NetBSD/share/man/man4/wi.4

.\"     $NetBSD: wi.4,v 1.18 2001/10/13 16:56:17 ichiro Exp $
.\"
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.\"	Bill Paul <wpaul@ctr.columbia.edu>. All rights reserved.
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.\"	$Id: wi.4,v 1.18 2001/10/13 16:56:17 ichiro Exp $
.\"
.Dd January 11, 2001
.Dt WI 4
.Os
.Sh NAME
.Nm wi
.Nd
WaveLAN/IEEE and PRISM-II 802.11 PCMCIA wireless network driver
.Sh SYNOPSIS
.Cd "wi* at pcmcia? function ?"
.Cd "wi* at pci? dev ? function ?"
.Sh DESCRIPTION
The
.Nm
driver provides support for Lucent Technologies WaveLAN/IEEE PCCARD 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
.Nm
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
.Xr cardbus 4
support is required for those cards to set VCC correctly,
even they are 16bit cards.
.Pp
The core of the WaveLAN/IEEE is the Lucent Hermes controller.
All host/device interaction is via programmed I/O with the Hermes.
The Hermes 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 WaveLAN Gold cards accept 104 bits key (13 characters) for WEP
encryption.  The Intersil PRISM-II controller supports WEP as well.
.Pp
The
.Nm
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.
For WaveLAN/IEEE Turbo 11Mbps adapters and PRISM-II adapters, speeds up to
11Mbps are available.
.Pp
The
.Nm
driver supports configuration of WaveLAN card for special ad-hoc operation.
In this mode, the nwid is ignored and
stations can communicate 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 interoperate with other cards. This mode is no longer the default
and must be selected using the
.Xr ifconfig 8
or
.Xr wiconfig 8
utilities.
.Pp
For more information on configuring this device, see
.Xr ifconfig 8
and
.Xr ifmedia 4 .
.Sh HARDWARE
Cards supported by the
.Nm
driver include:
.Pp
.Bl -item -offset indent -compact
.It
Lucent Wavelan/IEEE 2.0Mb Bronze
.It
Lucent Wavelan/IEEE 2.0Mb Silver
.It
Lucent WaveLAN/IEEE Turbo
.It
Lucent WaveLAN/IEEE Turbo 11Mbps
.It
Melco AIR CONNECT WLI-PCM-L11
.It
DEC/Cabletron RoamAbout 802.11 DS High Rate
.It
Corega Wireless LAN PCC-11
.It
Melco AIR CONNECT WLI-PCM-L11 cards [*] [+]
.It
DEC/Cabletron RoamAbout 802.11 DS High Rate cards [*] [+]
.It
Corega Wireless LAN PCC-11 cards [*] [+]
.It
ELSA AirLancer MC-11
.It
Intersil PRISM Mini-PCI
.El
.Pp
The original PRISM-I chipset is supported by the
.Xr awi 4
driver.
.Sh DIAGNOSTICS
.Bl -diag
.It "wi%d: init failed"
The WaveLAN failed to come ready after an initialization command was
issued.
.It "wi%d: failed to allocate %d bytes on NIC"
The driver was unable to allocate memory for transmit frames in the
NIC's on-board RAM.
.It "wi%d: device timeout"
The WaveLAN failed to generate an interrupt to acknowledge a transmit
command.
One reason can be that the board is mis-configured, see
.Xr wiconfig 8 .
.El
.Sh SEE ALSO
.Xr arp 4 ,
.Xr ifmedia 4 ,
.Xr netintro 4 ,
.Xr ifconfig 8 ,
.Xr wiconfig 8
.Rs
.%T HCF Light programming specification
.%O http://www.wavelan.com
.Re
.Sh HISTORY
The
.Nm
device driver first appeared in
.Nx 1.5 .
.Sh AUTHORS
The
.Nm
driver was written by
.An Bill Paul Aq wpaul@ctr.columbia.edu .
.Sh BUGS
The IBSS mode is not supported.
PRISM chipset does not have IBSS mode.
.Pp
The execution of
.Xr wiconfig 8
while the interface is down can produce some error messages.