kern/138739: [wpi] wpi(4) does not work very well under?8.0-BETA4

[Mark Linimon]

The following reply was made to PR kern/138739; it has been noted by GNATS.

From: Mark Linimon <linimon at lonesome.com>
To: bug-followup at FreeBSD.org
Cc:  
Subject: Re: kern/138739: [wpi] wpi(4) does not work very well
	under?8.0-BETA4
Date: Tue, 15 Sep 2009 21:38:23 -0500

 ----- Forwarded message from Paul Dokas <dokas at oitsec.umn.edu> -----
 
 From: Paul Dokas <dokas at oitsec.umn.edu>
 Reply-To: Paul Dokas <dokas at oitsec.umn.edu>
 Organization: OIT Security & Assurance, University of Minnesota
 To: linimon at FreeBSD.org
 CC: freebsd-bugs at FreeBSD.org, freebsd-net at FreeBSD.org
 Subject: Re: kern/138739: [wpi] wpi(4) does not work very well under 8.0-BETA4
 
 I was just looking for possible sol'ns to a very similar problem that I
 have with my FreeBSD 7.2 laptop, a Dell D820 with a 3945abg card:
 
 wpi0: <Intel(R) PRO/Wireless 3945ABG> mem 0xecfff000-0xecffffff irq 17 at device 0.0 on pci12
 
 I've had what looks like exactly this same problem for ages.  Back into
 the FreeBSD 6.X days when the wpi driver was first added.  Also, I think that
 PR 127102 is probably related.
 
 I've noticed problems when I'm in an area with lots of SSIDs and APs.
 I get this particularly bad when at work where there are 5 SSIDs present
 on each AP and at least 4+ APs always within range.  At home where I see
 only 3 SSIDs on 3 APs, I can associate with my Linksys "router" just fine,
 but I see the slow throughput problem.  This might be because I'm only
 associated at 1Mbps:
 
 wpi0: flags=8843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> metric 0 mtu 1500
 	inet 172.16.23.65 netmask 0xffffff80 broadcast 172.16.23.127
 	media: IEEE 802.11 Wireless Ethernet autoselect (DS/1Mbps)
 	status: associated
 	ssid SSID channel 6 (2437 Mhz 11g) bssid 00:21:19:ae:00:00
 	authmode WPA privacy ON deftxkey UNDEF TKIP 2:128-bit TKIP 3:128-bit
 	txpower 50 bmiss 7 scanvalid 60 protmode CTS roaming MANUAL
 
 
 Anyway, at work today, I did a bunch of testing.  I attempted to associate
 first with a WPA2-enterprise SSID and then with an open SSID.  In both
 cases, my laptop went into a spiral of doom:  associate, spew errors,
 disassociate, repeat:
 
 Sep 15 15:21:13 yog kernel: wpi0: link state changed to UP
 Sep 15 15:21:13 yog kernel: wpi0: fatal firmware error
 Sep 15 15:21:13 yog kernel: wpi0: timeout resetting Rx ring
 Sep 15 15:21:13 yog kernel: wpi0: link state changed to DOWN
 Sep 15 15:21:17 yog kernel: wpi0: link state changed to UP
 Sep 15 15:21:17 yog kernel: wpi0: fatal firmware error
 Sep 15 15:21:17 yog kernel: wpi0: timeout resetting Rx ring
 Sep 15 15:21:17 yog kernel: wpi0: link state changed to DOWN
 ...
 
 
 A network engineer pulled the logs from the network gear (Trapeze ABGN
 APs) and saw that my laptop was repeatedly roaming between all of the
 available APs.  I strongly suspect that there's a bug lurking in wpi
 firmware related to roaming.
 
 A possible pointer for this problem might be here:
 
   http://www.openbsd.org/plus41.html
 
   "Fix firmware fatal errors on re-associations in wpi(4)."
 
 
 I'm willing to provide more data and test any possible fixes for 7.2,
 but I'm lacking the time and experience necessary to track this one down
 myself.
 
 
 Paul
 -- 
 Paul Dokas                                     dokas at oitsec.umn.edu
 ======================================================================
 Don Juan Matus:  "an enigma wrapped in mystery wrapped in a tortilla."
 
 ----- End forwarded message -----