xref: /freebsd/share/man/man9/ieee80211_radiotap.9 (revision 06c3fb2749bda94cb5201f81ffdb8fa6c3161b2e)
1.\"
2.\" Copyright (c) 2004	Bruce M. Simpson <bms@spc.org>,
3.\"			Darron Broad <darron@kewl.org>,
4.\"			David Young <dyoung@pobox.com>.
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28.Dd March 11, 2019
29.Dt IEEE80211_RADIOTAP 9
30.Os
31.Sh NAME
32.Nm ieee80211_radiotap
33.Nd 802.11 device packet capture support
34.Sh SYNOPSIS
35.In net80211/ieee80211_var.h
36.\"
37.Pp
38.Ft void
39.Fo ieee80211_radiotap_attach
40.Fa "struct ieee80211com *"
41.Fa "struct ieee80211_radiotap_header *th"
42.Fa "int tlen"
43.Fa "uint32_t tx_radiotap"
44.Fa "struct ieee80211_radiotap_header *rh"
45.Fa "int rlen"
46.Fa "uint32_t rx_radiotap"
47.Fc
48.\"
49.Ft int
50.Fn ieee80211_radiotap_active_vap "struct ieee80211vap *"
51.\"
52.Ft int
53.Fn ieee80211_radiotap_active "struct ieee80211com *"
54.\"
55.Ft void
56.Fn ieee80211_radiotap_tx "struct ieee80211vap *" "struct mbuf *"
57.Sh DESCRIPTION
58The
59.Nm net80211
60layer used by 802.11 drivers includes support for a device-independent
61packet capture format called
62.Nm radiotap
63that is understood by tools such as
64.Xr tcpdump 1 .
65This facility is designed for capturing 802.11 traffic,
66including information that is not part of the normal 802.11 frame structure.
67.Pp
68Radiotap was designed to balance the desire for a hardware-independent,
69extensible capture format against the need to
70conserve CPU and memory bandwidth on embedded systems.
71These considerations led to a format consisting of
72a standard preamble followed by an extensible bitmap indicating the
73presence of optional capture fields.
74A
75.Nm net80211
76device driver supporting
77.Vt radiotap
78defines two packed structures that it shares with
79.Nm net80211 .
80These structures embed an instance of a
81.Vt ieee80211_radiotap_header
82structure at the beginning,
83with subsequent fields in the appropriate order,
84and macros to set the bits of the
85.Va it_present
86bitmap to indicate which fields exist and are filled in by the driver.
87This information is then supplied through the
88.Fn ieee80211_radiotap_attach
89call after a successful
90.Fn ieee80211_ifattach
91request.
92.Pp
93With radiotap setup, drivers just need to fill in per-packet
94capture state for frames sent/received and dispatch capture state
95in the transmit path (since control is not returned to the
96.Nm net80211
97layer before the packet is handed to the device).
98To minimize overhead this work should be done only when one
99or more processes are actively capturing data;
100this is checked with one of
101.Fn ieee80211_radiotap_active_vap
102and
103.Fn ieee80211_radiotap_active .
104In the transmit path capture work looks like this:
105.Bd -literal -offset indent
106if (ieee80211_radiotap_active_vap(vap)) {
107	... /* record transmit state */
108	ieee80211_radiotap_tx(vap, m); /* capture transmit event */
109}
110.Ed
111.Pp
112While in the receive path capture is handled in
113.Nm net80211
114but state must be captured before dispatching a frame:
115.Bd -literal -offset indent
116if (ieee80211_radiotap_active(ic)) {
117	... /* record receive state */
118}
119\&...
120ieee80211_input(...);	/* packet capture handled in net80211 */
121.Ed
122.Pp
123.\"
124The following fields are defined for
125.Vt radiotap ,
126in the order in which they should appear in the buffer supplied
127to
128.Nm net80211 .
129.Bl -tag -width indent
130.It Dv IEEE80211_RADIOTAP_TSFT
131This field contains the unsigned 64-bit value, in microseconds,
132of the MAC's 802.11 Time Synchronization Function (TSF).
133In theory, for each received frame, this value is recorded
134when the first bit of the MPDU arrived at the MAC.
135In practice, hardware snapshots the TSF otherwise and one cannot assume
136this data is accurate without driver adjustment.
137.It Dv IEEE80211_RADIOTAP_FLAGS
138This field contains a single unsigned 8-bit value, containing one or
139more of these bit flags:
140.Bl -tag -width indent
141.It Dv IEEE80211_RADIOTAP_F_CFP
142Frame was sent/received during the Contention Free Period (CFP).
