xref: /openbsd-src/share/man/man4/bwi.4 (revision d13be5d47e4149db2549a9828e244d59dbc43f15)
1.\" $OpenBSD: bwi.4,v 1.33 2011/09/03 22:59:08 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: September 3 2011 $
18.Dt BWI 4
19.Os
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
65Wired 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 3n
106http://firmware.openbsd.org/firmware/bwi-firmware-1.4.tgz
107.Ed
108.Sh HARDWARE
109The following cards are among those supported by the
110.Nm
111driver:
112.Bl -column "TRENDnet TEW-401PCplus" "BCM4306" "CardBus" "Standard" -offset 6n
113.It Em Card Ta Em Chip Ta Em Bus Ta Em Standard
114.It "Apple Airport Extreme" Ta BCM4306 Ta PCI Ta b/g
115.It "Apple Airport Extreme" Ta BCM4318 Ta PCI Ta b/g
116.It "ASUS WL-138g" Ta BCM4318 Ta PCI Ta b/g
117.It "Buffalo WLI-CB-G54" Ta BCM4306 Ta CardBus Ta b/g
118.It "Compaq R4035 onboard" Ta BCM4306 Ta PCI Ta b/g
119.It "HP nx6125" Ta BCM4319 Ta PCI Ta b/g
120.It "Linksys WPC54G Ver 3" Ta BCM4318 Ta CardBus Ta b/g
121.It "Linksys WPC54GS Ver 2" Ta BCM4318 Ta CardBus Ta b/g
122.It "TRENDnet TEW-401PCplus" Ta BCM4306 Ta CardBus Ta b/g
123.It "US Robotics 5411" Ta BCM4318 Ta CardBus Ta b/g
124.El
125.Sh EXAMPLES
126The following
127.Xr hostname.if 5
128example configures bwi0 to join whatever network is available on boot,
129using WEP key
130.Dq 0x1deadbeef1 ,
131channel 11, obtaining an IP address using DHCP:
132.Bd -literal -offset indent
133dhcp NONE NONE NONE nwkey 0x1deadbeef1 chan 11
134.\".Ed
135.\".Pp
136.\"The following
137.\".Xr hostname.if 5
138.\"example creates a host-based access point on boot:
139.\".Bd -literal -offset indent
140.\"inet 192.168.1.1 255.255.255.0 NONE media autoselect \e
141.\"	mediaopt hostap nwid my_net chan 11
142.Ed
143.Pp
144Configure bwi0 to join network
145.Dq my_net
146using WPA with passphrase
147.Dq my_passphrase :
148.Bd -literal -offset indent
149# ifconfig bwi0 nwid my_net wpakey my_passphrase
150.Ed
151.Pp
152Join an existing BSS network,
153.Dq my_net :
154.Bd -literal -offset indent
155# ifconfig bwi0 192.168.1.1 netmask 0xffffff00 nwid my_net
156.Ed
157.Sh SEE ALSO
158.Xr arp 4 ,
159.Xr cardbus 4 ,
160.Xr ifmedia 4 ,
161.Xr intro 4 ,
162.Xr netintro 4 ,
163.Xr pci 4 ,
164.Xr hostname.if 5 ,
165.\".Xr hostapd 8 ,
166.Xr ifconfig 8
167.Sh HISTORY
168The
169.Nm
170driver first appeared in
171.Ox 4.3 .
172.Sh AUTHORS
173.An -nosplit
174The
175.Nm
176driver was written for DragonFlyBSD by Sepherosa Ziehau and ported to
177.Ox
178by
179.An Jonathan Gray
180and
181.An Marcus Glocker .
182.Sh CAVEATS
183Some chips are incorrectly calibrated due to the lack of documentation,
184which can slow the amount of traffic to the point of being unusable.
185Furthermore this driver only supports firmware version 3.
186