xref: /netbsd-src/share/man/man4/awi.4 (revision 7cc2f76925f078d01ddc9e640a98f4ccfc9f8c3b)
1.\"     $NetBSD: awi.4,v 1.9 2000/07/21 17:39:58 onoe Exp $
2.\"
3.Dd October 31, 1999
4.Dt AWI 4
5.Os
6.Sh NAME
7.Nm awi
8.Nd
9AMD PCnetMobile IEEE 802.11 PCMCIA wireless network driver
10.Sh SYNOPSIS
11.Cd "awi*     at pcmcia? function ?"
12.Sh DESCRIPTION
13.Pp
14The
15.Nm
16driver supports various IEEE 802.11 wireless cards
17which run AMD PCnetMobile firmware based on AMD 79c930 controller
18with Intersil (formerly Harris) PRISM radio chipset.
19It provides access to 32kb of memory shared between the controller
20and the host.
21All host/device interaction is via this shared memory, which can be
22accessed either via PCMCIA memory space or I/O space.
23The
24.Nm
25driver encapsulates all IP and ARP traffic as 802.11 frames.
26.Pp
27The driver works both in infrastructure mode and in adhoc (independent
28BSS) mode.
29.Pp
30In infrastructure mode, it communicates with an Access Point
31which serves as a link-layer bridge between an Ethernet and
32the wireless network.  An access point also provides roaming capability
33which allows wireless node to move between access points.
34.Pp
35In adhoc mode, it communicates peer to peer.
36Though it is more efficient to communicate between wireless nodes,
37the coverage is limited spatially due to lack of roaming capability.
38.Pp
39In addition to these two mode in IEEE 802.11 specification, the
40.Nm
41driver also supports a variant of adhoc mode out of spec for DS radio cards,
42which makes possible to communicate with adhoc mode of
43.Xr wi 8
44driver.  The NWID doesn't affect in this mode.
45.Pp
46For more information on configuring this device, see
47.Xr ifconfig 8
48and
49.Xr ifmedia 4 .
50.Sh HARDWARE
51Cards supported by the
52.Nm
53driver include:
54.Pp
55.Bl -tag -width BayStack_650x -offset indent
56.It BayStack 650
571Mbps Frequency Hopping PCCARD adapter
58.It BayStack 660
592Mbps Direct Sequence PCCARD adapter
60.It Icom SL-200
612Mbps Direct Sequence PCCARD adapter
62.It Melco WLI-PCM
632Mbps Direct Sequence PCCARD adapter
64.It NEL SSMagic
652Mbps Direct Sequence PCCARD adapter
66.It Netwave AirSurfer Plus
671Mbps Frequency Hopping PCCARD adapter
68.It Netwave AirSurfer Pro
692Mbps Direct Sequence PCCARD adapter
70.It Nokia C020 WLAN
712Mbps Direct Sequence PCCARD adapter
72.It Farallon SkyLINE
732Mbps Direct Sequence PCCARD adapter
74.El
75.Pp
76The original Xircom Netwave AirSurfer is supported by the
77.Xr cnw 4
78driver, and the PRISM-II cards are supported by the
79.Xr wi 4
80driver.
81.Sh MEDIA SELECTION
82The DS cards support
83.Em DS1
84and
85.Em DS2
86media types, while the FH cards support
87.Em FH1
88media type.  For each media type,
89.Em adhoc
90mediaopt can be used to indicate the driver to operate in adhoc mode.
91For DS radio cards,
92.Em adhoc,flag0
93mediaopt can be used for
94.Xr wi 4
95compatible adhoc mode.
96.Pp
97To configure more detailed parameters for the
98.Nm
99driver,
100.Xr wiconfig 8
101can be used.
102.Sh DIAGNOSTICS
103.Bl -diag
104.It "awi0: unable to allocate memory space; using i/o only"
105Indicates that the driver was not able to allocate 32kb of PCMCIA bus
106address space into which to map the device; the driver will use the
107(slightly slower) i/o-space only access methods to read and write to
108the shared memory.  Since by default, NetBSD, only allocates 16kb of
109address space per PCMCIA controller, this message is in some sense to
110be expected and should not be a cause for alarm.
111See
112.Xr pcmcia 4
113for information on how to increase the memory available to the PCMCIA
114controller.
115.It "awi0: failed to complete selftest (%s)"
116The device failed to complete its self test.
117.It "awi0: synced with no-bssid at channel %d"
118The device is ready to relay traffic at specified channel.
119.It "awi0: synced with %s ssid %s at channel %d"
120The device has successfully synchronized with at least one of the
121identified stations and is ready to relay traffic.
122.It "awi0: associated with %s ssid %s channel %d signal %d"
123The device has successfully synchronized with the identified Access
124Point and is ready to relay traffic.
125.It "awi0: authentication failed (reason %d)"
126.It "awi0: association failed (reason %d)"
127The access point refuses the association request from the device.
128.It "awi0: no recent beacons from %s; rescanning"
129The device has not heard a beacon from its currently associated Access
130Point recently, and is looking for a new access point.
131.It "awi0: transmit timeout"
132The device failed to generate an interrupt to acknowledge a
133transmitted packet.
134.It "awi0: failed to lock interrupt"
135The system was unable to obtain the lock to access shared memory.
136.It "awi0: command %d failed %x"
137The device failed to complete the request from the system.
138.El
139.Sh BUGS
140.Pp
141Doesn't create IBSS itself.
142.Pp
143.Sh SEE ALSO
144.Xr arp 4 ,
145.Xr netintro 4 ,
146.Xr pcmcia 4 ,
147.Xr wi 4 ,
148.Xr cnw 4 ,
149.Xr ifmedia 4 ,
150.Xr ifconfig 8 ,
151.Xr wiconfig 8
152.Rs
153.%T Am79C930 PCnet Mobile Single-Chip Wireless LAN Media Access Controller
154.%O http://www.amd.com
155.Re
156.Sh HISTORY
157The
158.Nm
159device driver first appeared in
160.Nx 1.5 .
161.Sh AUTHOR
162The initial version of the
163.Nm
164driver was written by
165.An Bill Sommerfeld Aq sommerfeld@netbsd.org .
166Then the
167.Nm
168driver module completely rewritten to support cards with DS phy and
169to support adhoc mode by
170.An Atsushi Onoe Aq onoe@netbsd.org .
171