wi(4) - NetBSD Manual Pages

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WI(4)                     NetBSD Programmer's Manual                     WI(4)


NAME

     wi - Lucent Technologies WaveLAN/IEEE 802.11 PCMCIA wireless network
     driver


SYNOPSIS

     wi* at pcmcia? function ?


DESCRIPTION

     The wi driver provides support for WaveLAN/IEEE PCCARD adapters (also
     known as WaveLAN II cards).  Note that while Lucent sells both ISA and
     PCMCIA WaveLAN/IEEE devices, the ISA product is actually a PCMCIA card in
     an ISA to PCMCIA bridge adapter.  Consequently, the wi driver is required
     for both the ISA and PCMCIA NICs.  Both the original 2Mbps WaveLAN/IEEE
     cards and the newer 6Mbps WaveLAN/IEEE Turbo adapters are supported.

     The core of the WaveLAN/IEEE is the Lucent Hermes controller.  All
     host/device interaction is via programmed I/O with the Hermes.  The Her-
     mes supports 802.11 and 802.3 frames, power management, BSS, WDS and ad-
     hoc operation modes.  The wi driver encapsulates all IP and ARP traffic
     as 802.11 frames, however it can receive either 802.11 or 802.3 frames.
     Transmit speed is selectable between 1Mbps fixed, 2Mbps fixed or 2Mbps
     with auto fallback.  For WaveLAN/IEEE Turbo adapters, speeds up to 6Mbps
     are available.

     By default, the wi driver configures the WaveLAN card for ad-hoc opera-
     tion.  In this mode, stations can communicate among each other without
     the aid of an access point.  To join a service set, the driver must be
     set for BSS mode using the wiconfig(8) utility.

     For more information on configuring this device, see ifconfig(8).


HARDWARE

     Cards supported by the wi driver include:

           Lucent Wavelan/IEEE 2.0Mb Bronze

           Lucent Wavelan/IEEE 2.0Mb Silver

           Melco AIR CONNECT WLI-PCM-L11

           DEC/Cabletron RoamAbout 802.11 DS High Rate


DIAGNOSTICS

     wi%d: init failed  The WaveLAN failed to come ready after an initializa-
     tion command was issued.

     wi%d: failed to allocate %d bytes on NIC  The driver was unable to allo-
     cate memory for transmit frames in the NIC's on-board RAM.

     wi%d: device timeout  The WaveLAN failed to generate an interrupt to ac-
     knowledge a transmit command.  One reason can be that the board is mis-
     configured, see wiconfig(8).


SEE ALSO

     arp(4), netintro(4), ifconfig(8), wiconfig(8)

     HCF Light programming specification, http://www.wavelan.com.


HISTORY

     The wi device driver first appeared in NetBSD 1.4.3.


AUTHOR

     The wi driver was written by Bill Paul <wpaul@ctr.columbia.edu>.

NetBSD 1.4                      April 21, 1999                               1