how to install wireless n.i.c. on FreeBSD 9.1

Mon Aug 25 18:22:53 UTC 2014

Dear Polytropon, 

Good morning. Many thanks for your thorough response to my questions.
The complete name of the circuit board is as follows: "TP-Link
TL-WDN4800 450 Mbps Wireless N Dual Band PCI Express Adapter." In my
previous message, I mis-identified the manufacturer, as you correctly
noted. To the command "pciconf -lv," I received the following response: 

none0 at pci0:40:0:0 class=0x028000 card=0x3112168c chip=0x0030168c
rev=0x01 hdr=0x00 

vendor = 'Atheros Communications Inc.' 

device = 'AR9300 Wireless LAN adaptor' 

class = network 

Upon checking the webpage specified in your message, I read the
following line: "The ath(4) driver supports all Atheros Cardbus and PCI
cards, except those that are based on the AR5005VL chipset." 

The three modified files are /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf, and /etc/rc.conf,
and /boot/loader.conf. Copies of these files are attached. 

On 08/22/2014 05:55 PM, Polytropon wrote: 

> On Fri, 22 Aug 2014 12:00:47 -0700, leeoliveshackelford at surewest.netwrote:
> 
>> Good morning, dear FreeBSD enthusiasts. I am attempting to install a wireless network interface circuit on a computer running FreeBSD 9.1. I have read the very thorough instructions written by Messrs. Marc Fonvielle and Murray Stokely in the currently posted Chapter 30 of the FreeBSD Handbook. I did not find in that chapter a specification of the version or versions of FreeBSD to which it applied.
> 
> The instructions are quite generic. The only specific name
> that you need to adjust is the driver for your actual hardware.
> 
>> The circuit board is manufactured by T-LInk, and uses an Atheros integrated circuit
> 
> Check the output of the
> 
> # pciconf -lv
> 
> command to precisely see what hardware you have. Usually the
> correct driver will be mentioned. See the manpage of that driver
> for what chipsets or models it will support I don't have access
> to any WLAN hardware at the moment to I can't post an example,
> but it should be something like this:
> 
> xl0 at pci0:0:10:0: class=0x020000 card=0x00000000 chip=0x905010b7 rev=0x00 hdr=0x00
> vendor = '3COM Corp, Networking Division'
> device = 'Fast Etherlink XL PCI 10/100 (3C905B - Combo)'
> class = network
> subclass = ethernet
> 
> In this case, "man xl" would be the manpage to examine. Note that
> this is an example from a wired NIC.
> 
> Atheros chipsets will mostly work with the "ath" driver.
> By T-Link, you mean TP-Link? Or D-Link? What is the _exact_
> brand name and model of the hardware in question?
> 
> http://www.freebsd.org/releases/9.1R/hardware.html#WLAN [1]Is it on that list?
> 
>> I have followed as closely as possible those instuctions, to no avail.
> 
> Can you provide more information about what you did? What
> entries did you add to the relevant files (/boot/loader.conf
> and /etc/rc.conf, as well as /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf, if it
> should matter)?
> 
>> The printed circuit board is located at slot 4. About it, dmesg.boot reads only the following: pci40: <network> at device 0.0 (no driver attached).
> 
> This seems to indicate that no driver is being loaded. Either
> you did not have the kernel load the correct driver, or there
> is no driver available. With the "pci40" information, check
> the pciconf output again.
> 
>> My interpretation of this message is that the operating system sees that there is a circuit board in slot 4, and that it has something to do with networking, and otherwise knows nothing about it.
> 
> Correct. Loading the appropriate driver is either done by the
> kernel (if it has been compiled with all required drivers) or
> by a loadable module, which has been specified in /boot/loader.conf
> to be loaded along with the kernel.
> 
>> I have checked the /dev directory, and find listed in it none of the driver files mentioned in Chapter 30.
> 
> Those device files will be created by the driver.
> 
>> I had expected to receive error messages for lines in the configuration files calling for driver files that could not be located, but the only error message generated was "SYNCDHCP not found."
> 
> This looks like a syntax error in /etc/rc.conf, I'd say. Can
> you quote the lines you added?
> 
>> This line does not occur in dmesg.boot, but in response to the command (I forgot which command).
> 
> The error is in relation to ifconfig, the control program for
> network interfaces. The dmesg.boot file typically contains kernel
> messages.
> 
>> How do I obtain and install the missing driver files?
> 
> You need to know which driver you have to load for this hardware.
> Usually drivers are provided by the operating system, but they
> are not loaded "as a wild guess".
> 
>> Why does the fact that they are missing not generate error notices?
> 
> If you decide not to attach some hardware, the OS won't complain. :-)

Links:
------
[1] http://www.freebsd.org/releases/9.1R/hardware.html#WLAN
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