xref: /netbsd/share/man/man4/atw.4 (revision 6550d01e)
1.\"     $NetBSD: atw.4,v 1.12 2010/01/15 19:24:49 joerg Exp $
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3.\" Copyright (c) 2003
4.\"	David Young <dyoung@NetBSD.org>. All rights reserved.
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27.\"	$Id: atw.4,v 1.12 2010/01/15 19:24:49 joerg Exp $
28.\"
29.Dd June 5, 2004
30.Dt ATW 4
31.Os
32.Sh NAME
33.Nm atw
34.Nd ADMtek ADM8211 802.11 wireless network driver
35.Sh SYNOPSIS
36.Cd "atw* at cardbus? function ?"
37.Cd "atw* at pci? dev ? function ?"
38.Sh DESCRIPTION
39The
40.Nm
41driver supports PCI/CardBus 802.11b wireless adapters based on the
42ADMtek ADM8211.
43.Pp
44The ADM8211 is a bus-mastering 802.11 Media Access Controller (MAC)
45which is derived from ADMtek's Tulip clones (see
46.Xr tlp 4 ) .
47It supports contention-free traffic (with an 802.11 Point Coordinator),
4864/128-bit WEP encryption, and 802.11 power-saving.
49The ADM8211 integrates an RF3000 baseband processor (BBP) by RF
50Microdevices.
51.Pp
52In a typical application, the ADM8211 is coupled with an RF front-end
53by RFMD and a Silicon Laboratories Si4126 RF/IF synthesizer.
54.Pp
55With the ADM8211, the division of labor between the host and NIC
56is different than with firmware-based NICs such as
57.Xr an 4 ,
58.Xr awi 4 ,
59and
60.Xr wi 4 .
61The ADM8211 is still responsible for real-time 802.11 functions
62such as sending ACK/RTS/CTS/ATIM frames, sending beacons, and
63answering CF polls from the access point, but the host takes
64responsibility for providing 802.11 functions such as scanning,
65association, and authentication.
66The host is also responsible for programming both the BBP and the
67RF/IF synthesizer.
68.Pp
69.Nm
70contains incomplete support for the ADM8211's WEP encryption/decryption
71engine.
72.Nm
73does not yet support hardware WEP decryption, however, it will use
74the ADM8211's crypto engine to encrypt transmitted frames.
75Documentation from ADMtek claims that, in addition to the 4 128-bit
76shared WEP keys, the ADM8211 will store WEP key pairs for up to 20
77peers.
78The documentation provides no details, hence
79.Nm
80does not support the 20 key-pairs.
81.Pp
82The ADM8211 operates in 802.11 infrastructure mode (with an access
83point) and in 802.11 ad hoc mode (without an access point) at 1,
842, 5.5, and 11Mbps.
85ADMtek says that the ADM8211 cannot operate as an access point.
86.Pp
87The operating mode is selected using the
88.Xr ifconfig 8
89utility.
90For more information on configuring this device, see
91.Xr ifconfig 8
92and
93.Xr ifmedia 4 .
94.Sh HARDWARE
95Cards supported by the
96.Nm
97driver include:
98.Pp
99.Bl -item -offset indent -compact
100.It
101D-Link DWL-650 Rev. ?? CardBus card
102.It
103D-Link DWL-520 Rev. C1 PCI card
104.It
105LanReady WP2000 PCI card
106.It
107TrendNet TEW-221PC CardBus card
108.It
109Xterasys XN2511B PCI card
110.It
111.El
112.Sh DIAGNOSTICS
113.Bl -diag
114.It "atw0: failed to tune channel %d"
115The driver failed to tune the radio to a new channel.
116The radio remains tuned to the old channel.
117.It "atw0: atw_si4136_write wrote %08x, SYNCTL still busy"
118The driver waited 100ms without seeing an indication that the
119ADM8211 had finished writing a register on the Si4126 RF/IF
120synthesizer.
121.It "atw0: device timeout"
122The ADM8211 failed to generate an interrupt to acknowledge a transmit
123command.
124.El
125.Sh SEE ALSO
126.Xr arp 4 ,
127.Xr cardbus 4 ,
128.Xr ifmedia 4 ,
129.Xr netintro 4 ,
130.Xr pci 4 ,
131.Xr ifconfig 8
132.Rs
133.%T ADMtek
134.%U http://www.admtek.com.tw
135.Re
136.Rs
137.%T Silicon Laboratories
138.%U http://www.silabs.com
139.Re
140.Rs
141.%T RF Microdevicdes
142.%U http://www.rfmd.com
143.Re
144.Sh HISTORY
145The
146.Nm
147device driver first appeared in
148.Nx 2.0 .
149.Sh AUTHORS
150.An -nosplit
151The
152.Nm
153driver was written by
154.An David Young
155.Aq dyoung@NetBSD.org .
156For features which the ADM8211 has in common with the DECchip 21x4x,
157code was liberally borrowed from
158.Xr tlp 4
159by
160.An Jason Thorpe
161.Aq thorpej@NetBSD.org .
162.Sh BUGS
163The author does not fully understand what processing the duration
164fields for the PLCP header and the 802.11 header undergo before
165they are applied to a transmitted frame.
166If the duration fields in transmitted frames are incorrect, the
167performance of your network may suffer.
168.Pp
169The driver does not provide rate control when the media type is
170set to autoselect.
171.Pp
172The driver lets you change to hostap mode, but it does not work
173and it probably never will.
174.Pp
175The driver will sometimes complain that it cannot re-tune the radio
176because the transmit process has not gone idle.
177The author is investigating.
178.Pp
179Many features are still missing, especially WEP decryption and
180802.11 power-saving.
181.Pp
182The ad hoc mode has not been rigorously tested.
183IBSSs with the same SSID may not coalesce, but this should not
184matter for most applications.
185.Pp
186The driver is untested in the ad-hoc demo mode of Lucent WaveLAN
187cards.
188.Pp
189The ADM8211 supports 802.11 power-saving, however,
190.Nm
191does not support it yet.
192For time-bounded service, the ADM8211 will interoperate with an
193access point which implements the 802.11 Point Coordination Function,
194however, this is also not supported.
195.Pp
196Combinations of an ADM8211 with either an Intersil or a Marvell RF
197front-end are not supported.
198