Wlan interface fails when adding to bridge

marianodaniel · November 14, 2025, 5:44am

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PCI d00.0: 0282 WLAN controller
  [Created at pci.387]
  Unique ID: y9sn.GqetadYEK_A
  Parent ID: HnsE.cl8tOgOWATC
  SysFS ID: /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1c.5/0000:0d:00.0
  SysFS BusID: 0000:0d:00.0
  Hardware Class: network
  Model: "Apple AirPort Extreme"
  Vendor: pci 0x14e4 "Broadcom"
  Device: pci 0x432b "BCM4322 802.11a/b/g/n Wireless LAN Controller"
  SubVendor: pci 0x106b "Apple Inc."
  SubDevice: pci 0x008e "AirPort Extreme"
  Revision: 0x01
  Driver: "b43-pci-bridge"
  Driver Modules: "ssb"
  Device File: wlan0
  Features: WLAN
  Memory Range: 0x8b100000-0x8b103fff (rw,non-prefetchable)
  IRQ: 17 (688317 events)
  HW Address: 00:26:08:fc:9c:9b
  Permanent HW Address: 00:26:08:fc:9c:9b
  Link detected: yes
  WLAN channels: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 36 38 40 42 44 46 48 50 52 54 56 58 60 62 64 100 102 104
  WLAN frequencies: 2.412 2.417 2.422 2.427 2.432 2.437 2.442 2.447 2.452 2.457 2.462 2.467 2.472 2.484 5.18 5.19 5.2 5.21 5.22 5.23 5.24 5.25 5.26 5.27 5.28 5.29 5.3 5.31 5.32 5.5 5.51 5.52
  WLAN encryption modes: WEP40 WEP104 TKIP CCMP
  WLAN authentication modes: open sharedkey wpa-psk wpa-eap
  Module Alias: "pci:v000014E4d0000432Bsv0000106Bsd0000008Ebc02sc80i00"
  Driver Info #0:
    Driver Status: ssb is active
    Driver Activation Cmd: "modprobe ssb"
  Config Status: cfg=no, avail=yes, need=no, active=unknown
  Attached to: #28 (PCI bridge)

When I bridge my eth0 wired connection to br1 on YAST with a static ip address it works fine, I can feed dhcp to my livbirt VMs etc.
When I do the same for wlan0 (deselect eth0 from yast and select wlan0 on br1’s config) I can no longer do ifup br1, it fails with the following error:

2025-11-14T02:19:58.005687-03:00 main systemd[1]: Reloading wicked managed network interfaces...
2025-11-14T02:19:58.044307-03:00 main wicked[22094]: skipping 'lo' interface: persistent mode is on
2025-11-14T02:19:58.843233-03:00 main wicked[22094]: eth0: configuration applied to nanny
2025-11-14T02:19:58.845551-03:00 main wicked[22094]: br1: configuration applied to nanny
2025-11-14T02:19:58.846883-03:00 main wicked[22094]: wlan0: configuration applied to nanny
2025-11-14T02:20:02.018955-03:00 main wickedd-nanny[1464]: device wlan0: call to org.opensuse.Network.Interface.linkUp() failed: General failure
2025-11-14T02:20:02.019063-03:00 main wickedd-nanny[1464]: wlan0: failed to bring up device, still continuing
2025-11-14T02:20:28.868880-03:00 main wicked[22094]: Interface wait time (30s) reached
2025-11-14T02:20:28.905038-03:00 main wicked[22094]: eth0            device-ready
2025-11-14T02:20:28.905087-03:00 main wicked[22094]: wlan0           device-ready
2025-11-14T02:20:28.905116-03:00 main wicked[22094]: eth0            no-carrier
2025-11-14T02:20:28.905141-03:00 main wicked[22094]: wlan0           device-not-running
2025-11-14T02:20:28.905165-03:00 main wicked[22094]: br1             no-carrier

Is this a bug or am I doing something wrong?
Basically I want to replace my wired ethernet connection on my br1 interface with my wireless one.

deano_ferrari · November 14, 2025, 7:12am

Yeah, that won’t work (assuming wlan client mode). The wlan0 associates to the AP using one MAC address. The Wi-Fi client mode does not pass arbitrary MAC addresses or raw frames, and cannot forward frames for other devices.

What are you trying to achieve here? There may be other more suitable approaches available to you.

arvidjaar · November 14, 2025, 7:16am

In this case it does not get that far, it apparently does not even attempt to associate with AP.

deano_ferrari · November 14, 2025, 7:33am

Well, it won’t associate while configured as part of a bridge, as that will prevent the driver from treating it as a station.

marianodaniel · November 14, 2025, 1:58pm

Thanks for the input, Deano!
My main server is hosting some VMs that I was able to provide internet to by setting them on br1 (when it was bridged to eth0, my wired connection) this main server was also running dhcp server and dns, providing VMs with ip addresses.

Basically I’m trying to switch from wired connection to wireless to feed my VMs with internet and connect them to my main server’s DHCP.

Am I looking to bond my interfaces instead of bridging?

arvidjaar · November 14, 2025, 4:07pm

All my VMs are using QEMU user space networking and happily access internet over any interface including wireless.

marianodaniel · November 14, 2025, 5:59pm

Hello! Can you share your network setup or provide an example on how I should configure it to use wlan? Or point me to some documentation? When I select “Source” as wlan0 (a wireless AP with no auth no nothing) they never pull an IP from DHCP, then I connect them on the wired interface going to the same router the AP is connected to, it works fine

arvidjaar · November 14, 2025, 6:07pm

You never explained what program you are using. I use qemu directly with

-netdev user,id=uplink -device virtio-net-pci,netdev=uplink

deano_ferrari · November 14, 2025, 6:40pm

Then using user-mode NAT is sufficient for your needs as arvidjaar shows. (For guests that need to appear on the host network proxy ARP can be used.)

marianodaniel · November 14, 2025, 10:24pm

Thank you! This helped me get on track and I (we) fixed it! I also had a mishmash of remnant ifroute files either from YaST and/or manual config. I guess I will stick to manually configuring them from now on! Thank you @deano_ferrari and @arvidjaar !

system · November 21, 2025, 10:24pm

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