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NAME

wi — Lucent Hermes, and Intersil PRISM IEEE 802.11 driver

SYNOPSIS

To compile this driver into the kernel, place the following lines in your kernel configuration file:

Alternatively, to load the driver as a module at boot time, place the following line in loader.conf(5):

if_wi_load="YES"

EXAMPLES

Join an existing BSS network (ie: connect to an access point):

ifconfig wlan create wlandev wi0 inet 192.168.0.20 \
    netmask 0xffffff00

Join a specific BSS network with network name “my_net”:

ifconfig wlan create wlandev wi0 inet 192.168.0.20 \
    netmask 0xffffff00 ssid my_net

Join a specific BSS network with WEP encryption:

ifconfig wlan create wlandev wi0 inet 192.168.0.20 \
    netmask 0xffffff00 ssid my_net \
    wepmode on wepkey 0x8736639624 weptxkey 1

Join a Lucent legacy demo ad-hoc network with network name “my_net”:

ifconfig wlan create wlandev wi0 wlanmode ahdemo \
    inet 192.168.0.20 netmask 0xffffff00 ssid my_net

Join/create an IBSS network with network name “my_net”:

ifconfig wlan create wlandev wi0 wlanmode adhoc wi0 \
    inet 192.168.0.22 netmask 0xffffff00 ssid my_net

Create a host-based access point (Prism only):

ifconfig wlan create wlandev wi0 wlanmode hostap \
    inet 192.168.0.10 netmask 0xffffff00 ssid my_ap

Create a host-based access point with WEP enabled (Prism only) and plumb it into bridge to fxp0:

ifconfig wlan0 create wlandev wi0 wlanmode hostap \
    inet 192.168.0.10 netmask 0xffffff00 ssid my_ap \
    wepmode on wepkey 0x1234567890 weptxkey 1
ifconfig bridge0 create
ifconfig bridge0 addm wlan0 addm fxp0 up

This will give you the same functionality as an access point.

DIAGNOSTICS

wi%d: init failed

The WaveLAN card failed to become ready after an initialization command was issued.

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. This can also be an indication of an incorrectly configured interrupt.

wi%d: device timeout

The WaveLAN card failed to generate an interrupt to acknowledge a transmit command.

SEE ALSO

ifmedia(4), intro(4), pccard(4), pccbb(4), polling(4), wlan(4), wlan_ccmp(4), wlan_tkip(4), wlan_wep(4), wlan_xauth(4), hostapd(8), ifconfig(8), wpa_supplicant(8)

HCF Light programming specification, http://web.archive.org/web/20040130141721/http://wavelan.com/.

HISTORY

The wi device driver first appeared in FreeBSD 3.0.

AUTHORS

The original wi driver was written by Bill Paul <wpaul@ctr.columbia.edu>. This man page comes from OpenBSD.

CAVEATS

The driver will reject devices with old firmware to avoid dealing with numerous defects. Unfortunately the driver does not support downloading new firmware to the card so if new firmware is needed users will have to boot a different system to accomplish this.

Intersil Prism cards must have firmware versions 0.8.0 or later and version 1.7.0 or later are required to support functionality such as WPA. Some users of Prism-II and 2.5 based cards report that station firmware version 1.3.4 works better for them in hostap than 1.4.9. Older versions of the Prism station firmware have a number of issues with hostap mode. The IBSS/adhoc mode appears to work well on station firmware 1.3.1 and later. The IBSS/adhoc mode appears to have problems for some people with older versions of station firmware.

Lucent cards prior to firmware version 6.0.6 do not implement IBSS mode and are not supported.

Prior versions of wi supported Symbol firmware. That support has been removed due to persistent problems with this firmware as well as getting proper documentation on this firmware.

Hermes 2 and Hermes 3 chips are not supported by this driver.

Here's the above requirements in the form of a table

BUGS

Not all the new messages are documented here, and many of them are indications of transient errors that are not indications of serious problems.