NAME
bwi —
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 bwi
device wlan
device wlan_amrr
device firmwareAlternatively, to load the driver as a module at boot time, place the following line in loader.conf(5):
if_bwi_load="YES"
DESCRIPTION
Thebwi 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 ports/net/bwi-firmware-kmod port needs to be installed before ifconfig(8) will work.
HARDWARE
The bwi driver supports Broadcom BCM43xx
based wireless devices, including:
| Card | Chip | Bus | Standard |
| Apple Airport Extreme | BCM4306 | PCI | b/g |
| Apple Airport Extreme | BCM4318 | PCI | b/g |
| ASUS WL-100g | BCM4306 | CardBus | b/g |
| ASUS WL-138g | BCM4318 | PCI | b/g |
| Buffalo WLI-CB-G54S | BCM4318 | CardBus | b/g |
| Buffalo WLI-PCI-G54S | BCM4306 | PCI | b/g |
| Compaq R4035 onboard | BCM4306 | PCI | b/g |
| Dell Wireless 1390 | BCM4311 | Mini PCI | b/g |
| Dell Wireless 1470 | BCM4318 | Mini PCI | b/g |
| Dell Truemobile 1300 r2 | BCM4306 | Mini PCI | b/g |
| Dell Truemobile 1400 | BCM4309 | Mini 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 |
| TRENDnet TEW-401PCplus | BCM4306 | CardBus | b/g |
| US Robotics 5411 | BCM4318 | CardBus | b/g |
The bwi driver uses the older v3 version
of Broadcom's firmware. While this older firmware does support most BCM43xx
parts, the bwn(4) driver works better for the newer chips it supports. You must
use the bwi driver if you are using older Broadcom
chipsets (BCM4301, BCM4303 and BCM4306 rev 2). The v4 version of the
firmware that bwn(4) uses does not support these chips.
EXAMPLES
Join an existing BSS network (i.e., connect to an access point):
ifconfig wlan create wlandev bwi0 inet 192.168.0.20 \
netmask 0xffffff00
Join a specific BSS network with network name
“my_net”:
ifconfig wlan create wlandev bwi0
ssid my_net upJoin a specific BSS network with 64-bit WEP encryption:
ifconfig wlan create wlandev bwi0 ssid my_net \
wepmode on wepkey 0x1234567890 weptxkey 1 up
SEE ALSO
arp(4), cardbus(4), intro(4), pci(4), wlan(4), wlan_amrr(4), ifconfig(8), wpa_supplicant(8)
HISTORY
The bwi driver first appeared in
FreeBSD 8.0.
AUTHORS
The bwi driver was written for DragonFly
BSD by Sepherosa Ziehau and subsequently ported to
FreeBSD.
BUGS
Some card based on the BCM4306 and BCM4309 chips do not work properly on channel 1, 2 and 3.