1.\"- 2.\" Copyright (c) 2002-2009 Sam Leffler, Errno Consulting 3.\" All rights reserved. 4.\" 5.\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without 6.\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions 7.\" are met: 8.\" 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright 9.\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer, 10.\" without modification. 11.\" 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce at minimum a disclaimer 12.\" similar to the "NO WARRANTY" disclaimer below ("Disclaimer") and any 13.\" redistribution must be conditioned upon including a substantially 14.\" similar Disclaimer requirement for further binary redistribution. 15.\" 16.\" NO WARRANTY 17.\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS 18.\" ``AS IS'' AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT 19.\" LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF NONINFRINGEMENT, MERCHANTIBILITY 20.\" AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL 21.\" THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, 22.\" OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF 23.\" SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS 24.\" INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER 25.\" IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) 26.\" ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF 27.\" THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES. 28.\" 29.\" $FreeBSD: head/share/man/man4/ath.4 235317 2012-05-12 03:25:46Z gjb $ 30.\" 31.Dd January 2, 2014 32.Dt ATH 4 33.Os 34.Sh NAME 35.Nm ath 36.Nd "Atheros IEEE 802.11 wireless network driver" 37.Sh SYNOPSIS 38To compile this driver into the kernel, 39place the following lines in your 40kernel configuration file: 41.Bd -ragged -offset indent 42.Cd "device ath" 43.Cd "device ath_hal" 44.Cd "options AH_SUPPORT_AR5416" 45.Cd "device ath_rate_sample" 46.Cd "device wlan" 47.Ed 48.Pp 49Alternatively, to load the driver as a 50module at boot time, place the following line in 51.Xr loader.conf 5 : 52.Bd -literal -offset indent 53if_ath_load="YES" 54.Ed 55.Sh DESCRIPTION 56The 57.Nm 58driver provides support for wireless network adapters based on 59the Atheros AR5210, AR5211, AR5212, and AR5416 programming APIs. 60These APIs are used by a wide variety of chips; most all chips with 61a PCI and/or CardBus interface are supported. 62.Pp 63Supported features include 802.11 and 802.3 frames, power management, BSS, 64IBSS, MBSS, TDMA, and host-based access point operation modes. 65All host/device interaction is via DMA. 66.\".Pp 67.\"Please note that from FreeBSD-9.0, the 68.\".Nm 69.\"driver does not include the PCI/PCIe bus glue. 70.\"The same driver supports multiple underlying bus types, including PCI/PCIe, 71.\"but also embedded (AHB) and USB in the future. 72.\".Pp 73.\"To enable use for PCI/PCIe systems, see the 74.\".Xr ath_pci 4 75.\"driver. 76.\"For embedded systems which use the AHB to connect the wireless MAC, see the 77.\".Xr ath_ahb 4 78.\"driver. 79.Pp 80The 81.Nm 82driver encapsulates all IP and ARP traffic as 802.11 frames, however 83it can receive either 802.11 or 802.3 frames. 84Transmit speed and operating mode is selectable 85and depends on the specific chipset. 86AR5210-based devices support 802.11a operation with transmit speeds 87of 6 Mbps, 9 Mbps, 12 Mbps, 18 Mbps, 24 Mbps, 36 Mbps, 48 Mbps, and 54 Mbps. 88AR5211-based devices support 802.11a and 802.11b operation with transmit 89speeds as above for 802.11a operation and 901Mbps, 2Mbps, 5.5 Mbps and 11Mbps for 802.11b operation. 91AR5212-based devices support 802.11a, 802.11b, and 802.11g operation 92with transmit speeds appropriate to each. 93AR5416-class devices are capable of 802.11n operation 94but are supported only in legacy modes (802.11a, 11b, 11g). 