The FreeBSD Diary

I recently upgraded my laptop (ThinkPad X61s) to FreeBSD 8.0-PRERELEASE. Along the way, I had a problem with wireless. This is because wireless has changed.

The symptoms arrived with this command:

# /etc/rc.d/wpa_supplicant start ath0
Starting wpa_supplicant.
ioctl[SIOCG80211, op 98, len 32]: Invalid argument
ELOOP: remaining socket: sock=5 eloop_data=0x800e0b1c0 user_data=0x800e070f0 handler=0x421840
/etc/rc.d/wpa_supplicant: WARNING: failed to start wpa_supplicant

The solution, add these lines to /etc/rc.conf:

wlans_ath="wlan0"
ifconfig_wlan0="WPA DHCP"

You no longer directly access the wireless device. In my case, I have the following chipset (as discovered via pciconf -lv):

ath0@pci0:3:0:0:        class=0x020000 card=0x058a1014 chip=0x1014168c rev=0x01 hdr=0x00
    vendor     = 'Atheros Communications Inc.'
    device     = 'Atheros AR5212 802.11abg wireless (AR5212)'
    class      = network
    subclass   = ethernet

I found this post and Colin Percival confirmed that the solution had worked for him.

Just FYI.