Re: ndis0 no link on 6.3-RELEASE
Hi everyone. Sorry to bump such an old post, but I have figured out a 'hack' to get this driver to work, and figured I'd post here, in case it may help someone else. Previously, I said the following, about a Broadcom 4318 chipset on a Dell Inspiron b120: Upon 'kldunload bcmwl5.ko; kldload bcmwl5.ko', my ndis0 card looses all WPA capabilities. The fix is as follows, as I have been unable to find anything relevant regarding netif, dhclient, wpa_supplicant or ndis: Step 1: Create /etc/rc.local, with '/sbin/kldload /boot/modules/bcmwl5_sys.ko' Step 2: Edit /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf as needed Step 3: Echo 'ifconfig_ndis0=WPA DHCP' to /etc/rc.conf Outcome: System boots, loading netif, dhclient, and wpa_supplicant. Next, after the other three are running, the rc.local script loads the ndis0 driver. On my system (and surrounding networks) my system tries to authenticate against any available network, but then finally reads wpa_supplicant.conf, and uses my network. As I said, sorry to bump an old thread, but hopefully this will help someone else, regardless of how crude of a hack it is. Regards, -- Glen Barber ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
RE: ndis0 no link on 6.3-RELEASE
-Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Glen Barber Sent: Thursday, March 13, 2008 6:56 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: ndis0 no link on 6.3-RELEASE Hello everyone. First off, sorry for the double post, but I'm not 100% certain at where this post belongs. I've found via Google many problems with ndis0 and failure to find a link in 6.3-RELEASE, without resolution. So here's my setup. I'm using a Broadcom 4318 chipset, with drivers created from ndisgen. If you need more specific information on the drivers, I'll be more than happy to provide information, however I believe it to be irrelevant at this moment, as I have used more than one driver version, with the same results. In 6.3-RC1 and below (tested in 6.2-RELEASE, and all -STABLE releases in between), my ndis0 adapter works as exptected, using WPA and DHCP. I can't pinpoint exaclty what changed (I've check in /usr/src/UPDATING, as it seemed to be most relevant), with no avail to finding anything regarding either wpa or dhclient. Since an upgrade to 6.3-RELEASE (both, via csup and a fresh install off of cd), I generate my ndis module, create an /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf, leaving /etc/dhclient as default, and am prompted with: ndis0: no link.. giving up Upon 'kldunload bcmwl5.ko; kldload bcmwl5.ko', my ndis0 card looses all WPA capabilities. What seems to me to be the interesting part is this: If I 'csup' to 6.3-RELEASE from -RC1, and build a kernel, the problem does not occur -- as long as I do not 'buildworld'. However, once I 'buildworld; installworld', I am faced with the same problems as if I had installed 6.3-RELEASE from cd. I would really like to figure out what is causing this (both for myself, and the other affected ndis0 victims), but I'm not sure where to look -- dhclient, wpa_supplicant or ndis itself. Any other information I could provide, please let me know. Hi Glen, I just setup my laptop with a wireless card a couple weeks ago and FreeBSD 6.3-RELEASE. (it's an older Toshiba) I went through a total of 5 different wireless cards before I found one that I was able to get working ndis drivers from ndisgen. Fortunately there's a used computer place near here (freegeek.org) that had a box of pcmcia wireless cards of all different makes and models, which kindly allowed me to plunk down my laptop (which dual-boots between Windows 98 and FreeBSD) and they have wireless. So I would pick a card out of their bin, boot into Windows, download the Windows driver, make sure the card worked under Windows, then boot into FreeBSD and mount the Windows partition, copy over the Windows driver and inf file to the FreeBSD side, run ndisgen and then try loading the driver. With some cards, the driver wouldn't even activate the card. With other cards, the driver would allow me to list the wireless nodes then panic the system when I tried associating. The card that did work was a Realtek-based card. And, it did not work with the most current Windows drivers from the Realtek website, it worked with the Windows drivers that were from a couple years ago. (I found this out quite by accident) Fortunately, they DID also have a number of the Wavelan cards - these are supported natively with the wi0 driver - that worked out of the box. Those cards are only 802.11b though so I kept at it with ndisgen and the newer cards. The interesting thing is that the original wireless card I had in the Toshiba - a Texas Instruments-based chipset model - never really quite worked properly in the Toshiba under