Broadcom BCM4321 Wireless connection configuration problems

[Victor]

I'm trying to make the wifi connection of my old macbook (2007) work but, at the moment, to no avail. I'm stranded and perplexed!

Context:
FreeBSD 11.1-RELEASE #2: Fri Sep 1 16:02:16 CEST 2017 root@bsd:/usr/obj/usr/src/sys/MYKERNEL amd64

The kernel MYKERNEL was compiled adding only:
options BWN_GPL_PHY
device firmware

I installed from the ports net/bwn-firmware-kmod

In /boot/loader.conf I have
if_bwn="YES"

In /etc/rc.conf as usual
wlans_bwn0="wlan0"
ifconfig_wlan0="WPA DHCP"
..........................


The wifi chip is a broadcom BCM4321 as you can see from the extract of /var/log/messages
...............................
siba_bwn0: <Broadcom BCM4321 802.11a/b/g/n Wireless> mem 0xd0500000-0xd0503fff at device 0.0 on pci1
siba_bwn0: warn: multiple PCI(E) cores
siba_bwn0: unsupported coreid (USB 1.1 Host)
bwn0 on siba_bwn0
bwn0: WLAN (chipid 0x4321 rev 12) PHY (analog 5 type 4 rev 2) RADIO (manuf 0x17f ver 0x2055 rev 4)
bwn0: DMA (64 bits)
bwn0: Note: compiled with BWN_GPL_PHY; includes GPLv2 code
bwn0: Using 1 MSI messages
Sep 1 16:36:00 bsd wpa_supplicant[1290]: Successfully initialized wpa_supplicant
wlan0: Ethernet address: 00:1e:c2:ac:de:a3
bwn0: ucode fw: ucode11
bwn_v4_ucode11: could not load firmware image, error 2
bwn0: the fw file(bwn_v4_ucode11) not found
bwn0: ucode fw: ucode11
bwn-open_v4_ucode11: could not load firmware image, error 2
bwn0: the fw file(bwn-open_v4_ucode11) not found
.........................................................

You see that there is a problem with the firmware image. Ifconfig shows

% ifconfig
msk0: flags=8843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> metric 0 mtu 1500
options=c011a<TXCSUM,VLAN_MTU,VLAN_HWTAGGING,TSO4,VLAN_HWTSO,LINKSTATE>
ether 00:1f:5b:e8:96:50
hwaddr 00:1f:5b:e8:96:50
nd6 options=29<PERFORMNUD,IFDISABLED,AUTO_LINKLOCAL>
media: Ethernet autoselect (none)
status: no carrier
lo0: flags=8049<UP,LOOPBACK,RUNNING,MULTICAST> metric 0 mtu 16384
options=600003<RXCSUM,TXCSUM,RXCSUM_IPV6,TXCSUM_IPV6>
inet6 ::1 prefixlen 128
inet6 fe80::1%lo0 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x2
inet 127.0.0.1 netmask 0xff000000
nd6 options=21<PERFORMNUD,AUTO_LINKLOCAL>
groups: lo
wlan0: flags=8843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> metric 0 mtu 1500
ether 00:1e:c2:ac:de:a3
hwaddr 00:1e:c2:ac:de:a3
nd6 options=29<PERFORMNUD,IFDISABLED,AUTO_LINKLOCAL>
media: IEEE 802.11 Wireless Ethernet autoselect (autoselect)
status: no carrier
ssid "" channel 165 (5825 MHz 11a)
regdomain FCC country US authmode WPA1+WPA2/802.11i privacy MIXED
deftxkey UNDEF txpower 23 bmiss 7 mcastrate 6 mgmtrate 6 scanvalid 60
wme roaming MANUAL bintval 0
groups: wlan



BESIDES .... the man page of bwn declares that


BWN(4) FreeBSD Kernel Interfaces Manual BWN(4)

NAME
bwn - Broadcom BCM43xx IEEE 802.11b/g wireless network driver
........
This driver requires firmware to be loaded before it will work. The
c port needs to be installed before ifconfig(8)
will work. In most cases the bwn_v4_ucode kernel module from the port
should be used. However, if an LP (low power) PHY is being used, the
bwn_v4_lp_ucode module should be used.
...........

BUT both modules are missing

% sudo kldload bwn_v4_ucode
kldload: can't load bwn_v4_ucode: No such file or directory
% sudo kldload bwn_v4_lp_ucode
kldload: can't load bwn_v4_lp_ucode: No such file or directory

Please help.
Ciao Vittorio


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[Adam Vande More]

On Fri, Sep 1, 2017 at 10:24 AM, Victor <vde...@gmail.com> wrote:

> BUT both modules are missing
>
> % sudo kldload bwn_v4_ucode
> kldload: can't load bwn_v4_ucode: No such file or directory
> % sudo kldload bwn_v4_lp_ucode
> kldload: can't load bwn_v4_lp_ucode: No such file or directory
>
>
>

What is the output of:

pkg info -l bwn-firmware-kmod

--
Adam

[Ramiro Caso]

On Fri, Sep 01, 2017 at 05:24:21PM +0200, Victor wrote:
> I'm trying to make the wifi connection of my old macbook (2007) work but, at the moment, to no avail. I'm stranded and perplexed!
>
> Context:
> FreeBSD 11.1-RELEASE #2: Fri Sep 1 16:02:16 CEST 2017 root@bsd:/usr/obj/usr/src/sys/MYKERNEL amd64
>
> The kernel MYKERNEL was compiled adding only:
> options BWN_GPL_PHY
> device firmware
>

I have the same macbook model. Did you have a look at this?

http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.os.freebsd.devel.wireless/4437

It says you have to do three things:

* add BWN_DEBUG and BWN_GPL_PHY to your kernel config
* edit sys/modules/bwn/Makefile and uncomment the PHY-N bits
* rebuild

> I installed from the ports net/bwn-firmware-kmod
>
> In /boot/loader.conf I have
> if_bwn="YES"
>

In /boot/loader.conf I have:

f_bwn_load="YES"
bwn_v4_ucode_load="YES"
bwn_v4_n_ucode_load="YES"

I don't know whether there is something redundant and/or irrelevant here, but
it's working for me.

--
Sent with mutt --- http://www.mutt.org/

[JD]

Thanx!!! I'm keeping this in case I encounter this wifi.

[Victor]

I made a big mistake!

I simply compiled the bwn-firmware-kmod port by means of a "make" but I didn't issue the necessary "make install" command.
Sorry por bothering you all nevertheless your suggestion paved the way for the solution

Ciao
Vittorio