NAME
ath —
Atheros IEEE 802.11 driver
SYNOPSIS
ath* at pci? dev ? function ?
ath* at cardbus? function ?
DESCRIPTION
The
ath driver provides support for wireless network adapters
based on the Atheros AR2413, AR2417, AR5210, AR5211, AR5212, AR5213, AR5413,
AR5416, AR5424, AR9160, AR9280, and AR9285 chips. Chip-specific support is
provided by the Atheros Hardware Access Layer (HAL).
Supported features include 802.11 and 802.3 frames, power management, BSS, IBSS,
and host-based access point operation modes. All host/device interaction is
via DMA.
The
ath driver encapsulates all IP and ARP traffic as 802.11
frames, however it can receive either 802.11 or 802.3 frames. Transmit speed
and operating mode is selectable depending on your hardware.
AR5210-based devices support 802.11a operation with transmit speeds of 6 Mbps, 9
Mbps, 12 Mbps, 18 Mbps, 24 Mbps, 36 Mbps, 48 Mbps, and 54 Mbps.
AR5211-based devices support 802.11a and 802.11b operation with transmit speeds
as above for 802.11a operation and 1Mbps, 2Mbps, 5.5 Mbps and 11Mbps for
802.11b operation.
AR5212-based and AR5213-based devices support 802.11a, 802.11b, and 802.11g
operation with transmit speeds appropriate to each.
All chips also support an Atheros Turbo Mode (TM) that operates in the 802.11a
frequency range with 2x the transmit speeds. (This mode is, however, only
interoperable with other Atheros-based devices.)
The actual transmit speed used is dependent on signal quality and the
“rate control” algorithm employed by the driver. All chips support
WEP encryption. AR5211 and AR5212 support the AES, TKIP, and Michael
cryptographic operations required for WPA but at this time the driver does not
support them. To enable encryption, use
ifconfig(8).
By default, the
ath driver configures the card for BSS
operation (aka infrastructure mode). This mode requires the use of an access
point (base station).
The
ath driver also supports the standard IBSS point-to-point
mode where stations can communicate amongst themselves without the aid of an
access point.
The driver may also be configured to operate in hostap mode. In this mode a host
may function as an access point (base station). Access points are different
than operating in IBSS mode. They operate in BSS mode. They allow for easier
roaming and bridge all Ethernet traffic such that machines connected via an
access point appear to be on the local Ethernet segment.
The mode of operation is chosen by specifying the appropriate mediaopt value to
ifconfig. The
-m flag to ifconfig will list the available
options.
For more information on configuring this device, see
ifconfig(8).
Devices supported by the
ath driver come in either CardBus or
mini-PCI packages. Wireless cards in CardBus slots may be inserted and ejected
on the fly.
The following cards are among those supported by the
ath
driver:
Card |
Chip |
Bus |
Standard |
3Com 3CRPAG175 |
AR5212 |
CardBus |
a/b/g |
Airlink AWLH4030 |
AR5212 |
PCI |
b/g |
Aztech WL830PC |
AR5212 |
CardBus |
b/g |
Belkin F6D3000 |
AR5212 |
PCI |
a/b/g |
D-Link DWL-A520 |
AR5210 |
PCI |
a |
D-Link DWL-A650 |
AR5210 |
CardBus |
a |
D-Link DWL-AB650 |
AR5211 |
CardBus |
a/b |
D-Link DWL-AG520 |
AR5212 |
PCI |
a/b/g |
D-Link DWL-AG650 |
AR5212 |
CardBus |
a/b/g |
D-Link DWL-AG660 |
AR521? |
CardBus |
a/b/g |
D-Link DWL-G520 |
AR5212 |
PCI |
b/g |
D-Link DWL-G650B |
AR5212 |
CardBus |
b/g |
Elecom LD-WL54 |
AR5211 |
CardBus |
a |
Elecom LD-WL54AG |
AR5212 |
CardBus |
a/b/g |
Fujitsu E5454 |
AR5212 |
CardBus |
a/b/g |
Fujitsu E5454 |
AR5212 |
CardBus |
a/b/g |
Fujitsu FMV-JW481 |
AR5212 |
CardBus |
a/b/g |
HP NC4000 |
AR5212 |
PCI |
a/b/g |
I/O Data WN-A54 |
AR5212 |
CardBus |
a |
I/O Data WN-AB |
AR5212 |
CardBus |
a/b |
I/O Data WN-AG |
AR5212 |
CardBus |
a/b/g |
Linksys WMP55AG |
AR5212 |
PCI |
a/b/g |
Linksys WPC51AB |
AR5211 |
CardBus |
a/b |
Linksys WPC55AG |
AR5212 |
CardBus |
a/b/g |
NEC PA-WL/54AG |
AR5212 |
CardBus |
a/b/g |
Netgear WAB501 |
AR5211 |
CardBus |
a/b |
Netgear WAG311 |
AR5212 |
PCI |
a/b/g |
Netgear WAG511 |
AR5212 |
CardBus |
a/b/g |
Netgear WG311 |
AR5212 |
PCI |
b/g |
Netgear WG511T |
AR5212 |
CardBus |
b/g |
Orinoco 8470WD |
AR5212 |
CardBus |
a/b/g |
Orinoco 8480 |
AR5212 |
CardBus |
a/b/g |
Planex GW-NS54AG |
AR5212 |
CardBus |
a/b/g |
Proxim Skyline 4030 |
AR5210 |
CardBus |
a |
Proxim Skyline 4032 |
AR5210 |
PCI |
a |
Samsung SWL-5200N |
AR5212 |
CardBus |
a/b/g |
SMC SMC2735W |
AR5210 |
CardBus |
a |
Sony PCWA-C300S |
AR5212 |
CardBus |
b/g |
Sony PCWA-C500 |
AR5210 |
CardBus |
a |
Sony PCWA-C700 |
AR5212 |
CardBus |
a/b |
Ubiquiti SRC |
AR5213 |
CardBus |
a/b/g |
DIAGNOSTICS
- ath%d: unable to attach hardware; HAL
status %u
- The Atheros Hardware Access Layer was unable to configure
the hardware as requested. The status code is explained in the HAL include
file contrib/sys/dev/ic/athhal.h.
