xref: /openbsd-src/share/man/man4/bwi.4 (revision a28daedfc357b214be5c701aa8ba8adb29a7f1c2)
1.\" $OpenBSD: bwi.4,v 1.22 2009/02/16 08:15:22 jmc Exp $
2.\"
3.\" Copyright (c) 2007 Marcus Glocker <mglocker@openbsd.org>
4.\"
5.\" Permission to use, copy, modify, and distribute this software for any
6.\" purpose with or without fee is hereby granted, provided that the above
7.\" copyright notice and this permission notice appear in all copies.
8.\"
9.\" THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS" AND THE AUTHOR DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES
10.\" WITH REGARD TO THIS SOFTWARE INCLUDING ALL IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF
11.\" MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHOR BE LIABLE FOR
12.\" ANY SPECIAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES OR ANY DAMAGES
13.\" WHATSOEVER RESULTING FROM LOSS OF USE, DATA OR PROFITS, WHETHER IN AN
14.\" ACTION OF CONTRACT, NEGLIGENCE OR OTHER TORTIOUS ACTION, ARISING OUT OF
15.\" OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE USE OR PERFORMANCE OF THIS SOFTWARE.
16.\"
17.Dd $Mdocdate: February 16 2009 $
18.Os
19.Dt BWI 4
20.Sh NAME
21.Nm bwi
22.Nd Broadcom AirForce IEEE 802.11b/g wireless network device
23.Sh SYNOPSIS
24.Cd "bwi* at cardbus?"
25.Cd "bwi* at pci?"
26.Sh DESCRIPTION
27The
28.Nm
29driver provides support for Broadcom AirForce based
30PCI/Cardbus network adapters.
31.Pp
32These are the modes the
33.Nm
34driver can operate in:
35.Bl -tag -width "IBSS-masterXX"
36.It BSS mode
37Also known as
38.Em infrastructure
39mode, this is used when associating with an access point, through
40which all traffic passes.
41This mode is the default.
42.\" .It IBSS mode
43.\" Also known as
44.\" .Em IEEE ad-hoc
45.\" mode or
46.\" .Em peer-to-peer
47.\" mode.
48.\" This is the standardized method of operating without an access point.
49.\" Stations associate with a service set.
50.\" However, actual connections between stations are peer-to-peer.
51.\" .It Host AP
52.\" In this mode the driver acts as an access point (base station)
53.\" for other cards.
54.It monitor mode
55In this mode the driver is able to receive packets without
56associating with an access point.
57This disables the internal receive filter and enables the card to
58capture packets from networks which it wouldn't normally have access to,
59or to scan for access points.
60.El
61.Pp
62The
63.Nm
64driver can be configured to use
65Wireless Equivalent Privacy (WEP) or
66Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA-PSK and WPA2-PSK).
67WPA is the de facto encryption standard for wireless networks.
68It is strongly recommended that WEP
69not be used as the sole mechanism
70to secure wireless communication,
71due to serious weaknesses in it.
72The
73.Nm
74driver relies on the software 802.11 stack for both encryption and decryption
75of data frames.
76.Pp
77The transmit speed is user-selectable or can be adapted automatically by the
78driver depending on the received signal strength and on the number of hardware
79transmission retries.
80.Pp
81The
82.Nm
83driver can be configured at runtime with
84.Xr ifconfig 8
85or on boot with
86.Xr hostname.if 5 .
87.Sh FILES
88The driver needs a firmware file which is loaded when an interface is
89brought up:
90.Pp
91.Bl -tag -width Ds -offset indent -compact
92.It Pa /etc/firmware/bwi-airforce
93.El
94.\".Pp
95.\"These firmware files are not free because Broadcom refuses
96.\"to grant distribution rights.
97.\"As a result, even though
98.\".Ox
99.\"includes the driver, the firmware files cannot be included and
100.\"users have to download these files on their own.
101.Pp
102A prepackaged version of the firmware, designed to be used with
103.Xr pkg_add 1 ,
104can be found at:
105.Bd -literal -offset indent
106http://www.nazgul.ch/bwi/bwi-firmware-1.4.tgz
107.Ed
108.Sh HARDWARE
109The following cards are among those supported by the
110.Nm
111driver:
112.Pp
113.Bl -column -compact "Apple Airport Extreme" "BCM4306" "CardBus" "a/b/g" -offset 6n
114.Em "Card	Chip	Bus	Standard"
115Apple Airport Extreme	BCM4306	PCI	b/g
116Apple Airport Extreme	BCM4318	PCI	b/g
117ASUS WL-138g	BCM4318	PCI	b/g
118Buffalo WLI-CB-G54	BCM4306	CardBus	b/g
119Compaq R4035 onboard	BCM4306	PCI	b/g
120HP nx6125	BCM4319	PCI	b/g
121Linksys WPC54G Ver 3	BCM4318	CardBus	b/g
122Linksys WPC54GS Ver 2	BCM4318	CardBus	b/g
123TRENDnet TEW-401PCplus	BCM4306	CardBus	b/g
124US Robotics 5411	BCM4318	CardBus	b/g
125.El
126.Sh EXAMPLES
127The following
128.Xr hostname.if 5
129example configures bwi0 to join whatever network is available on boot,
130using WEP key
131.Dq 0x1deadbeef1 ,
132channel 11, obtaining an IP address using DHCP:
133.Bd -literal -offset indent
134dhcp NONE NONE NONE nwkey 0x1deadbeef1 chan 11
135.\".Ed
136.\".Pp
137.\"The following
138.\".Xr hostname.if 5
139.\"example creates a host-based access point on boot:
140.\".Bd -literal -offset indent
141.\"inet 192.168.1.1 255.255.255.0 NONE media autoselect \e
142.\"	mediaopt hostap nwid my_net chan 11
143.Ed
144.Pp
145Configure bwi0 to join network
146.Dq my_net
147using WPA-PSK with passphrase
148.Dq my_passphrase :
149.Bd -literal -offset indent
150# ifconfig bwi0 nwid my_net wpa wpapsk \e
151	`wpa-psk my_net my_passphrase`
152.Ed
153.Pp
154Return bwi0 to its default settings:
155.Bd -literal -offset indent
156# ifconfig bwi0 -bssid -chan media autoselect \e
157	nwid "" -nwkey -wpa -wpapsk
158.Ed
159.Pp
160Join an existing BSS network,
161.Dq my_net :
162.Bd -literal -offset indent
163# ifconfig bwi0 192.168.1.1 netmask 0xffffff00 nwid my_net
164.Ed
165.Sh SEE ALSO
166.Xr arp 4 ,
167.Xr cardbus 4 ,
168.Xr ifmedia 4 ,
169.Xr intro 4 ,
170.Xr netintro 4 ,
171.Xr pci 4 ,
172.Xr hostname.if 5 ,
173.\".Xr hostapd 8 ,
174.Xr ifconfig 8 ,
175.Xr wpa-psk 8
176.Sh HISTORY
177The
178.Nm
179driver first appeared in
180.Ox 4.3 .
181.Sh AUTHORS
182.An -nosplit
183The
184.Nm
185driver was written for DragonFlyBSD by Sepherosa Ziehau and ported to OpenBSD
186by
187.An Jonathan Gray
188and
189.An Marcus Glocker .
190