From owner-freebsd-net@FreeBSD.ORG Tue Oct 9 23:58:02 2012 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-net@FreeBSD.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [69.147.83.52]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 5EBA5A2B; Tue, 9 Oct 2012 23:58:02 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from rfg@tristatelogic.com) Received: from outgoing.tristatelogic.com (segfault.tristatelogic.com [69.62.255.118]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 363EB8FC08; Tue, 9 Oct 2012 23:58:01 +0000 (UTC) Received: from segfault-nmh-helo.tristatelogic.com (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by segfault.tristatelogic.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 66B8B50840; Tue, 9 Oct 2012 16:58:01 -0700 (PDT) To: rpaulo@FreeBSD.org, freebsd-net@FreeBSD.org Subject: Intel 5100 Wifi... more questions. Date: Tue, 09 Oct 2012 16:58:01 -0700 Message-ID: <32938.1349827081@tristatelogic.com> From: "Ronald F. Guilmette" X-BeenThere: freebsd-net@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.14 Precedence: list List-Id: Networking and TCP/IP with FreeBSD List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 09 Oct 2012 23:58:02 -0000 Ok so I upgraded t FreeBSD 9.0-RELEASE, and now my Intel 5100 is automagically recognized during boot up. I have also managed to get it all configured the way I want, and it is now working just great... well... it is working anyway. I still do have a couple of questions. Some things about my setup are REALLY mysterious. Firstly, the machine that contains the Intel 5100 Wifi is talking to my Linksys E1000 router. This router allegedly speaks, a, b, g, and also n. I have set the router to the "N-only" mode and rebooted it... a hard reboot (power cycled). Still, despite me having set the router to "N-only" mode, this is what I am seeing on the client side: % ifconfig wlan0 wlan0: flags=8843 metric 0 mtu 1500 ether 00:22:fb:76:6d:18 inet 192.168.1.23 netmask 0xffffff00 broadcast 192.168.1.255 inet6 fe80::222:fbff:fe76:6d18%wlan0 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0xb nd6 options=29 media: IEEE 802.11 Wireless Ethernet OFDM/18Mbps mode 11ng status: associated ssid ronair2-1 channel 11 (2462 MHz 11g ht/20) bssid c0:c1:c0:8b:4b:f3 country US authmode WPA2/802.11i privacy ON deftxkey UNDEF AES-CCM 2:128-bit txpower 15 bmiss 10 scanvalid 450 bgscan bgscanintvl 300 bgscanidle 250 roam:rssi 7 roam:rate 64 protmode CTS ampdulimit 64k ampdudensity 8 -amsdutx amsdurx shortgi wme roaming MANUAL So I have the obvious question... WTF? How/why is it that the Intel 5100 seems to be able to speak to a router using 11g (which is obviously is doing, based on the above output) even though the router has been configured to speak `N' only?? What am I missing? OK, so the second question I have is an obvious one too... I want to get the best speed possible out of this connection. The router allegedly supports `N' and the Intel 5100 client allegedly supports `N' also. How can I force the Intel 5100 to choose `N' rather than `G'? (It seems to always be connecting via 11g, even though I would prefer that it connect via the faster 11n. I would have thought that it would have been smart enough, given that it could use either, for it to have selected 11n, but for reasons know only to the developers, it didn't, so now I would like to see if I can find a way to force it into 11n.) I've looked at this (up-to-date?) man page: http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=ifconfig&sektion=8 and under the "mode" option it only talks about 11a, 11b, and 11g. WTF? Does the current incarnation of FreeBSD ifconfig really not even support 11n?? I mean it is not as if 11n were really ``new'' anymore or anything. Looking forward to any answers. Thanks. Regards, rfg