NAME
wpi
—
Intel PRO/Wireless 3945ABG IEEE
802.11a/b/g wireless network device
SYNOPSIS
wpi* at pci?
DESCRIPTION
The wpi
driver provides support for Intel
PRO/Wireless 3945ABG Mini PCI Express network adapters.
These are the modes the wpi
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 wpi
driver can be configured to use
Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP) or Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA-PSK and
WPA2-PSK). WPA is the de facto 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
wpi
driver offloads both encryption and decryption
of unicast data frames to the hardware for the CCMP cipher.
The wpi
driver can be configured at
runtime with
ifconfig(8) or on boot with
hostname.if(5).
FILES
The driver needs at least version 3.1 of the following firmware file, which is loaded when an interface is brought up:
- /etc/firmware/wpi-3945abg
This firmware file is not free because Intel refuses to grant distribution rights without contractual obligations. As a result, even though OpenBSD includes the driver, the firmware file cannot be included and users have to download this file on their own.
A prepackaged version of the firmware, designed to be used with pkg_add(1), can be found at:
http://firmware.openbsd.org/firmware/wpi-firmware-3.2.tgz
EXAMPLES
The following hostname.if(5) example configures wpi0 to join whatever network is available on boot, using WEP key “0x1deadbeef1”, channel 11, obtaining an IP address using DHCP:
dhcp NONE NONE NONE nwkey 0x1deadbeef1 chan 11
Configure wpi0 to join network “my_net” using WPA with passphrase “my_passphrase”:
# ifconfig wpi0 nwid my_net wpakey my_passphrase
Join an existing BSS network, “my_net”:
# ifconfig wpi0 192.168.1.1 netmask 0xffffff00 nwid my_net
DIAGNOSTICS
- wpi%d: 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.
- wpi%d: fatal firmware error
- For some reason, the firmware crashed. The driver will reset the hardware. This should not happen.
- wpi%d: Radio transmitter is off
- The radio transmitter is off and thus no packet can go out. The driver will reset the hardware. Make sure the laptop radio switch is on.
- wpi%d: error %d, could not read firmware %s
- For some reason, the driver was unable to read the firmware image from the filesystem. The file might be missing or corrupted.
- wpi%d: firmware file too short: %d bytes
- The firmware image is corrupted and can't be loaded into the adapter.
- wpi%d: could not load firmware
- An attempt to load the firmware into the adapter failed. The driver will reset the hardware.
SEE ALSO
pkg_add(1), arp(4), ifmedia(4), intro(4), netintro(4), pci(4), hostname.if(5), ifconfig(8)
AUTHORS
The wpi
driver was written by
Damien Bergamini
⟨damien@openbsd.org⟩.