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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 WaveLAN adhoc mode of wi(4)
     driver.  The NWID doesn't affect in this mode.

     Another mode added to the awi driver can be used with old Melco access
     point with 2Mbps card, which actually use IEEE 802.11 adhoc mode with en-
     capsulation of raw Ethernet packet including header in 802.11 frames.

     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

     In addition to default Auto media type, 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 indicate the driver to operate in ad-
     hoc mode.  The flag0 mediaopt should be used only with old access point
     which operates in IBSS mode.  For DS radio cards, adhoc,flag0 mediaopt
     can be used for wi(4) compatible WaveLAN 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.  In some circumstances, resetting device after power on fails.
     Re-inserting the card or down-then-up interface may be helpful.

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

     awi0: authentication failed (reason %d)
     awi0: association failed (reason %d)  The access point refuses the au-
     thentication or association 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.


SEE ALSO

     arp(4), cnw(4), ifmedia(4), netintro(4), pcmcia(4), wi(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.


AUTHORS

     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 1.6.2                  September 18, 2001                             2