an(4) - NetBSD Manual Pages

AN(4)                   NetBSD Kernel Interfaces Manual                  AN(4)


NAME

     an -- Aironet 4500/4800 and Cisco 340/350 series wireless network driver


SYNOPSIS

     an* at pcmcia? function ?
     an* at pci? dev ? function ?
     an* at isapnp?


DESCRIPTION

     The an driver provides support for Aironet Communications 4500/4800 and
     Cisco Aironet 340/350 series wireless network adapters.  This includes
     the ISA, PCI and PCMCIA varieties.  The 4500 series adapters operate at 1
     and 2Mbps while the 4800 series and 340/350 series can operate at 1, 2,
     5.5 and 11Mbps.  The ISA, PCI and PCMCIA devices are all based on the
     same core PCMCIA modules and all have the same programming interface,
     however unlike the Lucent WaveLAN/IEEE cards, the ISA and PCI cards
     appear to the host as normal ISA and PCI devices and do not require any
     PCMCIA support.

     The PCMCIA Aironet cards require PCMCIA support.  ISA cards can either be
     configured to use ISA Plug and Play or to use a particular I/O address
     and IRQ by properly setting the DIP switches on the board.  (The default
     switch setting is for plug and play.)  The an driver has Plug and Play
     support and will work in either configuration, however when using a hard-
     wired I/O address and IRQ, the driver configuration and the NIC's switch
     settings must agree.  PCI cards require no switch settings of any kind
     and will be automatically probed and attached.

     All host/device interaction with the Aironet cards is via programmed I/O.
     The Aironet devices support 802.11 and 802.3 frames, power management,
     BSS (infrastructure) and IBSS (ad-hoc) operation modes.  The an 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, 2Mbps, 5.5Mbps, 11Mbps, or ``auto'' (the NIC automatically
     chooses the best speed).

     By default, the an driver configures the Aironet card to join an access
     point with an SSID of null string.  For ad-hoc mode, in which stations
     can communicate among each other without the aid of an access point, the
     driver must be set using ifconfig(8).

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


HARDWARE

     Cards supported by the an driver include:

           Aironet 4500 Series

           Aironet 4800 Series

           Cisco Aironet 340 Series

           Cisco Aironet 350 Series


DIAGNOSTICS

     an%d: init failed  The Aironet card failed to come ready after an ini-
     tialization command was issued.

     an%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.

     an%d: device timeout  The Aironet card failed to generate an interrupt to
     acknowledge a transmit command.


SEE ALSO

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


HISTORY

     The an device driver first appeared in FreeBSD 4.0, and then in
     NetBSD 1.6.


AUTHORS

     The an driver was written by Bill Paul <wpaul@ee.columbia.edu>.

NetBSD 10.99                   December 13, 2000                  NetBSD 10.99