FreeBSD and Edimax N150 Wi-Fi USB network interface

I have found old Edimax N150 Wi-Fi USB network interface and would like to use it in FreeBSD 14.2. for some IoT project. I have not used Wi-Fi on FreeBSD for ages, so let's try it.

It is worth to mention that Wi-Fi network interface can be in three different modes

• Station (client) - ifconfig wlan0 mode sta
• Monitor - ifconfig wlan0 mode monitor
• Access Point - ifconfig wlan0 mode hostap

Access Point (ifconfig wlan0 mode hostap) is great in situations you would like to allow multiple Stations to connect, but the rtwn driver in FreeBSD does not support Access Point (hostap) mode.  

Monitor mode on a wireless interface (ifconfig wlan0 mode monitor) is a special mode used primarily for passive packet capturing and wireless debugging, not for normal network communication. This mode should be supported by rtwn driver in FreeBSD, but I did not tested.

Station/Client (sta) mode is supported and it is actually the only mode we will cover in this blog post.

Let's do a configuration, setup, and some performance tests ...

FreeBSD Update and Upgrade process

The Base FreeBSD System vs Third-Party Software

First of all, it is important to understand that FreeBSD hase The Base FreeBSD system and Third-Party Software.

The Base FreeBSD System is the core part of FreeBSD that includes the kernel, standard system utilities, libraries, configuration files, and essential tools required to run and manage the system. You manage it using Admin Tool freebsd-update. Tool freebsd-update is still widely used, but the FreeBSD project is gradually moving toward pkgbase tool where The Base FreeBSD System is splited into packages like FreeBSD-runtime, FreeBSD-lib, FreeBSD-kernel, etc. You will be able to manage the base system with pkg just like third-party software. It will be more modular and modern than freebsd-update, but pkgbase is not yet officially supported on RELEASE versions, therefore freebsd-update is still production ready tool for update and upgrade of The Base FreeBSD System.

Third-Party software in FreeBSD is any application or tool not included in the base system, such as web servers, editors, databases, programming languages, and desktop environments. You manage it using the pkg package manager or by Ports Collection (source code + make).

Picture is worth 1,000 words, so I have prepared visualization to understand the difference between The Base FreeBSD System and Third-Party Software.

The Base FreeBSD System and Third-Party Software

FreeBSD Router with DNS and DHCP Servers

I use FreeBSD routers in my home labs and here is my typical router configuration.

Router configuration is based on 

• General FreeBSD System Configuration
• DHCP Server Configuration
• DNS (BIND) Configuration

Wirequard VPN on FreeBSD

I use site-to-site VPNs between datacenter and two remote locations and I had some strange issues with OpenVPN site-to-site performance of one particular VPN link to remote location, but the same OpenVPN configuration worked perfectly fine in another remote location. It was probably related to some UDP magic of that particular ISP. Monthly cost of that residential link is $20, so there was unrealistic to open support ticket with ISP and do some deep troubleshooting. Instead of that, I tried WireGuard VPN and it worked like a charm.

 

That was the reason I switched to from OpenVPN to WireGuard VPN and here is configuration of WireGuard VPN Server with two VPN clients. 

I have FreeBSD based VPN box in each location and below is the diagram with WireGuard interfaces (wg0) in each datacenter. WireGuard in data center is obviously WireGuard Server (172.16.100.254/24) and in remote locations I have WireGuard Clients (172.16.100.1/24 and 172.16.100.2/24).

 

WireGuard site-to-site VPN Toplogy

HowTo switch to FreeBSD legacy console

In terms of FreeBSD console, there are two settings typically set in /boot/loader.conf to affect early boot behavior.

kern.vty=sc

This setting tells FreeBSD to use the "sc" (syscons) console driver instead of the newer "vt" (Newcons) driver.

• sc is the older legacy text console system.
• vt (the default in modern FreeBSD versions) supports Unicode, better font rendering, and KMS (Kernel Mode Setting) for modern graphics.

You might set kern.vty=sc for:

• Compatibility with older hardware
• Simpler framebuffer requirements
• Easier use in virtual machines or serial consoles

hw.vga.textmode=1 

This setting forces the VGA hardware to remain in text mode during the boot process and afterward. When used with kern.vty=sc, it helps to avoid switching to graphics mode. It is useful on real hardware where mode switching causes flicker, or to avoid issues with VMs or KVMs that don't like graphics mode. 

It ensures that the system boots and runs entirely in VGA 80x25 text mode, improving compatibility and avoiding graphical issues.