iwlwifi driver - where to get/find it for pfsense 2.7.2

zero84

Hey @all,

my new tiny pc I plan to use for pfsense was shipped with an Intel AX200 (Killer Wi Fi 6 AX1650x) wifi card and I'm now to trying to get it working in infrastrucure mode for wan failover (via mobile hotspot - in case I should need this some time) and was now wondering where to get the iwlwifi driver from?

I've read in some older posts that the driver was once included in pfsense but seesms to be gone.
@stephenw10 pointed out that it should be in the install iso but i didn't manage to find it.

Although I've been using pfsense for quite a while now I'm not that proficient in administering freebsd/pfsense on kernel level. Therefore any help on this is highly appreciated...

Gertjan

@zero84 said in iwlwifi driver - where to get/find it for pfsense 2.7.2:

any help

One help ....

Just click here for more info.

edit : not all hardware drivers exist for FreeBSD.
Microsoft Windows : sure, as if it didn't exist for Windows, the think wouldn't sell at all.
MAC : Probably also, but less is available for sure.
Linux : Less sure, as way less people using it.
Other rare OSs like FreeBSD (native) : quiet rare.
And even if FreeBSD supports the device and has a driver, this doesn't guarantee that pfSense, using it's own package repository, and not the public FreeBSD repository, has the support (hardware driver).

The thing is, before you acquire a device, check first your the system you want to use it on, supports it.

One of the reasons not "everything" is supported on a router firewall, is the security aspect.
A router firewall needs to be as secure as possible.
A router firewall is as secure as the worst software installed on it.
This means the author of the firewall router will limit the list of variables software.
You can, probably, override this. See the pfSense documentation for how to do this.
It might work, and you don't experience any issues (but do you see everything ? ^^ ), or it might take the system down direct - break the GUI

zero84

@Gertjan thanks for you're reply and your input.

I don't want "everything" to work and I didn't purchase my hardware for the purpose I asked for. I was more or less surprised that the box came with a wifi chip and after some research in the forum and on the internet it seemed doable to use this card for wan failover because:

it would be a nice feature and no need to buy additional hardware if working
there should be a driver for Intel AX cards since freebsd 13.1 (iwlwifi)
driver supports infrastructure (client) mode and at least .11n standard (suits my needs)
driver was included in pfsense 2.7 but seems it got removed (couldn't find any reason why)
if_iwlwifi.ko should still be in the pfsense 2.7 install iso (was mentioned in an older topic)

Due to the fact that I couldn't find this driver in the netgate-installer-v1.0-RC-amd64-20240919-1435.iso and in none of the previous topics I opened this topic hoping someone would point me to the right driver file for further testing.

Meanwhile I found the desired files (if_iwlwifi.ko, iwlwifi-cc-a0-73.ucode.ko) in an older pfsense 2.7.2 iso (pfSence-CE-2.7.2-RELEASE-amd64.iso). I copied them to /boot/kernel on a fresh installed pfsense and got the wifi card kinda working:

kldstat -v | grep iwl
 6    1 0xffffffff8441b000    88190 if_iwlwifi.ko (/boot/kernel/if_iwlwifi.ko)
		676 pci/lkpi_iwl_hw_card_ids

pciconf -lv | grep -A3 iwl
iwlwifi0@pci0:6:17:0:	class=0x028000 rev=0x1a hdr=0x00 vendor=0x8086 device=0x2723 subvendor=0x1a56 subdevice=0x1654
    vendor     = 'Intel Corporation'
    device     = 'Wi-Fi 6 AX200'
    class      = network

sysctl net.wlan.devices
net.wlan.devices: iwlwifi0

ifconfig
iwlwifi0_wlan0: flags=8c43<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,DRV_OACTIVE,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> metric 0 mtu 1500

The card now shows up in parent interface list in "Interface > Assignment > Wireless" and I can configure it as a new interface in "Interface > Assignment".

Sadly the failover connection to my phone is pretty unstable and seems only to work if WPA2 encryption is disabled. But I didn't even expect to get that far.

stephenw10

Yeah, AFAIK it will only act as a client and is limited to .11n speeds but I would have expected WPA2 to work.

zero84

@stephenw10 I was only testing with the mobile AP of my smartphone because this was planned to be the only use case. I have an identical second tiny pc which I plan to use for HA. Maybe I'll give the wifi setup a new try on this one before building up the cluster.

As I'm running pfsense in a vm on proxmox (I was passing through the wifi nic) I still could setup a small linux vm for the wifi stuff and do the failover via a virtual network. But as it is only a nice to have feature, there's no need for this to really function. It's more of a fun project trying to get the wifi failover working and getting deeper into freebsd/pfsense ;)