Wi-Fi v Haiku

Expected supported hardware

All of FreeBSD 8 wlan drivers should be working. Any PCMCIA, CardBus, ExpressCard, USB or ISA based cards will not work. Only PCI, miniPCI, PCI-Express, miniPci-Express and PCI-X are supposed to work.
This includes:

• aironetwifi supporting at least
  Cisco Aironet 350 Series
  Aironet PCI4500
  Aironet PCI4800
  

• atheroswifi supporting almost every chipset outthere (though no AR9285 chips)

• broadcom43xx supporting
  BCM4301, BCM4306, BCM4307, BCM4309, BCM4311, BCM4312 and BCM4318

• ipw2100 supporting Intel Pro Wireless 2100 chips

• iprowifi2200 supporting Intel Pro Wireless
  2200BG
  2225BG
  2915ABG

• iprowifi3945 supporting Intel Pro Wireless 3945 chips

• iprowifi4965 supporting Intel Pro Wireless 4965 chips

• marvell88w8335 supporting
  Marvell Libertas 88W8310
  Marvell Libertas 88W8335

• marvell88w8363 supporting the 88W8363 chips

• ralinkwifi supporting
  RT2560
  RT2561S
  RT2561
  RT2661

• ralink2860 supporting Ralink RT2860

• wavelanwifi supporting at least
  3Com Airconnect
  GLPRISM2 WaveLAN
  Intersil Prism3
  Intersil Prism2.5
  Linksys WDT11
  Netgear MA301
  PRISM2STA WaveLAN
  Siemens SpeedStream
  SMC 2602W
  Us Robotics 2415
  Addtron AWA-100 PCI

Connecting to a wireless network

Besides of course unencrypted networks, Haiku has preliminary support for accessing wireless networks via WEP encryption keys. WEP is an early encryption method, although not the most secure.

You can list available networks, join and leave them with the command ifconfig from Terminal:

ifconfig [wifi_device_path] [list|join|leave] (key)

You can find your wifi_device_path in the Network preferences applet, or by executing ifconfig -a.

Below are a few examples of connecting to a wireless network named wifitopia. For these examples we are assuming your wifi network card is /dev/net/iprowifi3945/0.

Listing wireless networks:

ifconfig /dev/net/iprowifi3945/0 list

Joining unsecured wireless network:

ifconfig /dev/net/iprowifi3945/0 join wifitopia

Joining WEP secured wireless network: (ascii password)

ifconfig /dev/net/iprowifi3945/0 join wifitopia mypassword

Joining WEP secured wireless network: (64-bit hex password)

ifconfig /dev/net/iprowifi3945/0 join wifitopia 0x4010FABEEF

Leaving a wireless network:

ifconfig /dev/net/iprowifi3945/0 leave wifitopia

Automatically connecting to a wireless network

To make your system connect to a given SSID at each boot automatically, you can specify your wireless networks and passwords in /boot/common/settings/network/wireless_networks with the following format:

network wifitopia {
   password mypassword
}

If you don't create this configuration file, the system will connect to the first unencrypted network it finds.

WEP notes

• 64-bit WEP uses a 40-bit key, which means 5 text characters or 10 hex digits
• 128-bit WEP uses a 104-bit key, which means 13 text characters or 26 hex digits
• hexadecimal digits = characters 0-9 and A through F (prepended with "0x" in ifconfig)

Šifrovanie WPA

At the moment there is no WPA encryption available in Haiku, though there have been some efforts bringing it significantly closer.

install-wifi-firmwares.sh

To install the firmware for Intel ipw2100, Intel iprowifi2200/2225/2915, Broadcom 43xx & Marvell 88W8335, you need to run

install-wifi-firmwares.sh

The Intel ipw2100 and iprowifi22xx will install without an internet connection, as the licensing terms allow Haiku to distribute the original firmware archives. However, they do require acknowledgment by the end-user prior to their installation. The Broadcom 43xx and Marvell 88W8335 will require an active internet connection, as the files containing their respective firmwares cannot be distributed with Haiku.

People building their own Haiku image can modify their build/jam/UserBuildConfig accordingly. Details for that and general updates on the wifi topic are found at the online version of this document.

If you have to download the firmware, but don't have a working internet connection under Haiku, the online version offers a shell script, which will create a zip file for you to extract to Haiku's /boot. After that you'll have all files needed by install-wifi-firmwares.sh.