NAME
wi —
WaveLAN/IEEE and PRISM-II 802.11
wireless network driver
SYNOPSIS
wi* at pcmcia? function ?
wi* at pci? dev ? function ?
DESCRIPTION
The
wi driver provides support for Lucent Technologies
WaveLAN/IEEE PCCARD adapters (also known as WaveLAN II cards) and various
PCI/MiniPCI/PCCARD adapters which use Intersil PRISM-II and PRISM-2.5
chipsets. Note that while Lucent sells both ISA and PCMCIA WaveLAN/IEEE
devices, the ISA product is actually a PCMCIA card in an ISA to PCMCIA bridge
adapter. Consequently, the
wi driver is required for both
the ISA and PCMCIA NICs. Also note that some of the PRISM-II adapters works
only at 3.3V, hence
cardbus(4)
support is required for those cards to set VCC correctly, even though they are
16-bit cards.
The core of the WaveLAN/IEEE is the Lucent Hermes controller. All host/device
interaction is via programmed I/O with the Hermes. The Hermes supports 802.11
and 802.3 frames, power management, BSS, WDS and ad-hoc operation modes. The
Silver and the Gold cards of the WaveLAN/IEEE also support WEP. Unlike the
other IEEE 802.11 network cards, the WaveLAN Gold cards accept 104 bits key
(13 characters) for WEP encryption. The Intersil PRISM-II controller supports
WEP as well.
The
wi driver encapsulates all traffic as 802.11 frames,
however it can receive either 802.11 or 802.3 frames. Transmit speed is
selectable between 1Mbps fixed, 2Mbps fixed or 2Mbps with auto fallback. For
WaveLAN/IEEE Turbo adapters, speeds up to 6Mbps are available. For
WaveLAN/IEEE Turbo 11Mbps adapters and PRISM-II adapters, speeds up to 11Mbps
are available.
The
wi driver supports configuration of Lucent cards for
special ad-hoc operation. In this mode, the nwid is ignored and stations can
communicate among each other without the aid of an access point. Note that
this mode is specific to Lucent chips, and not in the IEEE 802.11
specification. Due to changes in the implementation of this special ad-hoc
mode, Lucent-based cards with different firmware revisions may not
interoperate in this mode. This mode is no longer the default and must be
selected using the
ifconfig(8)
(media option “adhoc,flag0”) utility.
Recent versions of Lucent and PRISM-II firmware support IBSS creation. IBSS is
the standard IEEE 802.11 ad-hoc mode. In this mode, the nwid should be
specified. At least one node must be able to create IBSS. The IBSS mode is
enabled by “adhoc” or “ibss” media option. IBSS
creation is automatically enabled if supported.
The
wi driver defaults to infrastructure mode (i.e., using an
access point).
Recent versions of PRISM-II firmware support operating as an 802.11 Access
Point. In this mode, the Access Point station should set the nwid. This will
create a standard 802.11 network, and the Access Point station will show up in
an Access Point scan. This mode is enabled using the “hostap”
media option.
For more information on configuring this device, see
ifconfig(8) and
ifmedia(4).
HARDWARE
Cards supported by the
wi driver include:
- 3Com AirConnect 3CRWE737A
- 3Com AirConnect 3CRWE777A
- Alvarion BreezeNET
- Lucent WaveLAN/IEEE 2.0Mb
Bronze
- Lucent WaveLAN/IEEE 2.0Mb
Silver
- Lucent WaveLAN/IEEE Turbo
- Lucent WaveLAN/IEEE Turbo
11Mbps
- Melco AIR CONNECT WLI-PCM-L11,
WLI-PCM-L11G
- Melco AIR CONNECT
WLI-CF-S11G
- Compaq WL100 11Mbps
Wireless
- Corega Wireless LAN PCC-11,
PCCA_11, PCCB_11
- DEC/Cabletron RoamAbout 802.11
DS High Rate
- D-Link DWL-520 11Mbps PCI
Card, Revs. A1,A2,B1,B2
- D-Link DWL-520 11Mbps PCI
Card, Rev. C1 not supported, see
atw(4)
- D-Link DWL-520 11Mbps PCI
Card, Rev. D not supported, see
rtw(4)
- D-Link DWL-650 11Mbps WLAN
Card
- D-Link DWL-650 11Mbps WLAN
Card, Rev. P not supported (Prism 3 chipset)
- D-Link DCF-650W CF Card
- ELECOM Air@Hawk LD-WL11
- ELSA AirLancer MC-11
- Ericsson Wireless LAN
- Farallon Skyline 11Mbps
Wireless
- Intel PRO/Wireless 2011 LAN PC
Card
- ICOM SL-1100
- IO-DATA WN-B11/PCM
- Intersil PRISM Mini-PCI
- Linksys Group, Inc. Instant
Wireless Network PC Card, CF Card
- Linksys Group, Inc. Instant
Wireless Network WMP11 PCI Card
- Linksys Group, Inc. Instant
Wireless Network WMP11v4 PCI Card not supported
- NCR WaveLAN/IEEE
- NEC Wireless Card CMZ-RT-WP,
PK-WL001, PC-WL/11C
- PLANEX GeoWave/GW-NS110
- Symbol Spectrum24 Wireless
Networker PC Card, CF Card
- TDK LAK-CD011WL
- SMC EZ Connect 11M Wireless CF
Card SMC2642W
- SMC EliteConnect Wireless
Adapter PC Card SMC2531W-B
- Z-Com XI-626 PCI Card
The original PRISM-I chipset is supported by the
awi(4) driver.
DIAGNOSTICS
- wi%d: init failed
- The WaveLAN failed to come ready after an initialization
command was issued.
- wi%d: failed to allocate %d bytes on
NIC
- The driver was unable to allocate memory for transmit
frames in the NIC's on-board RAM.
- wi%d: device timeout
- The WaveLAN failed to generate an interrupt to acknowledge
a transmit command.
SEE ALSO
arp(4),
ifmedia(4),
netintro(4),
pci(4),
pcmcia(4),
ifconfig(8),
wiconfig(8)
HCF Light programming specification,
http://www.wavelan.com.
HISTORY
The
wi device driver first appeared in
NetBSD
1.5.
AUTHORS
The
wi driver was written by
Bill Paul
<
wpaul@ctr.columbia.edu>.
BUGS
The execution of
wiconfig(8)
while the interface is down can produce some error messages.