- ath%d: failed to allocate descriptors:
%d
- The driver was unable to allocate contiguous memory for
the transmit and receive descriptors. This usually indicates system memory
is scarce and/or fragmented.
- ath%d: unable to setup a data xmit
queue!
- The request to the HAL to setup the transmit queue for
normal data frames failed. This should not happen.
- ath%d: unable to setup a beacon xmit
queue!
- The request to the HAL to setup the transmit queue for
802.11 beacon frames failed. This should not happen.
- ath%d: 802.11 address: %s
- The MAC address programmed in the EEPROM is
displayed.
- ath%d: hardware error;
resetting
- An unrecoverable error in the hardware occurred. Errors of
this sort include unrecoverable DMA errors. The driver will reset the
hardware and continue.
- ath%d: rx FIFO overrun;
resetting
- The receive FIFO in the hardware overflowed before the
data could be transferred to the host. This typically occurs because the
hardware ran short of receive descriptors and had no place to transfer
received data. The driver will reset the hardware and continue.
- ath%d: unable to reset hardware; hal
status %u
- The Atheros Hardware Access Layer was unable to reset the
hardware as requested. The status code is explained in the HAL include
file contrib/sys/dev/ic/athhal.h. This should not
happen.
- ath%d: unable to start recv
logic
- The driver was unable to restart frame reception. This
should not happen.
- ath%d: device timeout
- A frame dispatched to the hardware for transmission did
not complete in time. The driver will reset the hardware and continue.
This should not happen.
- ath%d: bogus xmit rate 0x%x
- An invalid transmit rate was specified for an outgoing
frame. The frame is discarded. This should not happen.
- ath%d: ath_chan_set: unable to reset
channel %u (%u MHz)
- The Atheros Hardware Access Layer was unable to reset the
hardware when switching channels during scanning. This should not
happen.
- ath%d: unable to allocate channel
table
- The driver was unable to allocate memory for the table
used to hold the set of available channels.
- ath%d: unable to collect channel list
from hal
- A problem occurred while querying the HAL to find the set
of available channels for the device. This should not happen.
- ath%d: %s: %dM -> %dM (%d ok, %d
err, %d retr)
- The driver's rate control algorithm changed the current
rate for transmitting frames. This message is temporarily enabled for
normal use to help in diagnosing and improving the rate control algorithm.
The message indicates the new and old transmit rates and the statistics it
used to decide on this change.
- ath%d: failed to enable memory
mapping
- The driver was unable to enable memory-mapped I/O to the
PCI device registers. This should not happen.
- ath%d: failed to enable bus
mastering
- The driver was unable to enable the device as a PCI bus
master for doing DMA. This should not happen.
- ath%d: cannot map register
space
- The driver was unable to map the device registers into the
host address space. This should not happen.
- ath%d: could not map interrupt
- The driver was unable to allocate an IRQ for the device
interrupt. This should not happen.
- ath%d: could not establish
interrupt
- The driver was unable to install the device interrupt
handler. This should not happen.
SEE ALSO
arp(4),
cardbus(4),
ifmedia(4),
netintro(4),
pci(4),
ifconfig(8)
HISTORY
The
ath device driver first appeared in
FreeBSD 5.2. It was ported to
NetBSD
2.0.
AUTHORS
The
ath driver was originally written by
Sam
Leffler, and was ported to
NetBSD by
David Young.
CAVEATS
Different regulatory domains have different default channels for adhoc mode. See
ifconfig(8) for information on
how to change the channel. Different regulatory domains may not be able to
communicate with each other with 802.11a as different regulatory domains do
not necessarily have overlapping channels.
Revision A1 of the D-LINK DWL-G520 and DWL-G650 are based on an Intersil PrismGT
chip and are not supported by this driver.
Revision v2 of the Netgear WG311 is based on a Texas Instruments ACX111 and is
not supported by this driver.
Revision v3 of the Netgear WG311 is based on a Marvell Libertas 88W8335 and is
not supported by this driver.
BUGS
Performance in lossy environments is suboptimal. The algorithm used to select
the rate for transmitted packets is very simplistic. There is no software
retransmit; only hardware retransmit is used. Contributors are encouraged to
replace the existing rate control algorithm with a better one (hint: all the
information needed is available to the driver).
The driver does not fully enable power-save operation of the chip; consequently
power use is suboptimal.