A wireless networking card is required to use a wireless network, FreeBSD will also need to be configured to the correct wireless network support. The correct module will need to be modified, depending on the type of networking card. The most commonly used wireless devices are those that use parts made by Atheros. These devices are supported by ath(4) and require the following line to be added to /boot/loader.conf:

If unsure about the device, you can identify many common wireless adaptors through the use of the  sysctl(8) net.wlan.devices variable:

To load support for a different type of wireless device, specify the module for that device. This example is for devices based on the Intersil Prism parts (wi(4)) driver:

Note: A list of available wireless drivers and supported adapters can be found in the FreeBSD Hardware Notes, available on the Release Information page of the FreeBSD website.

In addition, the modules that implement cryptographic support for the security protocols to use must be loaded. These are intended to be dynamically loaded on demand by the wlan(4) module. To load these modules at boot time, add the following lines to /boot/loader.conf:

Information about the wireless device should appear in the boot messages, like this:

Directly connecting to an unsecure network, while not recommended, is extremely common. It’s also a very simple process on FreeBSD. In this example I’ll beconnecting to the John F Kennedy International Airport’s free WiFi.

Start by finding the name of the network:

This will look for available networks and return a list, In this case, we want to connect to the JFK free wifi so we’ll use:

Hopefully you will see that it’s joined, and running ifconfig ath0 will show that it’s associated. You can then get an address with:

Most home/private networks will rely on these security protocols. Connecting a computer to an existing WPA/WPA2/Personal wireless network is a very common situation.

FreeBSD can act as an Access Point (AP) in order to act as a gateway or to eliminate the need to purchase AP hardware. Before an Access Point can be set up, the kernel must be configured with the appropriate networking support for the wireless card as well as the security protocols being used. This mode is only supported by native FreeBSD wireless drivers.

After setting up wireless networking, you can check if the device supports host-based access point mode:

This output displays the card’s capabilities. The HOSTAP word confirms that this wireless card can act as an AP.

The wireless device can only be put into hostap mode during the creation of the network pseudo-device, so a previously created device must be destroyed first:

then regenerated with the correct option before setting the other parameters:

Use ifconfig(8) again to see the status of the wlan0 interface:

The hostap parameter indicates the interface is running in the host-based access point mode.

The interface configuration can be done automatically at boot time by adding the following lines to /etc/rc.conf:

Once the AP is configured, initiate a scan from another wireless machine to find the AP.

Many cellphones can share data connection over USB, FreeBSD provides support through a variety of protocols:

Before attaching a device, load the appropriate driver into the kernel:

Once the device is attached ue0 will be available for use like a normal network device. Be sure that the “USB tethering” option is enabled on the mobile device.

To make this change permanent and load the driver as a module at boot time, place the appropriate line of the following in /boot/loader.conf:

Before attaching a Bluetooth device, determine which Bluetooth driver it uses. A broad variety of Bluetooth USB dongles are supported by ng_ubt(4). Broadcom BCM2033 based Bluetooth devices are supported by the ubtbcmfw(4) and ng_ubt(4) drivers. The 3Com Bluetooth PC Card 3CRWB60-A is supported by the ng_bt3c(4) driver. Serial and UART based Bluetooth devices are supported by sio(4), ng_h4(4), and hcseriald(8). For example, if the device uses the ng_ubt(4) driver:

If the Bluetooth device will be attached to the system during system startup, the system can be configured to load the module at boot time by adding the driver to /boot/loader.conf:

Once the driver is loaded, plug in the USB dongle. If the driver load was successful, output similar to the following should appear on the console and in /var/log/messages:

To start and stop Bluetooth, use the driver’s startup script.

FreeBSD uses hccontrol(8) to find and identify Bluetooth devices within RF proximity.

One of the most common tasks is discovery of Bluetooth devices within RF proximity. This operation is called inquiry. Inquiry and other HCI related operations are done using hccontrol(8). To display a list of devices that are in range use:

Note: only devices that are set to discoverable mode will be listed.

