man/man4/acx.4

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.Dd $Mdocdate: October 15 2021 $
.Dt ACX 4
.Os
.Sh NAME
.Nm acx
.Nd TI ACX100/ACX111 IEEE 802.11a/b/g wireless network device
.Sh SYNOPSIS
.Cd "acx* at cardbus?"
.Cd "acx* at pci?"
.Sh DESCRIPTION
The
.Nm
driver provides support for TI TNETW1100/TNETW1100B (ACX100) and
TNETW1130 (ACX111) based PCI/CardBus network adapters.
.Pp
The ACX100A and ACX100B are first generation 802.11b devices
from TI.
The ACX111 is a second generation device which supports 802.11b/g
and in some cases 802.11a.
.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)
in software for ACX111
or in hardware for ACX100.
It is strongly recommended that WEP
not be used as the sole mechanism
to secure wireless communication,
due to serious weaknesses in it.
.Pp
The transmit speed is user-selectable or can be adapted automatically by the
driver depending on the number of hardware transmission retries.
.Pp
In Host AP mode,
the driver is compatible with clients using powersave.
.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 set of firmware files which are loaded when
an interface is brought up:
.Pp
.Bl -tag -width Ds -offset indent -compact
.It Pa /etc/firmware/tiacx100
.It Pa /etc/firmware/tiacx100r0D
.It Pa /etc/firmware/tiacx100r11
.It Pa /etc/firmware/tiacx111
.It Pa /etc/firmware/tiacx111c16
.It Pa /etc/firmware/tiacx111r16
.El
.Pp
These firmware files are not free because TI refuses
to grant distribution rights.
In fact they have rebuffed thousands
of attempts to start a dialogue on this issue.
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 can be installed using
.Xr fw_update 1 .
.Sh HARDWARE
The following cards are among those supported by the
.Nm
driver:
.Bl -column "Microcom Travelcard" "ACX111" "CardBus" "Standard" -offset 6n
.It Em Card Ta Em Chip Ta Em Bus Ta Em Standard
.It "D-Link DWL-520+" Ta ACX100 Ta PCI Ta b
.It "D-Link DWL-650+" Ta ACX100 Ta CardBus Ta b
.It "D-Link DWL-G520+" Ta ACX111 Ta PCI Ta b/g
.It "D-Link DWL-G630+" Ta ACX111 Ta CardBus Ta b/g
.It "D-Link DWL-G650+" Ta ACX111 Ta CardBus Ta b/g
.It "Digitus DN-7001G" Ta ACX111 Ta CardBus Ta b/g
.It "Ergenic ERG WL-003" Ta ACX100 Ta CardBus Ta b
.It "Hamlet HNWP254" Ta ACX111 Ta CardBus Ta b/g
.It "Hawking HWP54G" Ta ACX111 Ta PCI Ta b/g
.It "Linksys WPC54Gv2" Ta ACX111 Ta CardBus Ta b/g
.It "Microcom Travelcard" Ta ACX111 Ta CardBus Ta b/g
.It "Netgear WG311v2" Ta ACX111 Ta PCI Ta b/g
.It "Sceptre SC254W+" Ta ACX111 Ta CardBus Ta b/g
.It "Tornado/ADT 211g" Ta ACX111 Ta PCI Ta b/g
.It "USR USR5410" Ta ACX111 Ta CardBus Ta b/g
.It "USR USR5416" Ta ACX111 Ta PCI Ta b/g
.It "ZyXEL G-160" Ta ACX111 Ta CardBus Ta b/g
.It "ZyXEL G-360 EE" Ta ACX111 Ta PCI Ta b/g
.El
.Sh EXAMPLES
The following example scans for available networks:
.Pp
.Dl # ifconfig acx0 scan
.Pp
The following
.Xr hostname.if 5
example configures acx0 to join network
.Dq mynwid ,
using WEP key
.Dq mywepkey ,
obtaining an IP address using DHCP:
.Bd -literal -offset indent
nwid mynwid nwkey mywepkey
inet autoconf
.Ed
.Pp
The following
.Xr hostname.if 5
example creates a host-based access point on boot:
.Bd -literal -offset indent
mediaopt hostap
nwid mynwid nwkey mywepkey
inet 192.168.1.1 255.255.255.0
.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 4.0 .
.Sh AUTHORS
.An -nosplit
The
.Nm
driver was written by
.An Sepherosa Ziehau .
The manual page was written by
.An Sascha Wildner .
Both are based on the
.Lk http://wlan.kewl.org
project team's original code.
.Pp
The hardware specification was reverse engineered by the good folks at
.Lk http://acx100.sourceforge.net .
Without them this driver would not have been possible.