Windows. I put it into a different laptop I owned - a Thinkpad, and it worked great in that. Unfortunately, in your case, nothing has changed with ndisgen since 2006 (see http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/cvsweb.cgi/src/usr.sbin/ndiscvt/ ) so it's not that, it's something else in the system that changed. Start with the basics. Copy your bcmwl5.ko into /boot/modules then in loader.conf put bcmw15_load=YES and reboot the system, check dmesg, and see if it's even loading Next put in /etc/rc.conf ifconfig_ndis0=inet 192.168.1.1 ssid myssid and see if it even comes up at all and you can ping out (obviously you will have to temporairly turn off wpa on your wireless node, set the correct ssid, and set the correct IP address to hard-code an IP address) If that doesen't work, regen the bcmw15.ko file using the old method: # cp foo.sys foo.inf /sys/modules/if_ndis # cd /sys/modules/ndis # make; make load # cd /sys/modules/if_ndis # ndiscvt -i foo.inf -s foo.sys -o ndis_driver_data.h # make; make load You need to isolate the problem to see if the driver is simply just not working at all under 6.3, or if it is working, but it's a scripting or turnup out of sequence error. And you need to see if wpa has anything to do with it. Ted
Re: ndis0 no link on 6.3-RELEASE
Ted Mittelstaedt said: I just setup my laptop with a wireless card a couple weeks ago and FreeBSD 6.3-RELEASE. (it's an older Toshiba) I went through a total of 5 different wireless cards before I found one that I was able to get working ndis drivers from ndisgen. Fortunately there's a used computer place near here (freegeek.org) that had a box of pcmcia wireless cards of all different makes and models, which kindly allowed me to plunk down my laptop (which dual-boots between Windows 98 and FreeBSD) and they have wireless. So I would pick a card out of their bin, boot into Windows, download the Windows driver, make sure the card worked under Windows, then boot into FreeBSD and mount the Windows partition, copy over the Windows driver and inf file to the FreeBSD side, run ndisgen and then try loading the driver. With some cards, the driver wouldn't even activate the card. With other cards, the driver would allow me to list the wireless nodes then panic the system when I tried associating. The card that did work was a Realtek-based card. And, it did not work with the most current Windows drivers from the Realtek website, it worked with the Windows drivers that were from a couple years ago. (I found this out quite by accident) Fortunately, they DID also have a number of the Wavelan cards - these are supported natively with the wi0 driver - that worked out of the box. Those cards are only 802.11b though so I kept at it with ndisgen and the newer cards. The interesting thing is that the original wireless card I had in the Toshiba - a Texas Instruments-based chipset model - never really quite worked properly in the Toshiba under Windows. I put it into a different laptop I owned - a Thinkpad, and it worked great in that. Unfortunately, in your case, nothing has changed with ndisgen since 2006 (see http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/cvsweb.cgi/src/usr.sbin/ndiscvt/ ) so it's not that, it's something else in the system that changed. Start with the basics. Copy your bcmwl5.ko into /boot/modules then in loader.conf put bcmw15_load=YES and reboot the system, check dmesg, and see if it's even loading Next put in /etc/rc.conf ifconfig_ndis0=inet 192.168.1.1 ssid myssid and see if it even comes up at all and you can ping out (obviously you will have to temporairly turn off wpa on your wireless node, set the correct ssid, and set the correct IP address to hard-code an IP address) If that doesen't work, regen the bcmw15.ko file using the old method: # cp foo.sys foo.inf /sys/modules/if_ndis # cd /sys/modules/ndis # make; make load # cd /sys/modules/if_ndis # ndiscvt -i foo.inf -s foo.sys -o ndis_driver_data.h # make; make load You need to isolate the problem to see if the driver is simply just not working at all under 6.3, or if it is working, but it's a scripting or turnup out of sequence error. And you need to see if wpa has anything to do with it. Hi Ted. Thanks for the reply. Unfortunately, until I either get time to resize my hard disk and add a separate freebsd installation, or I figure out how to undo a buildworld, looks like I'm stuck. It's my school laptop, so I kind of need to get work done. ;) (I am able to run a 6.3-RELEASE kernel, but the 'world' is 6.3-RC1.) Regarding older drivers: Yes, I had this problem with my current chipset in 6.2-RELEASE. This is why I was so surprised I had problems with 6.3-RELEASE. Either way, I appreciate your response. Cheers. -- Glen Barber http://www.dev-urandom.com/ ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