The BD_ADDR is the unique address of a Bluetooth device, similar to the MAC address of a network card. This address is needed for further communication with a device. To to obtain the human readable name that was assigned to the remote device:

The Bluetooth system provides a point-to-point connection between two Bluetooth units, or a point-to-multipoint connection which is shared among several Bluetooth devices. The following example shows how to create a connection to a remote device:

create_connection accepts BT_ADDR as well as host aliases in /etc/bluetooth/hosts.

The following example shows how to obtain the list of active baseband connections for the local device:

While a Bluetooth device can choose to require authentication, communication is normally not authenticated, so any Bluetooth device can talk to any other device. If the device requires authentication, the PIN code must be entered on both devices, the devices will then generate a link key. After that, the link key can be stored either in the devices or in a persistent storage. This procedure is called pairing.

The hcsecd(8) daemon is responsible for handling Bluetooth authentication requests. The default configuration file is /etc/bluetooth/hcsecd.conf. An example section for a cellular phone with the PIN code set to 1234 is shown below:

The only limitation on PIN codes is length. Some devices, such as Bluetooth headsets, may have a fixed PIN code built in. The -d switch forces hcsecd(8) to stay in the foreground, so it is easy to see what is happening. Set the remote device to receive pairing and initiate the Bluetooth connection to the remote device. The remote device should indicate that pairing was accepted and request the PIN code. Enter the same PIN code listed in hcsecd.conf. Now the computer and the remote device are paired.

The following line can be added to /etc/rc.conf to configure hcsecd(8) to start automatically on system start:

Whether for music, communication, or notifications, audio is an important feature of many personal computer systems. In a new FreeBSD system, an audio card will need to be configured to process audio files and send them to the connected speakers.

Fortunately, setting up audio on FreeBSD is simple and straightforward. This guide will walk through setting up and configuring audio, connecting a pair of headphones (including pairing Bluetooth models), and testing the system’s sound, all in under 10 minutes!

FreeBSD supports a wide variety of sound cards, these are listed in the Hardware Compatability List for each FreeBSD release. The Hardware Notes will list supported audio devices and which FreeBSD driver it uses. Start by identifying which driver will be needed for your specific audio device.

The device driver will need to be loaded to use the sound card, this can be easily done with kldload(8). To load the intel-specific driver, for example:

The driver can be automatically loaded on boot by configuring /boot/loader.conf. Available sound modules are listed in the sound(1) manual page, these can be viewed by using:

Once the sound module has been checked, add a line to /boot/loader.conf to automatically load the driver. The line for the previous Intel driver would be:

To simplify identifying and loading a driver, the snd_driver module, a meta driver that loads all of the common sound drivers, can also be loaded:

If the audio output require a Bluetooth connection, further configurations will have to be made to ensure Bluetooth support is loaded and configured. This section can be skipped if Bluetooth is not needed.

Before attaching a Bluetooth device, determine which Bluetooth driver it uses. A broad variety of Bluetooth USB dongles are supported by ng_ubt(4). Broadcom BCM2033 based Bluetooth devices are supported by the ubtbcmfw(4) and ng_ubt(4) drivers. Serial and UART based Bluetooth devices are supported by ng_h4(4) and hcseriald(8). For example, if the device uses the ng_ubt(4) driver:

If the Bluetooth device will be attached to the system during system startup, the system can be configured to load the module at boot by adding the driver to /boot/loader.conf:

Once the driver is loaded, connect the Bluetooth device. If the driver load was successful, output similar to the following should appear on the console and in /var/log/messages:

To start and stop Bluetooth, use the driver’s startup script:

FreeBSD uses hccontrol(8) to find and identify Bluetooth devices within RF proximity.

One of the most common tasks is discovery of Bluetooth devices within RF proximity. This operation is called inquiry. Inquiry and other HCI related operations are done using hccontrol(8). To display a list of devices that are in range use:

Note: only devices that are set to discoverable mode will be listed.

