awi(4) - NetBSD Manual Pages

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


NAME

     awi - AMD PCnetMobile IEEE 802.11 PCMCIA wireless network driver


SYNOPSIS

     awi*     at pcmcia? function ?


DESCRIPTION

     The awi driver supports various IEEE 802.11 wireless cards which run AMD
     PCnetMobile firmware based on AMD 79c930 controller with Intersil (for-
     merly Harris) PRISM radio chipset.  It provides access to 32kb of memory
     shared between the controller and the host.  All host/device interaction
     is via this shared memory, which can be accessed either via PCMCIA memory
     space or I/O space.  The awi driver encapsulates all IP and ARP traffic
     as 802.11 frames.

     The driver works both in infrastructure mode and in adhoc (independent
     BSS) mode.

     In infrastructure mode, it communicates with an Access Point which serves
     as a link-layer bridge between an Ethernet and the wireless network.  An
     access point also provides roaming capability which allows wireless node
     to move between access points.

     In adhoc mode, it communicates peer to peer.  Though it is more efficient
     to communicate between wireless nodes, the coverage is limited spatially
     due to lack of roaming capability.

     In addition to these two mode in IEEE 802.11 specification, the awi driv-
     er also supports a variant of adhoc mode out of spec for DS radio cards,
     which makes possible to communicate with adhoc mode of wi(8) driver.  The
     NWID doesn't affect in this mode.

     For more information on configuring this device, see ifconfig(8) and
     ifmedia(4).


HARDWARE

     Cards supported by the awi driver include:

           BayStack 650   1Mbps Frequency Hopping PCCARD adapter

           BayStack 660   2Mbps Direct Sequence PCCARD adapter

           Icom SL-200    2Mbps Direct Sequence PCCARD adapter

           Melco WLI-PCM  2Mbps Direct Sequence PCCARD adapter

           NEL SSMagic    2Mbps Direct Sequence PCCARD adapter

           Netwave AirSurfer Plus
                          1Mbps Frequency Hopping PCCARD adapter

           Netwave AirSurfer Pro
                          2Mbps Direct Sequence PCCARD adapter

           Nokia C020 WLAN
                          2Mbps Direct Sequence PCCARD adapter

           Farallon SkyLINE
                          2Mbps Direct Sequence PCCARD adapter

     The original Xircom Netwave AirSurfer is supported by the cnw(4) driver,
     and the PRISM-II cards are supported by the wi(4) driver.


MEDIA SELECTION

     The DS cards support DS1 and DS2 media types, while the FH cards support
     FH1 media type.  For each media type, adhoc mediaopt can be used to indi-
     cate the driver to operate in adhoc mode.  For DS radio cards,
     adhoc,flag0 mediaopt can be used for wi(4) compatible adhoc mode.

     To configure more detailed parameters for the awi driver, wiconfig(8) can
     be used.


DIAGNOSTICS

     awi0: unable to allocate memory space; using i/o only  Indicates that the
     driver was not able to allocate 32kb of PCMCIA bus address space into
     which to map the device; the driver will use the (slightly slower) i/o-
     space only access methods to read and write to the shared memory.  Since
     by default, NetBSD, only allocates 16kb of address space per PCMCIA con-
     troller, this message is in some sense to be expected and should not be a
     cause for alarm.  See pcmcia(4) for information on how to increase the
     memory available to the PCMCIA controller.

     awi0: failed to complete selftest (%s)  The device failed to complete its
     self test.

     awi0: synced with no-bssid at channel %d  The device is ready to relay
     traffic at specified channel.

     awi0: synced with %s ssid %s at channel %d  The device has successfully
     synchronized with at least one of the identified stations and is ready to
     relay traffic.

     awi0: associated with %s ssid %s channel %d signal %d  The device has
     successfully synchronized with the identified Access Point and is ready
     to relay traffic.

     awi0: authentication failed (reason %d)
     awi0: association failed (reason %d)  The access point refuses the asso-
     ciation request from the device.

     awi0: no recent beacons from %s; rescanning  The device has not heard a
     beacon from its currently associated Access Point recently, and is look-
     ing for a new access point.

     awi0: transmit timeout  The device failed to generate an interrupt to ac-
     knowledge a transmitted packet.

     awi0: failed to lock interrupt  The system was unable to obtain the lock
     to access shared memory.

     awi0: command %d failed %x  The device failed to complete the request
     from the system.


BUGS

     Doesn't create IBSS itself.


SEE ALSO

     arp(4), netintro(4), pcmcia(4), wi(4), cnw(4), ifmedia(4), ifconfig(8),
     wiconfig(8)

     Am79C930 PCnet Mobile Single-Chip Wireless LAN Media Access Controller,
     http://www.amd.com.


HISTORY

     The awi device driver first appeared in NetBSD 1.5.


AUTHOR

     The initial version of the awi driver was written by Bill Sommerfeld
     <sommerfeld@netbsd.org>.  Then the awi driver module completely rewritten
     to support cards with DS phy and to support adhoc mode by Atsushi Onoe
     <onoe@netbsd.org>.

NetBSD 1.5                     October 31, 1999                              3