<p>Getting the networking to run is essential in today's need for permanent internet connection. As keeping up to date with all the different and ever changing hardware and drivers is quite impossible for a small project, Haiku relies on a <ahref="http://www.freebsd.org">FreeBSD</a> compatibility layer for its networking drivers.<br/>
This ensures a massive amount of supported hardware, though probably not 100% of what's out there. See <ahref="https://www.freebsd.org/releases/13.0R/hardware#wlan">FreeBSD 13.0's release hardware notes</a> for a list of supported models.</p>
<aid="gui"name="gui">Joining a wireless network</a></h2>
<p>By default, Haiku will join the first unencrypted wireless network it finds after booting up. To connect to a specific network, you use the Desktop applet <ahref="desktop-applets/networkstatus.html">NetworkStatus</a>.</p>
<p>Right-click on its icon in the Deskbar and choose the network's public name (which is the "SSID" it broadcasts) from the context menu.</p>
<p>A window opens where you enter the type of authentication (probably WPA/WPA2, WEP is not a secure encryption anymore!) and the password for that wireless network. Click <spanclass="button">OK</span> to start the login process.<br/> Depending on your hardware and network configuration this may take a while. You'll be kept informed of the progress by notifications:</p>
<p>Once it reads "Ready" and the NetworkStatus icon in the Deskbar shows a green round light, the connection is established. If the notifications end in "No link" and a yellow triangle, something went wrong, probably an incorrect password.</p>
<p>If you prefer to use the command line or would like to use scripting or the <spanclass="path">~/config/settings/boot/UserBootscript</span> to automate things to join a specific network on bootup, there's the command <tt>ifconfig</tt>.</p>
<p>Make sure the initial configuration of the wireless network adapter after booting up has finished, before issuing <tt>ifconfig</tt> commands or they might be ignored. Depending on your hardware and network configuration that may take a while. Watch those notifications...</p>
<p>Only a few quite old chipsets (Intel 2100/2200/2225/2915, Broadcom 43xx, Marvell 88w8335) require binary firmware modules that Haiku cannot include due to licensing issues, though. To get these wireless cards to work, a simple script is included which will retrieve and install all of the needed proprietary bits for you.</p>
<p>If you cannot obtain the binary firmware files via the <tt>install-wifi-firmwares.sh</tt> script (for example due to lack of internet connection within Haiku), you can also download <ahref="http://www.haiku-os.org/files/download-data-for-wlan-firmwares.txt">this shell script</a>, and run it from another OS that has <tt>wget</tt> and <tt>zip</tt> installed.<br/>
Windows users need to have <ahref="http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/packages/wget.htm">wget</a> and <ahref="http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/packages/zip.htm">zip</a> for Windows installed in their default locations and use <ahref="https://www.haiku-os.org/files/download-data-for-wlan-firmwares.bat">this batch script</a>.<br/>
The script will download the needed files and create a zip file that is to be extracted to Haiku's <tt>/boot</tt>. Once unpacked, open a Terminal and type:</p>
