how to enable a BE202NGW device

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skal

New Member
Aug 18, 2023
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Hi all,
I know that proxomx is not big fan of wifi connections, but I would like to enable the wifi card on my pc.
At the moment it is seen by the system but it seems not working :-(

A the moment I'm running on a PM 8.3.5

Here are some infos:

# uname -a
Linux 1disco 6.8.12-8-pve #1 SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC PMX 6.8.12-8 (2025-01-24T12:32Z) x86_64 GNU/Linux
# lspci -vnn | grep -i net
02:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Intel Corporation Wi-Fi 7(802.11be) AX1775*/AX1790*/BE20*/BE401/BE1750* 2x2 [8086:272b] (rev 1a)
# dmesg | grep wifi
[ 3.490788] iwlwifi 0000:02:00.0: enabling device (0000 -> 0002)
[ 3.494480] iwlwifi 0000:02:00.0: Detected crf-id 0x2001910, cnv-id 0x2001910 wfpm id 0x80000000
[ 3.494494] iwlwifi 0000:02:00.0: PCI dev 272b/02f4, rev=0x472, rfid=0x112200
[ 3.588982] iwlwifi 0000:02:00.0: TLV_FW_FSEQ_VERSION: FSEQ Version: 0.0.4.125
[ 3.589641] iwlwifi 0000:02:00.0: loaded firmware version 86.fb5c9aeb.0 gl-c0-fm-c0-86.ucode op_mode iwlmvm
[ 3.923349] iwlwifi 0000:02:00.0: Detected Intel(R) TBD Bz device, REV=0x472
[ 4.247306] iwlwifi 0000:02:00.0: loaded PNVM version 35c04ca8
[ 4.266382] iwlwifi 0000:02:00.0: Detected RF FM, rfid=0x112200
[ 4.350666] iwlwifi 0000:02:00.0: base HW address: 44:38:e8:08:b3:80
[ 4.719985] iwlwifi 0000:02:00.0 wlp2s0f0: renamed from wlan0
[ 2679.315546] iwlwifi 0000:02:00.0: Registered PHC clock: iwlwifi-PTP, with index: 2

and untill here it seems everything is working, but if I try to use the device it seems not working :-(

# iwconfig
lo no wireless extensions.
enp3s0 no wireless extensions.
enp4s0 no wireless extensions.
wlp2s0f0 no wireless extensions.
vmbr0 no wireless extensions.
veth101i0 no wireless extensions.
veth105i0 no wireless extensions.
veth104i0 no wireless extensions.
# iwlist wlan0 scan
wlan0 Interface doesn't support scanning.

Have you any idea what can I try to make it work?
 
Have you installed firmware-iwlwifi package?

ETA: On the other hand, this card must be very new as it claims to be wifi 7. You might have to get the firmware from kernel.org or Intel. It almost certainly isn't in the Debian stable packages.
 
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I should also add that the recommendation from Proxmox is to not use wifi as your primary interface. The reason is that you generally can't bridge wifi. See the relevant chapter in the PVE manual, which is linked at the top right of the PVE main screen.
https://pve.proxmox.com/wiki/WLAN

Here are the instructions for setting up wifi on Debian, which also applies to PVE.
https://wiki.debian.org/WiFi/HowToUse#Manual
 
BobhWasatch said:
Have you installed firmware-iwlwifi package?

ETA: On the other hand, this card must be very new as it claims to be wifi 7. You might have to get the firmware from kernel.org or Intel. It almost certainly isn't in the Debian stable packages.
Click to expand...

$ sudo apt install firmware-iwlwifi/stable
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
Reading state information... Done
Selected version '20230210-5' (Debian:12.10/stable [all]) for 'firmware-iwlwifi'
The following packages will be REMOVED:
proxmox-default-kernel proxmox-kernel-6.8 proxmox-ve pve-firmware
The following NEW packages will be installed:
firmware-iwlwifi
0 upgraded, 1 newly installed, 4 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 0 B/9,336 kB of archives.
After this operation, 316 MB disk space will be freed.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n] y
W: (pve-apt-hook) !! WARNING !!
W: (pve-apt-hook) You are attempting to remove the meta-package 'proxmox-ve'!
W: (pve-apt-hook)
W: (pve-apt-hook) If you really want to permanently remove 'proxmox-ve' from your system, run the following command
W: (pve-apt-hook) touch '/please-remove-proxmox-ve'
W: (pve-apt-hook) run apt purge proxmox-ve to remove the meta-package
W: (pve-apt-hook) and repeat your apt invocation.
W: (pve-apt-hook)
W: (pve-apt-hook) If you are unsure why 'proxmox-ve' would be removed, please verify
W: (pve-apt-hook) - your APT repository settings
W: (pve-apt-hook) - that you are using 'apt full-upgrade' to upgrade your system
E: Sub-process /usr/share/proxmox-ve/pve-apt-hook returned an error code (1)
E: Failure running script /usr/share/proxmox-ve/pve-apt-hook

There is no way to install it without touching proxmox-ve package?
 
BobhWasatch said:
I should also add that the recommendation from Proxmox is to not use wifi as your primary interface. The reason is that you generally can't bridge wifi. See the relevant chapter in the PVE manual, which is linked at the top right of the PVE main screen.
https://pve.proxmox.com/wiki/WLAN

Here are the instructions for setting up wifi on Debian, which also applies to PVE.
https://wiki.debian.org/WiFi/HowToUse#Manual
Click to expand...
As I've wrote in the beginning on my post, I know that proxmox is not a wifi fan.
This is not the mail NIC connection, but I would like to see if I can make it work anyway
 
I was not able to log in to my PVE earlier. Now I can it it appears that the pve-firmware package is installed by default and conflicts with the Debian ones. I didn't realize that.

In looking at your initial post, it looks like it is loading some firmware. Maybe too old? Not sure. You can get the latest firmware from the link below and install it manually if you want to try that. The tree structure of the gitlab link is the same as what's under /lib/firmware on your system with the iwlwif stuff being at the top level. Don't forget make backups! It is easy to break things doing this. You will probably want to do some research to find out what files you need for the card you have.

https://gitlab.com/kernel-firmware/linux-firmware

Also, it is not that PVE "isn't a wifi fan", it is that most access points simply won't accept frames from bridged VM's, regardless of what OS is in use. So you have to either set up a routed network or only use the wifi for management.
 
Besides firmware, wifi 7 is very, very, new. As in only a few months old. It could be that the iwlwifi driver in the PVE kernel doesn't support it yet. I have a Framework laptop and someone on their forum got a Qualcom card working with kernel 6.12, but 6.11 is the newest PVE kernel last I checked.
 
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