xref: /openbsd/share/man/man4/bwi.4 (revision fc61954a)
1.\" $OpenBSD: bwi.4,v 1.40 2014/02/15 20:28:19 tedu 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: February 15 2014 $
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 monitor mode
43In this mode the driver is able to receive packets without
44associating with an access point.
45This disables the internal receive filter and enables the card to
46capture packets from networks which it wouldn't normally have access to,
47or to scan for access points.
48.El
49.Pp
50The
51.Nm
52driver can be configured to use
53Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP) or
54Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA-PSK and WPA2-PSK).
55WPA is the current encryption standard for wireless networks.
56It is strongly recommended that WEP
57not be used as the sole mechanism
58to secure wireless communication,
59due to serious weaknesses in it.
60The
61.Nm
62driver relies on the software 802.11 stack for both encryption and decryption
63of data frames.
64.Pp
65The transmit speed is user-selectable or can be adapted automatically by the
66driver depending on the received signal strength and on the number of hardware
67transmission retries.
68.Pp
69The
70.Nm
71driver can be configured at runtime with
72.Xr ifconfig 8
73or on boot with
74.Xr hostname.if 5 .
75.Sh FILES
76The driver needs a firmware file which is loaded when an interface is
77brought up:
78.Pp
79.Bl -tag -width Ds -offset indent -compact
80.It Pa /etc/firmware/bwi-airforce
81.El
82.\".Pp
83.\"These firmware files are not free because Broadcom refuses
84.\"to grant distribution rights.
85.\"As a result, even though
86.\".Ox
87.\"includes the driver, the firmware files cannot be included and
88.\"users have to download these files on their own.
89.Pp
90A prepackaged version of the firmware can be installed using
91.Xr fw_update 1 .
92.Sh HARDWARE
93The following cards are among those supported by the
94.Nm
95driver:
96.Bl -column "TRENDnet TEW-401PCplus" "BCM4306" "CardBus" "Standard" -offset 6n
97.It Em Card Ta Em Chip Ta Em Bus Ta Em Standard
98.It "Apple Airport Extreme" Ta BCM4306 Ta PCI Ta b/g
99.It "Apple Airport Extreme" Ta BCM4318 Ta PCI Ta b/g
100.It "ASUS WL-138g" Ta BCM4318 Ta PCI Ta b/g
101.It "Buffalo WLI-CB-G54" Ta BCM4306 Ta CardBus Ta b/g
102.It "Compaq R4035 onboard" Ta BCM4306 Ta PCI Ta b/g
103.It "HP nx6125" Ta BCM4319 Ta PCI Ta b/g
104.It "Linksys WPC54G Ver 3" Ta BCM4318 Ta CardBus Ta b/g
105.It "Linksys WPC54GS Ver 2" Ta BCM4318 Ta CardBus Ta b/g
106.It "TRENDnet TEW-401PCplus" Ta BCM4306 Ta CardBus Ta b/g
107.It "US Robotics 5411" Ta BCM4318 Ta CardBus Ta b/g
108.El
109.Sh EXAMPLES
110The following example scans for available networks:
111.Pp
112.Dl # ifconfig bwi0 scan
113.Pp
114The following
115.Xr hostname.if 5
116example configures bwi0 to join network
117.Dq mynwid ,
118using WPA key
119.Dq mywpakey ,
120obtaining an IP address using DHCP:
121.Bd -literal -offset indent
122nwid mynwid
123wpakey mywpakey
124dhcp
125.Ed
126.Sh SEE ALSO
127.Xr arp 4 ,
128.Xr cardbus 4 ,
129.Xr ifmedia 4 ,
130.Xr intro 4 ,
131.Xr netintro 4 ,
132.Xr pci 4 ,
133.Xr hostname.if 5 ,
134.\".Xr hostapd 8 ,
135.Xr ifconfig 8
136.Sh HISTORY
137The
138.Nm
139driver first appeared in
140.Ox 4.3 .
141.Sh AUTHORS
142.An -nosplit
143The
144.Nm
145driver was written for
146.Dx
147by
148.An Sepherosa Ziehau
149and ported to
150.Ox
151by
152.An Jonathan Gray
153and
154.An Marcus Glocker .
155.Sh CAVEATS
156Some chips are incorrectly calibrated due to the lack of documentation,
157which can slow the amount of traffic to the point of being unusable.
158Furthermore this driver only supports firmware version 3.
159