Hi
First I want to thank all of you, who are making it possible, to have such an incredible piece of technique (both, hard- and software)! Very cool project!
I am new to Linux and Freedombox and did try to setup WLAN on my Freedombox with the latest hard- and software. I bought the MOD-WIFI-AR9271 USB WiFi adapter together with the Pioneer FreedomBox. My understanding of the terminal and its commands are not enough to set it up. Can anybody give detailed instruction, how to install the WIFI adapter and configure the software? All the posts I did read didnât help so far.
Is the issue in getting the network card operational or getting FreedomBox doing what you need with the network card?
Maybe start here if you are getting the network card set up: 8.2. Configuring the Network and look at 8.2.2. Wireless Interface.
I believe what youâre asking for is well supported in the FreedomBox GUI. Look in System and then Networks. First answer the questions about internet connectivity and internet connection type. Then, what you describe sounds like this to me:
Pioneer wired ethernet is your primary network interface connected to the ISP with firewall zone âexternalâ
WLAN interface is your secondary network interface in âshared connectionâ mode with firewall zone internal
In this configuration your FreedomBox will be the DHCP server, will forward DNS requests, and be the router for your network. This is the way Iâm using FreedomBox and it works very well for this.
Hi @Joseph
Thank you for your kind an professional answer! The issue was to get the network card operational. My misconception was, that I thought I had to install and configure the software in the terminal. The documentation says:
22.1. Firmware Installation
The free firmware for these devices is not packaged in Debian yet. You can manually download and install the firmware as follows:
âŚ
So I did try to install the software and got stuck. That was the point I did come to the forum, where you have answered me. Since then I did read and try a lot. Since the firmware for the Qualcomm Atheros AR9271 is preinstalled, the configuration was easy and I was able to log in the WiFi an reach my Freedombox with the configuration the system and you suggested:
⢠Pioneer wired ethernet is your primary network interface connected to the ISP with firewall zone âexternalâ
⢠WLAN interface is your secondary network interface in âshared connectionâ mode with firewall zone internal
Now Iâm stuck at the second question youâve asked: getting FreedomBox doing what you need with the network card.
I am not able to reach the internet. I can reach my Freedombox wit the above mentioned config, but not the internet. I seems, that the firewall does not let me from the internal to the external zone. I configured all kinds of ways (Gateways, IP configurations, manual, shared, internal, external etc), but none worked.
What I want is to simply use my Freedombox with the WiFi Stick as Access Point.
My setup ist a netgate hardware firewall follwed by a switch and I have a static IP adress.
Maybe the easier way is to just buy an Acces Point an plug it into my switch? Or what do you suggest?
Iâm not familiar with the pre-built Pioneer image, and I want to be sure youâre set up so that the FreedomBox configuration page is able to make changes to your network. Can you confirm that NetworkManager is truly running your WLAN and ethernet card? You could do this command to check and share the result if youâre not sure:
ls /etc/NetworkManager/system-connections
Mine looks like this: ls /etc/NetworkManager/system-connections/
eno1.nmconnection eno2.nmconnection WireGuard-Server-wg0.nmconnection
eno1 and eno2 are my two network connections and WireGuard is the VPN. Seeing this I know that the FreedomBox configuration page is able to change these devices (because FreedomBox uses NetworkManager to do this).
FreedomBox Network Connectivity: Answer this to tell FreedomBox to be the router, or to use a router.
You have ethernet as primary interface.
You have WLAN as secondary interface in shared mode.
I think when you get these options right for your situation youâll see it work.
The one thing I would be thinking about is whether the subnets on the primary and secondary network interfaces can be the same or are required to be different. Depending on your situation I could see where you may need to set this.
If ethernet was 192.168.1.1/24 and you needed to put the WLAN on a different subnet all you need to do is change the address in the configuration page. Setting WLAN to 192.168.2.1/24 would change the subnet from 192.168.1.0 to 192.168.2.0 and there is a different network on each side of your FreedomBox (whereupon FreedomBox should be a router).
Sorry, itâs me again. Yesterday i did switch off the firewall in the cockpit and then I was able to reach the internet for a short time and then failed to keep the connection. Now I did try it again and as for now I have stable internet connection. Therefore it is a freedombox internal firewall problem. somehow the internal zone gets blocked to go outside⌠Well, I can live with this. Still, it would be nice, to find the spot, where the problem lies in the firewall.
This reminds me that there is an issue with the Firewall related to having 2 network connections. You can try running the commands here to create a policy and enable forwarding: https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2016864#c8