path: root/share/man/man4/bwi.4

.\" $OpenBSD: bwi.4,v 1.33 2011/09/03 22:59:08 jmc Exp $
.\"
.\" Copyright (c) 2007 Marcus Glocker <mglocker@openbsd.org>
.\"
.\" Permission to use, copy, modify, and distribute this software for any
.\" purpose with or without fee is hereby granted, provided that the above
.\" copyright notice and this permission notice appear in all copies.
.\"
.\" THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS" AND THE AUTHOR DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES
.\" WITH REGARD TO THIS SOFTWARE INCLUDING ALL IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF
.\" MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHOR BE LIABLE FOR
.\" ANY SPECIAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES OR ANY DAMAGES
.\" WHATSOEVER RESULTING FROM LOSS OF USE, DATA OR PROFITS, WHETHER IN AN
.\" ACTION OF CONTRACT, NEGLIGENCE OR OTHER TORTIOUS ACTION, ARISING OUT OF
.\" OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE USE OR PERFORMANCE OF THIS SOFTWARE.
.\"
.Dd $Mdocdate: September 3 2011 $
.Dt BWI 4
.Os
.Sh NAME
.Nm bwi
.Nd Broadcom AirForce IEEE 802.11b/g wireless network device
.Sh SYNOPSIS
.Cd "bwi* at cardbus?"
.Cd "bwi* at pci?"
.Sh DESCRIPTION
The
.Nm
driver provides support for Broadcom AirForce based
PCI/Cardbus network adapters.
.Pp
These are the modes the
.Nm
driver can operate in:
.Bl -tag -width "IBSS-masterXX"
.It BSS mode
Also known as
.Em infrastructure
mode, this is used when associating with an access point, through
which all traffic passes.
This mode is the default.
.\" .It IBSS mode
.\" Also known as
.\" .Em IEEE ad-hoc
.\" mode or
.\" .Em peer-to-peer
.\" mode.
.\" This is the standardized method of operating without an access point.
.\" Stations associate with a service set.
.\" However, actual connections between stations are peer-to-peer.
.\" .It Host AP
.\" In this mode the driver acts as an access point (base station)
.\" for other cards.
.It monitor mode
In this mode the driver is able to receive packets without
associating with an access point.
This disables the internal receive filter and enables the card to
capture packets from networks which it wouldn't normally have access to,
or to scan for access points.
.El
.Pp
The
.Nm
driver can be configured to use
Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP) or
Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA-PSK and WPA2-PSK).
WPA is the de facto encryption standard for wireless networks.
It is strongly recommended that WEP
not be used as the sole mechanism
to secure wireless communication,
due to serious weaknesses in it.
The
.Nm
driver relies on the software 802.11 stack for both encryption and decryption
of data frames.
.Pp
The transmit speed is user-selectable or can be adapted automatically by the
driver depending on the received signal strength and on the number of hardware
transmission retries.
.Pp
The
.Nm
driver can be configured at runtime with
.Xr ifconfig 8
or on boot with
.Xr hostname.if 5 .
.Sh FILES
The driver needs a firmware file which is loaded when an interface is
brought up:
.Pp
.Bl -tag -width Ds -offset indent -compact
.It Pa /etc/firmware/bwi-airforce
.El
.\".Pp
.\"These firmware files are not free because Broadcom refuses
.\"to grant distribution rights.
.\"As a result, even though
.\".Ox
.\"includes the driver, the firmware files cannot be included and
.\"users have to download these files on their own.
.Pp
A prepackaged version of the firmware, designed to be used with
.Xr pkg_add 1 ,
can be found at:
.Bd -literal -offset 3n
http://firmware.openbsd.org/firmware/bwi-firmware-1.4.tgz
.Ed
.Sh HARDWARE
The following cards are among those supported by the
.Nm
driver:
.Bl -column "TRENDnet TEW-401PCplus" "BCM4306" "CardBus" "Standard" -offset 6n
.It Em Card Ta Em Chip Ta Em Bus Ta Em Standard
.It "Apple Airport Extreme" Ta BCM4306 Ta PCI Ta b/g
.It "Apple Airport Extreme" Ta BCM4318 Ta PCI Ta b/g
.It "ASUS WL-138g" Ta BCM4318 Ta PCI Ta b/g
.It "Buffalo WLI-CB-G54" Ta BCM4306 Ta CardBus Ta b/g
.It "Compaq R4035 onboard" Ta BCM4306 Ta PCI Ta b/g
.It "HP nx6125" Ta BCM4319 Ta PCI Ta b/g
.It "Linksys WPC54G Ver 3" Ta BCM4318 Ta CardBus Ta b/g
.It "Linksys WPC54GS Ver 2" Ta BCM4318 Ta CardBus Ta b/g
.It "TRENDnet TEW-401PCplus" Ta BCM4306 Ta CardBus Ta b/g
.It "US Robotics 5411" Ta BCM4318 Ta CardBus Ta b/g
.El
.Sh EXAMPLES
The following
.Xr hostname.if 5
example configures bwi0 to join whatever network is available on boot,
using WEP key
.Dq 0x1deadbeef1 ,
channel 11, obtaining an IP address using DHCP:
.Bd -literal -offset indent
dhcp NONE NONE NONE nwkey 0x1deadbeef1 chan 11
.\".Ed
.\".Pp
.\"The following
.\".Xr hostname.if 5
.\"example creates a host-based access point on boot:
.\".Bd -literal -offset indent
.\"inet 192.168.1.1 255.255.255.0 NONE media autoselect \e
.\"	mediaopt hostap nwid my_net chan 11
.Ed
.Pp
Configure bwi0 to join network
.Dq my_net
using WPA with passphrase
.Dq my_passphrase :
.Bd -literal -offset indent
# ifconfig bwi0 nwid my_net wpakey my_passphrase
.Ed
.Pp
Join an existing BSS network,
.Dq my_net :
.Bd -literal -offset indent
# ifconfig bwi0 192.168.1.1 netmask 0xffffff00 nwid my_net
.Ed
.Sh SEE ALSO
.Xr arp 4 ,
.Xr cardbus 4 ,
.Xr ifmedia 4 ,
.Xr intro 4 ,
.Xr netintro 4 ,
.Xr pci 4 ,
.Xr hostname.if 5 ,
.\".Xr hostapd 8 ,
.Xr ifconfig 8
.Sh HISTORY
The
.Nm
driver first appeared in
.Ox 4.3 .
.Sh AUTHORS
.An -nosplit
The
.Nm
driver was written for DragonFlyBSD by Sepherosa Ziehau and ported to
.Ox
by
.An Jonathan Gray
and
.An Marcus Glocker .
.Sh CAVEATS
Some chips are incorrectly calibrated due to the lack of documentation,
which can slow the amount of traffic to the point of being unusable.
Furthermore this driver only supports firmware version 3.