The BD_ADDR is the unique address of a Bluetooth device, similar to the MAC address of a network card. This address is needed for further communication with a device. To to obtain the human readable name that was assigned to the remote device:

The Bluetooth system provides a point-to-point connection between two Bluetooth units, or a point-to-multipoint connection which is shared among several Bluetooth devices. The following example shows how to create a connection to a remote device:

create_connection accepts BT_ADDR as well as host aliases in /etc/bluetooth/hosts.

The following example shows how to obtain the list of active baseband connections for the local device:

Modern graphics cards often come with their own sound driver, which may be used as the default device. To confirm, run dmesg and look for the pcm entries:

In this example, the graphics card (NVidia) has been enumerated before the sound card (Realtek). This can be changed to use the sound card as the default device with:

where n is the number of the sound device to prioritize. In this example, it should be 4. Make this change permanent by adding the following line to /etc/sysctl.conf:

Some systems may struggle with switching between audio outputs, fortunately FreeBSD allows for these to be specified in device.hints, which can be configured for automatic switchover. To start, identify how your system is enumerating the outputs with:

Add the following line to /boot/device.hints using the highlighted values from your own system. These will likely be different than the example. In this example, colored text has been used to identify where in the original string the values originated.

To confirm that the sound card has been detected and properly configured, run dmesg | grep pcm. This example is from a system with a built-in Conexant chipset:

The status of the sound card may also be checked using this command:

The output depends on which sound card has been detected, so the result may look different. However, if no pcm devices are listed, check if the correct driver was loaded in the first step.

Another quick way to test the card is to send data to /dev/dsp:

Any file can be used for this and will produce noise through the connected audio device.

Printers capable of printing plain ASCII text can be quickly set up on FreeBSD.

Before starting, identify the type of connection your printer is using:

FreeBSD uses lpd(8) (Line Printer Daemon) to print in the background so the user can continue to use other programs. Start by creating a directory to store files while they are being printed:

As root, create /etc/printcap with these contents:

**This line is for a printer connected to a USB port.

For a printer connected to a parallel or “printer” port, use:

For a printer connected directly to a network, use:

Replace network-printer-name with the DNS host name of the network printer.

To check for errors, run:

Enable LPD by editing /etc/rc.conf, adding this line:

Start the service:

Print a test:

For occasional printing, files can be sent directly to a printer device without any setup. For example, a file called sample.txt can be sent to a USB printer:

Direct printing to network printers depends on the abilities of the printer, but most accept print jobs on port 9100, and nc(1) can be used with them. To print the same file to a printer with the DNS hostname of netlaser:

The examples shown so far have sent the contents of a text file directly to the printer. As long as the printer understands the content of those files, output will be printed correctly.

Some printers are not capable of printing plain text, and the input file might not even be plain text.

Filters are specified in /etc/printcap with the if= identifier. To use /usr/local/libexec/lf2crlf as a filter, modify /etc/printcap like this:

Typical FreeBSD text files contain only a single line feed character at the end of each line. These lines will “stairstep” on a standard printer:

A filter can convert the newline characters into carriage returns and newlines. The carriage returns make the printer return to the left after each line. Create /usr/local/libexec/lf2crlf with these contents:

Set the permissions and make it executable:

Modify /etc/printcap to use the new filter:

Test the filter by printing the same plain text file. The carriage returns will cause each line to start at the left side of the page.

Several other printing systems are available in addition to the built-in lpd(8). These systems offer support for other protocols or additional features.

CUPS is a popular printing system available on many operating systems. Using CUPS on FreeBSD is documented in a separate article: CUPS

Hewlett Packard provides a printing system that supports many of their inkjet and laser printers. The port is print/hplip. The main web page is at https://developers.hp.com/hp-linux-imaging-and-printing. The port handles all the installation details on FreeBSD. Configuration information is shown at https://developers.hp.com/hp-linux-imaging-and-printing/install.

LPRng was developed as an enhanced alternative to lpd(8). The port is sysutils/LPRng. For details and documentation, see http://www.lprng.com/.