95Most chips also support an Atheros Turbo Mode (TM) that operates in 96the 5GHz frequency range with 2x the transmit speeds. 97Some chips also support Turbo mode in the 2.4GHz range with 802.11g 98though this support is not presently available due to regulatory requirements. 99(Note that Turbo modes are, however, 100only interoperable with other Atheros-based devices.) 101AR5212-based devices also support half- (10MHz) and quarter-width (5MHz) channels. 102The actual transmit speed used is dependent on signal quality and the 103.Dq "rate control" 104algorithm employed by the driver. 105All chips support WEP encryption. 106AR5212 and AR5416 parts have hardware support for the 107AES-CCM, TKIP, and Michael cryptographic 108operations required for WPA. 109To enable encryption, use 110.Xr ifconfig 8 111as shown below. 112.Pp 113The driver supports 114.Cm station , 115.Cm adhoc , 116.Cm adhoc-demo , 117.Cm hostap , 118.Cm mesh , 119.Cm wds , 120and 121.Cm monitor 122mode operation. 123Multiple 124.Cm hostap 125virtual interfaces may be configured for simultaneous 126use on cards that use a 5212 part. 127When multiple interfaces are configured each may have a separate 128mac address that is formed by setting the U/L bits in the mac 129address assigned to the underlying device. 130Any number of 131.Cm wds 132virtual interfaces may be configured together with 133.Cm hostap 134interfaces. 135Multiple 136.Cm station 137interfaces may be operated together with 138.Cm hostap 139interfaces to construct a wireless repeater device. 140The driver also support 141.Cm tdma 142operation when compiled with 143.Cd "options IEEE80211_SUPPORT_TDMA" 144(which also enables the required 802.11 support). 145For more information on configuring this device, see 146.Xr ifconfig 8 . 147.Pp 148Devices supported by the 149.Nm 150driver come in either Cardbus or mini-PCI packages. 151Wireless cards in Cardbus slots may be inserted and ejected on the fly. 152.Sh HARDWARE 153The 154.Nm 155driver supports all Atheros Cardbus and PCI cards, 156except those that are based on the AR5005VL chipset. 157.Sh EXAMPLES 158Join a specific BSS network with WEP encryption: 159.Bd -literal -offset indent 160ifconfig wlan0 create wlandev ath0 161ifconfig wlan0 inet 192.168.0.20 netmask 0xffffff00 ssid my_net \e 162 wepmode on wepkey 0x8736639624 163.Ed 164.Pp 165Join/create an 802.11b IBSS network with network name 166.Dq Li my_net : 167.Bd -literal -offset indent 168ifconfig wlan0 create wlandev ath0 wlanmode adhoc 169ifconfig wlan0 inet 192.168.0.22 netmask 0xffffff00 ssid my_net \e 170 mode 11b 171.Ed 172.Pp 173Create an 802.11g host-based access point: 174.Bd -literal -offset indent 175ifconfig wlan0 create wlandev ath0 wlanmode hostap 176ifconfig wlan0 inet 192.168.0.10 netmask 0xffffff00 ssid my_ap \e 177 mode 11g 178.Ed 179.Pp 180Create an 802.11a mesh station: 181.Bd -literal -offset indent 182ifconfig wlan0 create wlandev ath0 wlanmode mesh 183ifconfig wlan0 meshid my_mesh mode 11a inet 192.168.0.10/24 184.Ed 185.Pp 186Create two virtual 802.11a host-based access points, one with 187WEP enabled and one with no security, and bridge them to 188the fxp0 (wired) device: 189.Bd -literal -offset indent 190ifconfig wlan0 create wlandev ath0 wlanmode hostap \e 191 ssid paying-customers wepmode on wepkey 0x1234567890 \e 192 mode 11a up 193ifconfig wlan1 create wlandev ath0 wlanmode hostap bssid \e 194 ssid freeloaders up 195ifconfig bridge0 create addm wlan0 addm wlan1 addm fxp0 up 196.Ed 197.Pp 198Create a master node in a two slot TDMA BSS configured to use 1992.5 millisecond slots. 200.Bd -literal -offset indent 201ifconfig wlan0 create wlandev ath0 wlanmode tdma \e 202 ssid tdma-test tmdaslot 0 tdmaslotlen 2500 \e 203 channel 36 up 204.Ed 205.Sh DIAGNOSTICS 206.Bl -diag 207.It "ath%d: unable to attach hardware; HAL status %u" 208The Atheros Hardware Access Layer was unable to configure the hardware 209as requested. 