NAME
bwn —
Broadcom BCM43xx IEEE 802.11b/g
wireless network driver
SYNOPSIS
To compile this driver into the kernel, place the following lines in your kernel configuration file:
device siba_bwn
device bwn
device wlan
device wlan_amrrAlternatively, to load the driver as a module at boot time, place the following line in loader.conf(5):
if_bwn_load="YES"
DESCRIPTION
The bwn driver provides support for
Broadcom BCM43xx based PCI/CardBus network adapters.
It supports station and
monitor mode operation. Only one virtual interface
may be configured at any time. For more information on configuring this
device, see
ifconfig(8).
This driver requires firmware to be loaded before it will work. The dports/sysutils/devfw-bwn port needs to be installed before ifconfig(8) will work. In most cases the bwn_v4_ucode kernel module from the port should be used. However, if an LP (low power) PHY is being used, the bwn_v4_lp_ucode module should be used.
HARDWARE
The bwn driver supports Broadcom BCM43xx
based wireless devices, including:
| Card | Chip | Bus | Standard |
| Apple Airport Extreme | BCM4318 | PCI | b/g |
| ASUS WL-138g | BCM4318 | PCI | b/g |
| Buffalo WLI-CB-G54S | BCM4318 | CardBus | b/g |
| Dell Wireless 1390 | BCM4311 | Mini PCI | b/g |
| Dell Wireless 1470 | BCM4318 | Mini PCI | b/g |
| Dell Truemobile 1400 | BCM4309 | Mini PCI | b/g |
| HP Compaq 6715b | BCM4312 | PCI | b/g |
| HP nx6125 | BCM4319 | PCI | b/g |
| Linksys WPC54G Ver 3 | BCM4318 | CardBus | b/g |
| Linksys WPC54GS Ver 2 | BCM4318 | CardBus | b/g |
| US Robotics 5411 | BCM4318 | CardBus | b/g |
EXAMPLES
Join an existing BSS network (i.e., connect to an access point):
ifconfig wlan create wlandev bwn0 inet 192.168.0.20 \
netmask 0xffffff00
Join a specific BSS network with network name
“my_net”:
ifconfig wlan create wlandev bwn0
ssid my_net upJoin a specific BSS network with 64-bit WEP encryption:
ifconfig wlan create wlandev bwn0 ssid my_net \
wepmode on wepkey 0x1234567890 weptxkey 1 up
LOADER TUNABLES
Tunables can be set at the loader(8) prompt before booting the kernel or stored in loader.conf(5).
- hw.bwn.msi.enable
- By default, the driver will use MSI if it is supported. This behavior can be turned off by setting this tunable to 0.
- hw.bwn.usedma
- This tunable enables DMA operations on the hardware. If the value is 0, PIO mode would be used. The default value is 1.
SEE ALSO
arp(4), cardbus(4), ifmedia(4), intro(4), pci(4), wlan(4), wlan_amrr(4), ifconfig(8), wpa_supplicant(8)
HISTORY
The bwn driver first appeared in
FreeBSD 8.1.
AUTHORS
The bwn driver was written by
Weongyo Jeong
<weongyo@FreeBSD.org>.
CAVEATS
Some LP PHY devices have DMA operation problems. In that case try to use the PIO mode.