This is current/i386 running on an ALIX2C1 (dmesg below),
serving as my home router/firewall/dns/dhcpd and AP.
The wifi clients are an android phone, a macbook, and an ipad.
The machine has one miniPCI slot. I am trying out four wifi cards.
In each case, fw_update got me the appropriate firmware upon reboot.
The hostname.if is always the same:
inet 192.168.33.1 255.255.255.0 NONE \
media autoselect mediaopt hostap nwid stare.cz chan 11 \
wpakey XXX
One of them is a ral(4) card:
ral0 at pci0 dev 12 function 0 "Ralink RT2560" rev 0x01: irq 9, address
00:11:09:0d:d3:36
ral0: MAC/BBP RT2560 (rev 0x04), RF RT2525
It kinda works, but occasionaly the wifi gets very slow,
and netstat -I ral0 shows both input and output errors.
Another card shows up as fxp(4) which is Intel EtherExpress.
Is that wifi being somehow masqueraded as ethernet traffic?
Anyway, it cannot do hostap, but I can put it back if this
is of any interest.
Another is ath(4). It works, but e.g. the ipad reports
"suboptimal performance" and suggests a wifi that can do 802.11n/ac
(not that I understand the differences).
I ended up with an athn(4):
athn0 at pci0 dev 12 function 0 "Atheros AR5416" rev 0x01: irq 9
athn0: MAC AR5416 rev 2, RF AR2133 (3T2R), ROM rev 2, address 00:1d:6a:6b:03:07
When it works, it's the fastest. But occasionaly messages say
"athn0: device timeout" and the clients lose connection.
There are some netstat -I athn0 [io]errors as well.
Being an AR5416 with AR2133, athn(4) says my card should do 3T3R,
The MAC/Baseband Processor can be an AR5416 or an AR5418.
The radio can be an AR2122, AR2133, AR5122 or an AR5133 chip.
The AR2133 chip operates in the 2GHz spectrum and supports
up to 3 transmit paths and 3 receiver paths (3T3R).
but dmesg says 3T2R. Is that an error in itself? Is that the ":2" here?
AR5008-3NG (AR5416+AR2133) 2GHz 3x3:2 PCI/CardBus
I'm not sure what the "TxR:S " means exactly.
Does the S stand for 2 supported of the 3 it has?
I only plugged _one_ of those dongle antennas
into the tiny connectoron the the card. Is that related to the 3T2R?
Is that related to the timeouts? (Please excuse my wifi HW ignorance.)
Generally, what are the options nowadays for running an AP?
Some time ago, athn(4) was the recommendation. Do people have
specific success/fail stories from the ALIX?
Jan
