wifi stopped working after kernel upgrade [RESOLVED]

[plut0]

I have been using my ath5k wireless card as an access point for some time now. Just yesterday I upgraded my kernel 2.6.28-hardened-r6 to kernel-2.6.36-hardened-r6 and now it is broke.

Apparently madwifi no longer works for ath5k and you are forced to use nl80211 under the newer kernel. For whatever reason the driver is throwing errors attempting to bring the NIC online.

I can add a virtual device without error:

Code: Select all

# iw dev wlan0 interface add ath0 type __ap
# iwconfig ath0
ath0      IEEE 802.11bg  Mode:Master  Tx-Power=off   
          Retry  long limit:7   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
          Power Management:off

When start hostapd I get the following errors:

Code: Select all

# /etc/init.d/hostapd start
 * Starting ath0
RTNETLINK answers: Unknown error 132
RTNETLINK answers: Unknown error 132
RTNETLINK answers: Unknown error 132
 *   Configuring wireless network for ath0
Error for wireless request "Set Encode" (8B2A) :
    SET failed on device ath0 ; Operation not supported.
Error for wireless request "Set ESSID" (8B1A) :
    SET failed on device ath0 ; Operation not supported.
 *   ath0 does not support setting ESSID to "gentoo"
 *   Failed to configure wireless for ath0
 * ERROR:  cannot start hostapd as net.ath0 could not start

/etc/hostapd/hostapd.cfg:

Code: Select all

interface=ath0
driver=nl80211
logger_syslog=-1
logger_syslog_level=2
logger_stdout=-1
logger_stdout_level=1
dump_file=/tmp/hostapd0.dump
ctrl_interface=/var/run/hostapd
ctrl_interface_group=0
ignore_broadcast_ssid=1
ssid=gentoo
hw_mode=g
macaddr_acl=1
accept_mac_file=/etc/hostapd/hostapd.accept
auth_algs=1
wpa=0

/etc/conf.d/net

Code: Select all

mode_ath0=( "master" )
config_ath0=( "192.168.2.1/24" )
essid_ath0=( "gentoo" )

[plut0]

I fixed this, I had to start the interface as ad-hoc and let hostapd set it as a master. I also had to run rfkill to unblock the wireless.

/etc/conf.d/net:

Code: Select all

config_ath0=( "192.168.2.1/24" )
mode_ath0=( "ad-hoc" )
essid_ath0=( "gentoo" )
preup() {
  if [[ ${IFACE} == "ath0" ]]; then
    iw dev wlan0 interface add ${IFACE} type __ap
    rfkill unblock all
  fi
}
postdown() {
  if [[ ${IFACE} == "ath0" ]]; then
    iw dev ${IFACE} del
    iw dev mon.${IFACE} del
  fi
}