wi(4) - NetBSD Manual Pages

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


NAME

     wi - WaveLAN/IEEE and PRISM-II 802.11 wireless network driver


SYNOPSIS

     wi* at pcmcia? function ?
     wi* at pci? dev ? function ?


DESCRIPTION

     The wi driver provides support for Lucent Technologies WaveLAN/IEEE PC-
     CARD adapters (also known as WaveLAN II cards) and various PCCARD
     adapters which use Intersil PRISM-II and PRISM-2.5 chipsets.  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.
     Also note that some of the PRISM-II adapters works only at 3.3V, hence
     cardbus(4) support is required for those cards to set VCC correctly, even
     they are 16bit cards.

     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 Silver and the Gold cards of the WaveLAN/IEEE
     also support WEP.  Unlike the other IEEE 802.11 network cards, the Wave-
     LAN Gold cards accept 104 bits key (13 characters) for WEP encryption.
     The Intersil PRISM-II controller supports WEP as well.

     The wi driver encapsulates all IP and ARP traffic as 802.11 frames, how-
     ever it can receive either 802.11 or 802.3 frames.  Transmit speed is se-
     lectable between 1Mbps fixed, 2Mbps fixed or 2Mbps with auto fallback.
     For WaveLAN/IEEE Turbo adapters, speeds up to 6Mbps are available.  For
     WaveLAN/IEEE Turbo 11Mbps adapters and PRISM-II adapters, speeds up to
     11Mbps are available.

     The wi driver supports configuration of WaveLAN card for special ad-hoc
     operation.  In this mode, the nwid is ignored and stations can communi-
     cate among each other without the aid of an access point.  Note that this
     mode is not in the IEEE 802.11 specification and the driver may interop-
     erate with other cards. This mode is no longer the default and must be
     selected using the ifconfig(8) or wiconfig(8) utilities.

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


HARDWARE

     Cards supported by the wi driver include:

           Lucent Wavelan/IEEE 2.0Mb Bronze
           Lucent Wavelan/IEEE 2.0Mb Silver
           Lucent WaveLAN/IEEE Turbo
           Lucent WaveLAN/IEEE Turbo 11Mbps
           Melco AIR CONNECT WLI-PCM-L11, WLI-PCM-L11G
           Melco AIR CONNECT WLI-CF-S11G
           Compaq WL100 11Mbps Wireless
           Corega Wireless LAN PCC-11, PCCA_11, PCCB_11
           DEC/Cabletron RoamAbout 802.11 DS High Rate
           D-Link DWL-650 11Mbps WLAN Card, DCF-650W CF Card
           ELECOM Air@Hawk LD-WL11
           ELSA AirLancer MC-11
           Ericsson Wireless LAN
           Farallon Skyline 11Mbps Wireless
           Intel PRO/Wireless 2011 LAN PC Card
           ICOM SL-1100
           IO-DATA WN-B11/PCM
           Intersil PRISM Mini-PCI
           Linksys Group, Inc. Instant Wireless Network PC Card, CF Card
           NCR WaveLAN/IEEE
           NEC Wireless Card CMZ-RT-WP, PK-WL001, PC-WL/11C
           PLANEX GeoWave/GW-NS110
           Symbol Spectrum24 Wireless Networker PC Card, CF Card
           TDK LAK-CD011WL

     The original PRISM-I chipset is supported by the awi(4) driver.


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), ifmedia(4), netintro(4), pci(4), pcmcia(4), ifconfig(8),
     wiconfig(8)

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


HISTORY

     The wi device driver first appeared in NetBSD 1.5.


AUTHORS

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


BUGS

     The IBSS mode is not supported.  PRISM chipset does not have IBSS mode.

     The execution of wiconfig(8) while the interface is down can produce some
     error messages.

NetBSD 1.6.2                   January 11, 2001                              2