xref: /freebsd/share/man/man4/bwi.4 (revision 0e2b59be50cccd0655b189e5499b1cc2e3f7b9f8)

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.Dd June 30, 2010
.Dt BWI 4
.Os
.Sh NAME
.Nm bwi
.Nd Broadcom BCM43xx IEEE 802.11b/g wireless network driver
.Sh SYNOPSIS
To compile this driver into the kernel,
place the following lines in your
kernel configuration file:
.Bd -ragged -offset indent
.Cd "device bwi"
.Cd "device wlan"
.Cd "device wlan_amrr"
.Cd "device firmware"
.Ed
.Pp
Alternatively, to load the driver as a
module at boot time, place the following line in
.Xr loader.conf 5 :
.Bd -literal -offset indent
if_bwi_load="YES"
.Ed
.Sh DESCRIPTION
The
.Nm
driver provides support for Broadcom BCM43xx based
PCI/CardBus network adapters.
.Pp
It supports
.Cm station
and
.Cm monitor
mode operation.
Only one virtual interface may be configured at any time.
For more information on configuring this device, see
.Xr ifconfig 8 .
.Pp
This driver requires firmware to be loaded before it will work.
The
.Pa ports/net/bwi-firmware-kmod
port needs to be installed before
.Xr ifconfig 8
will work.
.Sh HARDWARE
The
.Nm
driver supports Broadcom BCM43xx based wireless devices, including:
.Pp
.Bl -column -compact "Apple Airport Extreme" "BCM4306" "Mini PCI" "a/b/g" -offset 6n
.It Em "Card	Chip	Bus	Standard"
.It "Apple Airport Extreme	BCM4306	PCI	b/g"
.It "Apple Airport Extreme	BCM4318	PCI	b/g"
.It "ASUS WL-138g	BCM4318	PCI	b/g"
.It "Buffalo WLI-CB-G54S	BCM4318	CardBus	b/g"
.It "Buffalo WLI-PCI-G54S	BCM4306	PCI	b/g"
.It "Compaq R4035 onboard	BCM4306	PCI	b/g"
.It "Dell Wireless 1470	BCM4318	Mini PCI	b/g"
.It "Dell Truemobile 1300 r2	BCM4306	Mini PCI	b/g"
.It "Dell Truemobile 1400	BCM4309	Mini PCI	b/g"
.It "HP nx6125	BCM4319	PCI	b/g"
.It "Linksys WPC54G Ver 3	BCM4318	CardBus	b/g"
.It "Linksys WPC54GS Ver 2	BCM4318	CardBus	b/g"
.It "TRENDnet TEW-401PCplus	BCM4306	CardBus	b/g"
.It "US Robotics 5411	BCM4318	CardBus	b/g"
.El
.Pp
The
.Nm
driver uses the older v3 version of Broadcom's firmware.
While this older firmware does support most BCM43xx parts, the
.Xr bwn 4
driver works better for the newer chips it supports.
You must use the
.Nm
driver if you are using older Broadcom chipsets (BCM4301, BCM4303 and
BCM4306 rev 2).
The v4 version of the firmware that
.Xr bwn 4
uses does not support these chips.
.Sh EXAMPLES
Join an existing BSS network (i.e., connect to an access point):
.Pp
.Bd -literal -offset indent
ifconfig wlan create wlandev bwi0 inet 192.168.0.20 \e
    netmask 0xffffff00
.Ed
.Pp
Join a specific BSS network with network name
.Dq Li my_net :
.Pp
.Dl "ifconfig wlan create wlandev bwi0 ssid my_net up"
.Pp
Join a specific BSS network with 64-bit WEP encryption:
.Bd -literal -offset indent
ifconfig wlan create wlandev bwi0 ssid my_net \e
        wepmode on wepkey 0x1234567890 weptxkey 1 up
.Ed
.Sh SEE ALSO
.Xr arp 4 ,
.Xr cardbus 4 ,
.Xr intro 4 ,
.Xr pci 4 ,
.Xr wlan 4 ,
.Xr wlan_amrr 4 ,
.Xr ifconfig 8 ,
.Xr wpa_supplicant 8
.Sh HISTORY
The
.Nm
driver first appeared in
.Fx 8.0 .
.Sh AUTHORS
.An -nosplit
The
.Nm
driver was written for DragonFly BSD by
.An Sepherosa Ziehau
and subsequently ported to
.Fx .
.Sh BUGS
Some card based on the BCM4306 and BCM4309 chips do not work properly
on channel 1, 2 and 3.