HostAP on FreeBSD 4.6-RC2 / Infrastructure vs. Ad-Hoc


From: Jon Bebeau (jbebeau_at_1nettw.net)
Date: 2002-08-03 01:07:34 UTC



Hello all,

I'm trying to get HostAP working working as an access point to replace a hardware Access Point so that I can add some additional software capabilities. I have poured over the doc; wicontrol(8), ifconfig(8) and wi(4), many postings from this list and other google searched and have the wireless card running is what appears to be AP mode - see output below. Now when I try to connect from a client, the only way I can "Connect" is to have that client in Ad-Hoc mode. This at least gives me a Connected - BSSID = 02-06-8A-23-CA-B4 but I can't ping the AP PC from the client PC. If I try to have the client PC connect in Infrastructure mode, which I think is the intent of the HostAP software in th efirst place, I can't get the Client to even report a RF connection.

If I set the AP PC to mode=1 (ad-hoc) they connect and allow traffic to flow, pings at least. Am I missing something really basic here or what? I've included the details of the hardware below along with the output of the important logs (I hope).

AP Host configuration:

mini-tower 1Ghz PIII, FreeBSD 2.6-RC2 version in uname below Linksys WMP11 (PCI card) firmware listed in dmesg below

Client PC

Dell laptop running Windows/2000 (sorry) Linksys WPC11 ver. 3 with linksys privided client software

I've tried a several vendor cards including SMC and Cisco. In my reading, I find that only PRISM is supported and the Linksys cards report using PRISM2.5 chipsets. The firmware loaded in the cards use a different naming convention than that on the Intersil site so I'm not compleatly sure if it's current, but I just got these through TechData so I'm reasonablly sure they are current.

I have not set up the bridging yet as I thought it pointless as I can't even get pings to work in Infrastructure mode. Also, I'm a novice at FreeBSD, or any Unix for that matter so it's compleatly possiable that I've overlooked something vary basic.

Any help, ideas, suggestions, observarions or prayers are greatfully accepted!

uname output
FreeBSD 4.6.1-RC2 FreeBSD 4.6.1-RC2 #0: Thu Jul 18 08:24:45 GMT 2002

root_at_freebsd-stable.sentex.ca:/usr/src/sys/compile/GENERIC i386

dmesg output (for wi0 only)

wi0: <Intersil Prism2.5> mem 0xe8001000-0xe8001fff irq 10 at device 10.0 on pci0
wi0: 802.11 address: 00:06:25:09:1b:1a
wi0: using RF:PRISM2.5 MAC:ISL3874A(Mini-PCI)
wi0: Intersil Firmware: Primary 1.01.00, Station 1.04.02

wicontrol output

ifconfig output



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