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Date:      Tue, 09 Jan 2007 17:13:43 +0100
From:      Jan Henrik Sylvester <me@janh.de>
To:        freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
Subject:   6.1 to 6.2-RC2: iwi-firmware-kmod and monitor/ibbs
Message-ID:  <45A3BF37.2010504@janh.de>

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I could not find documentation about iwi-firmware-kmod and things do not 
work the way I expect them. If this is not the right place to ask this 
question, please, point me to an appropriate mailing list or forum.

How do I use the ibbs and monitor mode with iwi-firmware-kmod (6.2-RC2)?

If I try to go to "mediaopt ibbs", I always get "Device not configured".

I would like to use kismet. My configuration file, which seemed to work 
with iwi-firmware (6.1), contains 
"source=radiotap_bsd_b,iwi0,iwikismet". I only ever got a few packages 
with iwi-firmware (6.1), before it stopped working and sometimes 
crashed. With iwi-firmware-kmod (6.2-RC2), Kismet always immediately 
stops with a FATAL error, seemingly because promiscuous mode is not 
available.

If I manually load iwi_monitor, dmesg gives me
   firmware_get: failed to load firmware image iwi_monitor
   iwi0: could not load firmware
   iwi0: promiscuous mode disabled
-- I guess I should not do that. Without manually loading iwi_monitor, I get
   iwi0: could not allocate firmware DMA memory
   iwi0: promiscuous mode disabled
-- something seems to be wrong here, too.

How are ibbs and monitor supposed to work? Should I manually load the 
firmware or not? How do I invoke ibbs at all?

Trying to switch between bbs, ibbs, and monitor, I noticed a few oddities:

janh# ifconfig iwi0 down
janh# ifconfig iwi0 mediaopt ibbs
ifconfig: SIOCSIFMEDIA (media): Device not configured
janh# ifconfig iwi0 mediaopt monitor
janh# ifconfig iwi0 mediaopt bbs
ifconfig: SIOCSIFMEDIA (media): Device not configured
janh# ifconfig iwi0 -mediaopt monitor
janh# kldstat | grep iwi
30    1 0xc383a000 d000     if_iwi.ko
janh# kldload iwi_monitor
janh# kldstat | grep iwi
30    1 0xc383a000 d000     if_iwi.ko
32    1 0xc4843000 2f000    iwi_monitor.ko
janh# kldunload iwi_monitor
janh# kldstat | grep iwi
30    1 0xc383a000 d000     if_iwi.ko
janh# kldload iwi_bbs
kldload: can't load iwi_bbs: No such file or directory
janh# kldload iwi_ibbs
kldload: can't load iwi_ibbs: No such file or directory
janh# ls /boot/modules
iwi_bss.ko      iwi_ibss.ko     iwi_monitor.ko  kqemu.ko        linker.hints

Something is wrong here, I guess.

With iwi-firmware (6.1), I used to load the required firmware with 
iwicontrol and set the mediaopt with ifconfig. Many reboots were 
required to get back to a defined state. I had many crashes using 
"ifconfig iwi0 [...]" even without ibbs or monitor mode involved. With 
iwi-firmware-kmod (6.2-RC2), I had not a single crash, but sometimes 
lost the bbs connection for a few seconds and I could not get ibbs and 
monitor to work at all. I guess it is an improvement (stability over 
functionality).

Oh, btw, is there any way to check the status of the radio button as 
with "iwicontrol iwi0 -r" on 6.1? A change usually shows up at dmesg, 
but I would like to get the current state.

Thanks
Jan Henrik



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