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opnsense WIFI setup

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stormy:
I'm "simply" trying to setup wifi on opnsense/latest 17.1.4.  After months of failed attempts with Broadcom, ordered Atheros and card immediately recognized by the OS/and UI, ath0, so went to:

Interfaces->Wireless->Devices, and set it up, all looks ok there, then moved to ASSIGNMENTS and added a new interface, it was called OPT5, i've renamed it to WIFI to make it easier to remember.

So "WIFI" maps to "ath0_wlan1 (Wifi)" in the assignment page..

In Overview page the interface appears as:


--- Code: --- WIFI interface (opt5, ath0_wlan1)
Status no carrier
MAC address 74:f0:6d:xx:xx:xx - AzureWave Technologies, Inc.
IPv6 Link Local fe80::76f0:6dff:fe0d:xxxx
Media autoselect
Channel 7
SSID STAR2
--- End code ---


Notice the "no carrier"...  going into "WIRELESS" tab and clicking "STATUS" RESCAN does not find any other wifi in the area even though there are some wifis..

Also, i cannot find that SSID "STAR2"..

So, decided to reboot, after that, could not access the internet nor ssh into opnsense box :) :)

from console typed:

ifconfig ath0_wlan1 down

and then could ssh into the box/ssh, and internet is working.

The question is why the wifi disabled internet/access to box??

Thought maybe need to bridge the wifi + bridge0 (which already has LAN1 LAN2 ports), but that fails with:


--- Code: ---Bridging a wireless interface is only possible in hostap mode.
--- End code ---


I understand security, but why does it have to be so complex?  Just want the wifi to be an extension to the LAN, security WPA2 already is "good enough" for my needs.

Is there any way to do this with opnsense? any docs/references?

for now, disabled the wifi :)

Thanks, Stormy.

PS: Also tried such guides which are pfsense: https://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/howto-configure-wireless-bridge-access-point-in-pfsense/

to no avail...

stormy:
BTW, the wifi card is:


--- Code: ---ath0@pci0:4:0:0:        class=0x028000 card=0x10891a3b chip=0x002b168c rev=0x01 hdr=0x00
    vendor     = 'Qualcomm Atheros'
    device     = 'AR9285 Wireless Network Adapter (PCI-Express)'
    class      = network

--- End code ---

stormy:
Oh dear.. the "issue" was that the MODE was set to "Infrastructure" and turns out that is not correct, again, thanks to djGrrr for pointing it out... changed to AP, and then bridging to "bridge0" worked OK, so, managed to connect to wifi, but, speed is very low, likw 11kpbs.. even though android shows link-speed as 65Mbps...

stormy:
Ok, closing this, few points to keep in mind:

1)  For some reason opnsense in my case at least put the wifi adapter in the routing table for 192.168.1.0/24, so it blocked access to the box.

workaround from console, type:
--- Code: ---ifconfig ath0_wlan1 down
--- End code ---
then could access/ssh/gui and proceed with setup.

2) For wifi and LAN to be on same subnet, e.g. 192.168.1.*, they must be bridged :) :)  So created a bridge with both

3) have to then add a FW rule on WIFI for any traffic it looks like this:


--- Code: ---IPv4 * * * * * *
--- End code ---

4) At this point the WIFI is bridged to the LAN, and hence does not need:

  a) an IP
  b) A dhcp server setup on it, b/c it uses the LAN settings which have both.

5) Tested speeds with two Atheros cards I got in the mail, one:


--- Code: ---ath0@pci0:4:0:0:        class=0x028000 card=0x10891a3b chip=0x002b168c rev=0x01 hdr=0x00
    vendor     = 'Qualcomm Atheros'
    device     = 'AR9285 Wireless Network Adapter (PCI-Express)'
    class      = network

--- End code ---

which, i think has 1x antenna specs, although TWO plugs were connected to the card, it yielded 5Mbps upload

Second card was with 2x antenna specs:


--- Code: ---ath0@pci0:4:0:0:        class=0x028000 card=0x2091168c chip=0x002e168c rev=0x01 hdr=0x00
    vendor     = 'Qualcomm Atheros'
    device     = 'AR9287 Wireless Network Adapter (PCI-Express)'
    class      = network

--- End code ---

and here it got 34Mbps consistently, max speed for net work i think is ~40Mbps (LAN gets 39Mbps), so this is really good, by comparison, linksys/tomato on same network runs at ~21Mbps (max for G i think).

Hope this helps others in wifi setup on opnsense, finally got it working :)

Thanks to Will, djGrrr...

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