xref: /netbsd/share/man/man4/awi.4 (revision bf9ec67e)
1.\"     $NetBSD: awi.4,v 1.16 2001/12/18 13:33:18 ad Exp $
2.\"
3.Dd September 18, 2001
4.Dt AWI 4
5.Os
6.Sh NAME
7.Nm awi
8.Nd
9AMD PCnetMobile IEEE 802.11 PCMCIA wireless network driver
10.Sh SYNOPSIS
11.Cd "awi*     at pcmcia? function ?"
12.Sh DESCRIPTION
13The
14.Nm
15driver supports various IEEE 802.11 wireless cards
16which run AMD PCnetMobile firmware based on AMD 79c930 controller
17with Intersil (formerly Harris) PRISM radio chipset.
18It provides access to 32kb of memory shared between the controller
19and the host.
20All host/device interaction is via this shared memory, which can be
21accessed either via PCMCIA memory space or I/O space.
22The
23.Nm
24driver encapsulates all IP and ARP traffic as 802.11 frames.
25.Pp
26The driver works both in infrastructure mode and in adhoc (independent
27BSS) mode.
28.Pp
29In infrastructure mode, it communicates with an Access Point
30which serves as a link-layer bridge between an Ethernet and
31the wireless network.  An access point also provides roaming capability
32which allows wireless node to move between access points.
33.Pp
34In adhoc mode, it communicates peer to peer.
35Though it is more efficient to communicate between wireless nodes,
36the coverage is limited spatially due to lack of roaming capability.
37.Pp
38In addition to these two mode in IEEE 802.11 specification, the
39.Nm
40driver also supports a variant of adhoc mode out of spec for DS radio cards,
41which makes possible to communicate with WaveLAN adhoc mode of
42.Xr wi 4
43driver.  The NWID doesn't affect in this mode.
44.Pp
45Another mode added to the
46.Nm
47driver can be used with old Melco access point with 2Mbps card,
48which actually use IEEE 802.11 adhoc mode with encapsulation of
49raw Ethernet packet including header in 802.11 frames.
50.Pp
51For more information on configuring this device, see
52.Xr ifconfig 8
53and
54.Xr ifmedia 4 .
55.Sh HARDWARE
56Cards supported by the
57.Nm
58driver include:
59.Pp
60.Bl -tag -width BayStack_650x -offset indent -compact
61.It BayStack 650
621Mbps Frequency Hopping PCCARD adapter
63.It BayStack 660
642Mbps Direct Sequence PCCARD adapter
65.It Icom SL-200
662Mbps Direct Sequence PCCARD adapter
67.It Melco WLI-PCM
682Mbps Direct Sequence PCCARD adapter
69.It NEL SSMagic
702Mbps Direct Sequence PCCARD adapter
71.It Netwave AirSurfer Plus
721Mbps Frequency Hopping PCCARD adapter
73.It Netwave AirSurfer Pro
742Mbps Direct Sequence PCCARD adapter
75.It Nokia C020 WLAN
762Mbps Direct Sequence PCCARD adapter
77.It Farallon SkyLINE
782Mbps Direct Sequence PCCARD adapter
79.El
80.Pp
81The original Xircom Netwave AirSurfer is supported by the
82.Xr cnw 4
83driver, and the PRISM-II cards are supported by the
84.Xr wi 4
85driver.
86.Sh MEDIA SELECTION
87In addition to default
88.Em Auto
89media type,
90the DS cards support
91.Em DS1
92and
93.Em DS2
94media types, while the FH cards support
95.Em FH1
96media type.  For each media type,
97.Em adhoc
98mediaopt can be used to indicate the driver to operate in adhoc mode.
99The
100.Em flag0
101mediaopt
102should be used only with old access point which operates in IBSS mode.
103For DS radio cards,
104.Em adhoc,flag0
105mediaopt can be used for
106.Xr wi 4
107compatible WaveLAN adhoc mode.
108.Pp
109To configure more detailed parameters for the
110.Nm
111driver,
112.Xr wiconfig 8
113can be used.
114.Sh DIAGNOSTICS
115.Bl -diag
116.It "awi0: unable to allocate memory space; using i/o only"
117Indicates that the driver was not able to allocate 32kb of PCMCIA bus
118address space into which to map the device; the driver will use the
119(slightly slower) i/o-space only access methods to read and write to
120the shared memory.  Since by default,
121.Nx
122only allocates 16kb of
123address space per PCMCIA controller, this message is in some sense to
124be expected and should not be a cause for alarm.
125See
126.Xr pcmcia 4
127for information on how to increase the memory available to the PCMCIA
128controller.
129.It "awi0: failed to complete selftest (%s)"
130The device failed to complete its self test.
131In some circumstances, resetting device after power on fails.
132Re-inserting the card or down-then-up interface may be helpful.
133.It "awi0: associated with %s ssid %s channel %d signal %d"
134The device has successfully synchronized with the identified Access
135Point or BSS and is ready to relay traffic.
136.It "awi0: authentication failed (reason %d)"
137.It "awi0: association failed (reason %d)"
138The access point refuses the authentication or association request
139from the device.
140.It "awi0: no recent beacons from %s; rescanning"
141The device has not heard a beacon from its currently associated Access
142Point recently, and is looking for a new access point.
143.It "awi0: transmit timeout"
144The device failed to generate an interrupt to acknowledge a
145transmitted packet.
146.It "awi0: failed to lock interrupt"
147The system was unable to obtain the lock to access shared memory.
148.It "awi0: command %d failed %x"
149The device failed to complete the request from the system.
150.El
151.Sh SEE ALSO
152.Xr arp 4 ,
153.Xr cnw 4 ,
154.Xr ifmedia 4 ,
155.Xr netintro 4 ,
156.Xr pcmcia 4 ,
157.Xr wi 4 ,
158.Xr ifconfig 8 ,
159.Xr wiconfig 8
160.Rs
161.%T Am79C930 PCnet Mobile Single-Chip Wireless LAN Media Access Controller
162.%O http://www.amd.com
163.Re
164.Sh HISTORY
165The
166.Nm
167device driver first appeared in
168.Nx 1.5 .
169.Sh AUTHORS
170The initial version of the
171.Nm
172driver was written by
173.An Bill Sommerfeld Aq sommerfeld@netbsd.org .
174Then the
175.Nm
176driver module completely rewritten to support cards with DS phy and
177to support adhoc mode by
178.An Atsushi Onoe Aq onoe@netbsd.org .
179