OpenBSD manual page server

NAME

run — Ralink Technology/MediaTek USB IEEE 802.11a/b/g/n wireless network device

SYNOPSIS

run* at uhub? port ?

DESCRIPTION

The run driver supports USB 2.0 wireless adapters based on the Ralink RT2700U, RT2800U, RT3000U and RT3900E chipsets.

The RT2700U chipset consists of two integrated chips, an RT2770 MAC/BBP and an RT2720 (1T2R) or RT2750 (dual-band 1T2R) radio transceiver.

The RT2800U chipset consists of two integrated chips, an RT2870 MAC/BBP and an RT2820 (2T3R) or RT2850 (dual-band 2T3R) radio transceiver.

The RT3000U is a single-chip solution based on an RT3070 MAC/BBP and an RT3020 (1T1R), RT3021 (1T2R), RT3022 (2T2R) or RT3052 (dual-band 2T2R) radio transceiver.

The RT3900E is a single-chip solution based on an RT3593, RT5390, RT5392 or an RT5592 MAC/BBP and an RT3053 (dual-band 3T3R), RT5370 (1T1R), RT5372 (2T2R), or RT5572 (dual-band 2T2R) radio transceiver.

These are the modes the run driver can operate in:

BSS mode

Also known as infrastructure mode, this is used when associating with an access point, through which all traffic passes. This mode is the default.

monitor mode

In this mode the driver is able to receive packets without associating with an access point. This disables the internal receive filter and enables the card to capture packets from networks which it wouldn't normally have access to, or to scan for access points.

The run driver can be configured to use Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP) or Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA-PSK and WPA2-PSK). WPA is the current encryption standard for wireless networks. It is strongly recommended that WEP not be used as the sole mechanism to secure wireless communication, due to serious weaknesses in it. The run driver offloads both encryption and decryption of data frames to the hardware for the WEP40, WEP104, TKIP(+MIC) and CCMP ciphers.

The run driver can be configured at runtime with ifconfig(8) or on boot with hostname.if(5).

FILES

The driver needs the following firmware files, which are loaded when an interface is brought up:

HARDWARE

The following adapters should work:

EXAMPLES

The following example scans for available networks:

The following hostname.if(5) example configures run0 to join network “mynwid”, using WPA key “mywpakey”, obtaining an IP address using DHCP:

nwid mynwid
wpakey mywpakey
dhcp

DIAGNOSTICS

run0: error N, could not read firmware ...

For some reason, the driver was unable to read the microcode file from the filesystem. The file might be missing or corrupted.

run0: could not load 8051 microcode

An error occurred while attempting to upload the microcode to the onboard 8051 microcontroller unit.

run0: device timeout

A frame dispatched to the hardware for transmission did not complete in time. The driver will reset the hardware. This should not happen.

SEE ALSO

arp(4), ifmedia(4), intro(4), netintro(4), usb(4), hostname.if(5), ifconfig(8)

HISTORY

The run driver first appeared in OpenBSD 4.5.

AUTHORS

The run driver was written by Damien Bergamini <damien.bergamini@free.fr>.

CAVEATS

The run driver does not support any of the 802.11n capabilities offered by the RT2800 and RT3000 chipsets. Additional work is required in ieee80211(9) before those features can be supported.