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NAME

wpi — Intel 3945ABG Wireless LAN IEEE 802.11 driver

SYNOPSIS

To compile this driver into the kernel, place the following lines in your kernel configuration file:

device wpi
device wpifw
device pci
device wlan
device wlan_amrr
device firmware

Alternatively, to load the driver as a module at boot time, place the following line in loader.conf(5):

if_wpi_load="YES"

DESCRIPTION

The wpi driver provides support for the Intel 3945ABG Wireless network adapter. The driver supports station, adhoc, adhoc-demo, hostap, and monitor mode operation. Only one virtual interface may be configured at any time.

The wpi driver can be configured to use Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP) or Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA-PSK and WPA2-PSK). WPA is the de facto encryption standard for wireless networks. It is strongly recommended that WEP not be used as the sole mechanism to secure wireless communication, due to serious weaknesses in it. The wpi driver offloads both encryption and decryption of data frames to the hardware for the CCMP cipher.

This driver requires the firmware built with the wpifw 4 module to work.

The wpi driver can be configured at runtime with ifconfig(8).

FILES
/usr/share/doc/legal/intel_wpi.LICENSE

wpi firmware license

EXAMPLES

Join an existing BSS network (i.e., connect to an access point):

ifconfig wlan0 create wlandev wpi0 inet 192.168.0.20 \
netmask 0xffffff00

Join a specific BSS network with network name ’’my_net’’:

ifconfig wlan0 create wlandev wpi0 ssid my_net up

Join a specific BSS network with 64-bit WEP encryption:

ifconfig wlan0 create wlandev wpi0 ssid my_net \

Create an IBSS network with 128-bit WEP encryption on the channel 4:

ifconfig wlan0 create wlandev wpi0 wlanmode adhoc ssid my_net \

Join/create an 802.11b IBSS network with network name ’’my_net’’:

ifconfig wlan0 create wlandev wpi0 wlanmode adhoc
ifconfig wlan0 inet 192.168.0.22 netmask 0xffffff00 ssid my_net \

Create an 802.11g host-based access point:

ifconfig wlan0 create wlandev wpi0 wlanmode hostap
ifconfig wlan0 inet 192.168.0.10 netmask 0xffffff00 ssid my_ap \

DIAGNOSTICS

wpi%d: could not load firmware image ’%s’  The driver failed to load the firmware image using the firmware(9) subsystem. Verify the wpifw(4) firmware module is installed.

wpi%d: %s: timeout waiting for adapter to initialize, error %d  The onboard microcontroller failed to initialize in time. This should not happen.

wpi%d: %s: could not load boot firmware  An attempt to upload the boot firmware image to the onboard microcontroller failed. This should not happen.

wpi%d: device timeout  A frame dispatched to the hardware for transmission did not complete in time. The driver will reset the hardware and continue. This should not happen.

wpi%d: scan timeout  Firmware scan command response was not received in time. The driver will reset the hardware and continue. This should not happen.

wpi%d: fatal firmware error  The onboard microcontroller crashed for some reason. The driver will reset the hardware and continue. This should not happen.

wpi%d: RF switch: radio disabled  The hardware switch controlling the radio is currently turned off. Data transmission is not possible in this state.

wpi%d: can’t map mem space  The driver was unable to map the device registers into the host address space. This should not happen.

wpi%d: can’t map interrupt  The driver was unable to allocate an IRQ for the device interrupt. This should not happen.

wpi%d: can’t establish interrupt, error %d  The driver was unable to install the device interrupt handler. This should not happen.

wpi%d: %s: bus_dmamap_load failed, error %d  The driver was unable to map newly allocated mbuf to device visible address space. Contents of currently received frame will be lost. This should not happen.

SEE ALSO

pci(4), wlan(4), wlan_amrr(4), wlan_ccmp(4), wlan_tkip(4), wlan_wep(4), wlan_xauth(4), wpifw(4), hostapd(8), ifconfig(8), wpa_supplicant(8)

AUTHORS

The original wpi driver was written for OpenBSD by Damien Bergamini <damien.bergamini [AT] free.fr>. Benjamin Close <benjsc [AT] FreeBSD.org> ported wpi to FreeBSD.

CAVEATS

Hostap mode is not directly supported by the device; it is implemented through IBSS mode (as a result, DFS/passive channels are not available in this mode).

Powersave may be unstable on some networks (results in occasional ’wpi%d: device timeout’ messages); you can try to disable it to improve device stability.

BSD January 31, 2016 BSD