xref: /openbsd-src/share/man/man4/wi.4 (revision b2ea75c1b17e1a9a339660e7ed45cd24946b230e)
1.\"	$OpenBSD: wi.4,v 1.14 2001/07/06 18:48:06 mickey Exp $
2.\"
3.\" Copyright (c) 1997, 1998, 1999
4.\"	Bill Paul <wpaul@ctr.columbia.edu>. All rights reserved.
5.\"
6.\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
7.\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions
8.\" are met:
9.\" 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright
10.\"    notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
11.\" 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright
12.\"    notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the
13.\"    documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
14.\" 3. All advertising materials mentioning features or use of this software
15.\"    must display the following acknowledgement:
16.\"	This product includes software developed by Bill Paul.
17.\" 4. Neither the name of the author nor the names of any co-contributors
18.\"    may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software
19.\"   without specific prior written permission.
20.\"
21.\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY Bill Paul AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND
22.\" ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE
23.\" IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE
24.\" ARE DISCLAIMED.  IN NO EVENT SHALL Bill Paul OR THE VOICES IN HIS HEAD
25.\" BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR
26.\" CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF
27.\" SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS
28.\" INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN
29.\" CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE)
30.\" ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF
31.\" THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.
32.\"
33.\"	$FreeBSD: wi.4,v 1.3 1999/05/22 16:12:43 wpaul Exp $
34.\"
35.Dd June 24, 2001
36.Dt WI 4
37.Os
38.Sh NAME
39.Nm wi
40.Nd WaveLAN/IEEE and PRISM-II 802.11DS wireless network driver
41.Sh SYNOPSIS
42.Cd "wi* at pci? dev ? function ?"
43.Cd "wi* at pcmcia? function ?"
44.Cd "wi* at macobio?"
45.Sh DESCRIPTION
46The
47.Nm
48driver provides support for PCMCIA adapters based on the Lucent Technologies
49WaveLAN/IEEE (aka WaveLAN II) and Intersil PRISM-II chipsets.
50The compatible cards supported are:
51.Pp
52.Bl -tag -width -offset indent -compact
53.It 3Com AirConnect Wireless LAN
54.It Corega Wireless LAN PCC-11
55.It Corega Wireless LAN PCCA-11
56.It Intersil Prism II
57.It Samsung MagicLAN SWL-2000N
58.It SMC 2632 EZ Connect Wireless PC Card
59.It NANOSPEED ROOT-RZ2000 WLAN Card
60.It XI300 Wireless LAN
61.It Compaq Agency NC5004 Wireless Card
62.It Contec FLEXLAN/FX-DS110-PCC
63.It TDK LAK-CD011WL
64.It NEC Wireless Card CMZ-RT-WP
65.It NTT-ME 11Mbps Wireless LAN PC Card
66.It Addtron AWP-100
67.It Cabletron RoamAbout
68.It I-O DATA WN-B11/PCM
69.It Linksys WPC11
70.El
71.Pp
72Note that while Lucent sells PCI, ISA and PCMCIA WaveLAN/IEEE
73devices, the PCI and ISA products are actually a PCMCIA card in a
74PCMCIA bridge adapter. Consequently, the
75.Nm
76driver is required for PCI, ISA and PCMCIA NICs. The original
77WaveLAN/IEEE cards (2Mbps), the WaveLAN/IEEE Turbo (6Mbps), the
78WaveLAN/IEEE Bronze Turbo (8Mbps), and the
79WaveLAN/IEEE Silver/Gold (11Mbps) adapters are supported.
80.Pp
81Unlike the Lucent devices, several vendors sell PCI adapters built
82around the PLX Technology 9050 or 9052 chip.
83These adapters are dumb PCMCIA bridges that do not attach as a
84normal PCMCIA bus.
85Instead they appear to the host as a normal PCI device and do
86not require any PCMCIA support.
87The following such bridges are supported or expected to work:
88.Pp
89.Bl -tag -width -offset indent -compact
90.It 3Com AirConnect 3CRWE777A
91.It Global Sun Technology GL24110P02
92.It LinkSys WDT11 (a rebadged GL24110P02)
93.It Global Sun Technology GL24110P (untested)
94.It Eumitcom WL11000P (untested)
95.El
96.Pp
97Also note that some of the PRISM-II adapters only work at 3.3V, hence
98.Xr cardbus 4
99support is required for those cards to set VCC correctly, even
100though they are really 16bit cards.
101.Pp
102The core of the WaveLAN/IEEE is the Lucent Hermes controller. All
103host/device interaction is via programmed I/O with the Hermes.
104The Hermes supports 802.11 and 802.3 frames, power management, BSS,
105WDS and ad-hoc operation modes.
106.Pp
107The
108.Nm
109driver encapsulates all IP and ARP traffic as 802.11 frames, however
110it can receive either 802.11 or 802.3 frames.
111Transmit speed is selectable between 1Mbps fixed, 2Mbps fixed, 2Mbps
112with auto fallback, 6Mbps, 8Mbps, or 11Mbps depending on your hardware
113(see above).
114The Lucent WaveLAN/IEEE Silver and Gold cards as well as the Intersil
115PRISM-II cards have support for WEP encryption.
116The WaveLAN Gold cards support 104bit keys, the others only accept
11740bit keys.
118The Lucent Bronze cards do not support WEP.
119To enable the encryption, use the
120.Xr wicontrol 8
121utility to set your keys.
122.Pp
123By default, the
124.Nm
125driver configures the WaveLAN card for BSS operation (aka infrastructure
126mode).
127This mode requires the use of an access point (base station).
128.br
129The
130.Nm
131driver also supports an ad-hoc (point-to-point) mode where
132the nwid is ignored and stations can communicate among
133each other without the aid of an access point.
134Note that this mode is not in the IEEE 802.11 specification and the
135driver may not be able to interoperate with other vendor's cards
136while in ad-hoc mode.
137.Pp
138For more information on configuring this device, see
139.Xr ifconfig 8 .
140.Sh DIAGNOSTICS
141.Bl -diag
142.It "wi%d: init failed"
143The WaveLAN card failed to come ready after an initialization command
144was issued.
145.It "wi%d: failed to allocate %d bytes on NIC"
146The driver was unable to allocate memory for transmit frames in the
147NIC's on-board RAM.
148.It "wd%d: device timeout"
149The WaveLAN failed to generate an interrupt to acknowledge a transmit
150command.
151.El
152.Sh SEE ALSO
153.Xr an 4 ,
154.Xr arp 4 ,
155.Xr netintro 4 ,
156.Xr ifconfig 8 ,
157.Xr wicontrol 8
158.Rs
159.%T HCF Light programming specification
160.%O http://www.wavelan.com
161.Re
162.Sh HISTORY
163The
164.Nm
165device driver first appeared in
166.Fx 3.0 .
167.Ox
168support was added in
169.Ox 2.6 .
170.Sh AUTHORS
171The
172.Nm
173driver was written by Bill Paul <wpaul@ctr.columbia.edu> and ported to
174.Ox
175by Niklas Hallqvist <niklas@appli.se>.
176.Sh CAVEATS
177The original Lucent WaveLAN cards usually default to channel 3;
178newer cards use channel 10 by default.
179Non-Lucent cards vary, for instance the Addtron cards use channel
18011 by default.
181See
182.Xr wicontrol 8
183for information on how to change the channel.
184