210The status code is explained in the HAL include file 211.Pa sys/dev/netif/ath/ath_hal/ah.h . 212.It "ath%d: failed to allocate descriptors: %d" 213The driver was unable to allocate contiguous memory for the transmit 214and receive descriptors. 215This usually indicates system memory is scarce and/or fragmented. 216.It "ath%d: unable to setup a data xmit queue!" 217The request to the HAL to set up the transmit queue for normal 218data frames failed. 219This should not happen. 220.It "ath%d: unable to setup a beacon xmit queue!" 221The request to the HAL to set up the transmit queue for 802.11 beacon frames 222failed. 223This should not happen. 224.It "ath%d: 802.11 address: %s" 225The MAC address programmed in the EEPROM is displayed. 226.It "ath%d: hardware error; resetting" 227An unrecoverable error in the hardware occurred. 228Errors of this sort include unrecoverable DMA errors. 229The driver will reset the hardware and continue. 230.It "ath%d: rx FIFO overrun; resetting" 231The receive FIFO in the hardware overflowed before the data could be 232transferred to the host. 233This typically occurs because the hardware ran short of receive 234descriptors and had no place to transfer received data. 235The driver will reset the hardware and continue. 236.It "ath%d: unable to reset hardware; hal status %u" 237The Atheros Hardware Access Layer was unable to reset the hardware 238as requested. 239The status code is explained in the HAL include file 240.Pa sys/dev/netif/ath/ath_hal/ah.h . 241This should not happen. 242.It "ath%d: unable to start recv logic" 243The driver was unable to restart frame reception. 244This should not happen. 245.It "ath%d: device timeout" 246A frame dispatched to the hardware for transmission did not complete in time. 247The driver will reset the hardware and continue. 248This should not happen. 249.It "ath%d: bogus xmit rate 0x%x" 250An invalid transmit rate was specified for an outgoing frame. 251The frame is discarded. 252This should not happen. 253.It "ath%d: ath_chan_set: unable to reset channel %u (%u MHz)" 254The Atheros Hardware Access Layer was unable to reset the hardware 255when switching channels during scanning. 256This should not happen. 257.It "ath%d: failed to enable memory mapping" 258The driver was unable to enable memory-mapped I/O to the PCI device registers. 259This should not happen. 260.It "ath%d: failed to enable bus mastering" 261The driver was unable to enable the device as a PCI bus master for doing DMA. 262This should not happen. 263.It "ath%d: cannot map register space" 264The driver was unable to map the device registers into the host address space. 265This should not happen. 266.It "ath%d: could not map interrupt" 267The driver was unable to allocate an IRQ for the device interrupt. 268This should not happen. 269.It "ath%d: could not establish interrupt" 270The driver was unable to install the device interrupt handler. 271This should not happen. 272.El 273.Sh SEE ALSO 274.Xr ath_hal 4 , 275.Xr cardbus 4 , 276.Xr ifmedia 4 , 277.Xr intro 4 , 278.\".Xr pcic 4 , 279.Xr wlan 4 , 280.Xr wlan_ccmp 4 , 281.Xr wlan_tkip 4 , 282.Xr wlan_wep 4 , 283.Xr wlan_xauth 4 , 284.Xr hostapd 8 , 285.Xr ifconfig 8 , 286.Xr wpa_supplicant 8 287.Sh HISTORY 288The 289.Nm 290device driver first appeared in 291.Fx 5.2 292and was imported into 293.Dx 1.5 . 294.Sh CAVEATS 295Revision A1 of the D-LINK DWL-G520 and DWL-G650 are based on an 296Intersil PrismGT chip and are not supported by this driver. 297.Sh BUGS 298There is no software retransmit; only hardware retransmit is used. 299.Pp 300The driver does not fully enable power-save operation of the chip 301in station mode; consequently power use is suboptimal (e.g. on a laptop). 302.Pp 303WPA is not supported for 5210 parts. 304