/rc.conf.  I configured from the CLI:
> ifconfig ath0 inet 192.168.1.111 netmask
> 255.255.255.0

Unfortunately, you seem to have made a small typographical error in the
first octet of the netmask and actually entered:

 ifconfig ath0 inet 192.168.1.111 netmask 225.255.255.0
 
> I was doing so while my em0 was connected to
> the same LAN with an ip of: 192.168.1.6 netmask
> 255.255.255.0 <== this is not the way I planned
> on using the devices.  I only want to use the
> 'ath0' unless the situation calls for cable.
> 
> I'm also not sure what to read about setting up
> 'WPA' and/or 'WEP' or, if the device/driver
> will auto-detect.

Run 'man 8 ifconfig' to begin with.

You may want to follow that up with 'apropos wpa' to get a list of man
pages which deal with WPA.
 
> I've even went as far as to disconnect the
> 'em0' with no positive results from the 'ath0'.

Due to the typographical error, you didn't have much chance of it
working.

You don't say that you set the default route once you disconnected the
LAN cable.  That will be necessary for access beyond the LAN.

-- 
Scott Lambert                    KC5MLE                       Unix SysAdmin
lambert at lambertfam.org