NAME
iwm
—
Intel 7000/8000/9000 IEEE
802.11a/ac/b/g/n wireless network devices
SYNOPSIS
iwm* at pci?
DESCRIPTION
The iwm
driver provides support for Intel
Wireless 7260, 7265, 3160, 3165, 3168, 8260, 8265, 9260, and 9560 PCIe Mini
Card and M.2 network adapters.
These are the modes the iwm
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 iwm
driver can be configured to use
Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP) or Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA1 and WPA2).
WPA2 is the current encryption standard for wireless networks. It is
strongly recommended that neither WEP nor WPA1 are used as the sole
mechanism to secure wireless communication, due to serious weaknesses. WPA1
is disabled by default and may be enabled using the option
"wpaprotos
wpa1,wpa2". For standard WPA networks which use
pre-shared keys (PSK), keys are configured using the
"wpakey
" option. WPA-Enterprise networks
require use of the wpa_supplicant package.
The iwm
driver can be configured at
runtime with
ifconfig(8) or on boot with
hostname.if(5).
FILES
The driver needs one of the following firmware files, which are loaded when an interface is brought up:
- /etc/firmware/iwm-3160-17
- /etc/firmware/iwm-3168-29
- /etc/firmware/iwm-7260-17
- /etc/firmware/iwm-7265-17
- /etc/firmware/iwm-8000C-34
- /etc/firmware/iwm-8265-34
- /etc/firmware/iwm-9000-34
- /etc/firmware/iwm-9260-34
These firmware files are not free because Intel refuses to grant distribution rights without contractual obligations. As a result, even though OpenBSD includes the driver, the firmware files cannot be included and users have to download these files on their own.
A prepackaged version of the firmware can be installed using fw_update(1).
EXAMPLES
The following example scans for available networks:
# ifconfig iwm0 scan
The following hostname.if(5) example configures iwm0 to join network “mynwid”, using WPA key “mywpakey”, obtaining an IP address using DHCP:
nwid mynwid wpakey mywpakey dhcp
DIAGNOSTICS
- iwm0: 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.
- iwm0: fatal firmware error
- For some reason, the firmware crashed. The driver will reset the hardware. This should not happen.
- iwm0: radio is disabled by hardware switch
- 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.
- iwm0: could not read firmware ... (error N)
- For some reason, the driver was unable to read the firmware image from the filesystem. The file might be missing or corrupted.
- iwm0: firmware too short: N bytes
- The firmware image is corrupted and can't be loaded into the adapter.
- iwm0: could not load firmware
- An attempt to load the firmware into the adapter failed. The driver will reset the hardware.
SEE ALSO
arp(4), ifmedia(4), intro(4), netintro(4), pci(4), hostname.if(5), ifconfig(8)
HISTORY
The iwm
device driver first appeared in
OpenBSD 5.7.
CAVEATS
The iwm
driver does not support any of the
802.11ac capabilities offered by the adapters. Support for 802.11n 40MHz
channels and Tx aggregation is not yet implemented. Additional work is
required in
ieee80211(9) before those features can be supported.
This driver does not support powersave mode.