Re: kern/48390: wifi signal strength always reported as zero

[Leonardo Taccari <iamleot%gmail.com@localhost>]

The following reply was made to PR kern/48390; it has been noted by GNATS.

From: Leonardo Taccari <iamleot%gmail.com@localhost>
To: gnats-bugs%NetBSD.org@localhost
Cc: 
Subject: Re: kern/48390: wifi signal strength always reported as zero
Date: Wed, 20 Nov 2013 23:44:23 +0100

 Hello Alan and all the NetBSD community,
 
 On Wed, Nov 20, 2013 at 08:20:01PM +0000, apb%cequrux.com@localhost wrote:
 >      I am classifying this as a kernel bug, because the underlying
 >      problem seems to be that the signal strength is always reported as
 >      zero, so it's unreasonable to expect wpa_supplicant to make a
 >      good choice.
 > 
 >      In case it matters, the hardware is probed as follows:
 > 
 >      athn0 at pci2 dev 0 function 0: Atheros AR9285
 >      athn0: rev 2 (1T1R), ROM rev 14, address b4:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx
 >      athn0: interrupting at ioapic0 pin 16
 >      athn0: 11b rates: 1Mbps 2Mbps 5.5Mbps 11Mbps
 >      athn0: 11g rates: 1Mbps 2Mbps 5.5Mbps 11Mbps 6Mbps 9Mbps 12Mbps 18Mbps 
 > 24Mbps 36Mbps 48Mbps 54Mbps
 I can confirm that too with (I'm running NetBSD/i386 6.1.2):
 
  ath0 at pci3 dev 0 function 0: Atheros 5424/2424
  ath0: interrupting at ioapic0 pin 18
  ath0: 11b rates: 1Mbps 2Mbps 5.5Mbps 11Mbps
  ath0: 11g rates: 1Mbps 2Mbps 5.5Mbps 11Mbps 6Mbps 9Mbps 12Mbps 18Mbps 24Mbps 
36Mbps 48Mbps 54Mbps
  ath0: mac 14.2 phy 7.0 radio 10.2
 
 e.g.:
 
  $ wpa_cli scan_res
  Selected interface 'ath0'
  23:34:47.593: bssid / frequency / signal level / flags / ssid
  XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX       2412    0       [WPA2-PSK-CCMP][ESS]      XXX1
  XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX       2412    0       [WPA2-PSK-TKIP+CCMP][ESS] XXX0
  XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX       2412    0       [WPA-PSK-TKIP][ESS]       XXX2
 
 However, with:
 
  # ifconfig ath0 list scan
  SSID                              BSSID              CHAN RATE  S:N     INT 
CAPS
  XXX0                              XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX    1   54M   7:0    100 
EP   RSN WME
  XXX1                              XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX    1   54M   1:0    100 
EP   RSN WME