143.It Dv IEEE80211_RADIOTAP_F_SHORTPRE
144Frame was sent/received with short preamble.
145.It Dv IEEE80211_RADIOTAP_F_WEP
146Frame was encrypted.
147.It Dv IEEE80211_RADIOTAP_F_FRAG
148Frame was an 802.11 fragment.
149.It Dv IEEE80211_RADIOTAP_F_FCS
150Frame contents includes the FCS.
151.It Dv IEEE80211_RADIOTAP_F_DATAPAD
152Frame contents potentially has padding between the 802.11 header and the
153data payload to align the payload to a 32-bit boundary.
154.It Dv IEEE80211_RADIOTAP_F_BADFCS
155Frame was received with an invalid FCS.
156.It Dv IEEE80211_RADIOTAP_F_SHORTGI
157Frame was sent/received with Short Guard Interval.
158.El
159.It Dv IEEE80211_RADIOTAP_RATE
160This field contains a single unsigned 8-bit value that is the data rate.
161Legacy rates are in units of 500Kbps.
162MCS rates (used on 802.11n/HT channels) have the high bit set and
163the MCS in the low 7 bits.
164.It Dv IEEE80211_RADIOTAP_CHANNEL
165This field contains two unsigned 16-bit values.
166The first value is the center frequency for the channel
167the frame was sent/received on.
168The second value is a bitmap containing flags that specify channel properties.
169.Pp
170This field is deprecated in favor of
171.Dv IEEE80211_RADIOTAP_XCHANNEL
172but may be used to save space in the capture file for legacy devices.
173.\".It Dv IEEE80211_RADIOTAP_FHSS
174.\"This field contains two 8-bit values.
175.\"This field should be present only for frequency-hopping radios.
176.\"The first byte is the hop set.
177.\"The second byte is the pattern in use.
178.It Dv IEEE80211_RADIOTAP_DBM_ANTSIGNAL
179This field contains a single signed 8-bit value that indicates the
180RF signal power at the antenna, in decibels difference from 1mW.
181.It Dv IEEE80211_RADIOTAP_DBM_ANTNOISE
182This field contains a single signed 8-bit value that indicates the
183RF noise power at the antenna, in decibels difference from 1mW.
184.\".It Dv IEEE80211_RADIOTAP_LOCK_QUALITY
185.\"This field contains a single unsigned 16-bit value, indicating the
186.\"quality of the Barker Code lock.
187.\"No unit is specified for this field.
188.\"There does not appear to be a standard way of measuring this at this time;
189.\"this quantity is often referred to as
190.\".Dq "Signal Quality"
191.\"in some datasheets.
192.\".It Dv IEEE80211_RADIOTAP_TX_ATTENUATION
193.\"This field contains a single unsigned 16-bit value, expressing transmit
194.\"power as unitless distance from maximum power set at factory calibration.
195.\"0 indicates maximum transmit power.
196.\"Monotonically nondecreasing with lower power levels.
197.\".It Dv IEEE80211_RADIOTAP_DB_TX_ATTENUATION
198.\"This field contains a single unsigned 16-bit value, expressing transmit
199.\"power as decibel distance from maximum power set at factory calibration.
200.\"0 indicates maximum transmit power.
201.\"Monotonically nondecreasing with lower power levels.
202.It Dv IEEE80211_RADIOTAP_DBM_TX_POWER
203Transmit power expressed as decibels from a 1mW reference.
204This field is a single signed 8-bit value.
205This is the absolute power level measured at the antenna port.
206.It Dv IEEE80211_RADIOTAP_ANTENNA
207This field contains a single unsigned 8-bit value that specifies
208which antenna was used to transmit or receive the frame.
209Antenna numbering is device-specific but typically the primary antenna has
210the lowest number.
211On transmit a value of zero may be seen which typically means
212antenna selection is left to the device.
213.It Dv IEEE80211_RADIOTAP_DB_ANTSIGNAL
214This field contains a single unsigned 8-bit value that indicates the
215RF signal power at the antenna, in decibels difference from an
216arbitrary, fixed reference.
217.It Dv IEEE80211_RADIOTAP_DB_ANTNOISE
218This field contains a single unsigned 8-bit value that indicates the
219RF noise power at the antenna, in decibels difference from an
220arbitrary, fixed reference.
221.It Dv IEEE80211_RADIOTAP_XCHANNEL
222This field contains four values: a 32-bit unsigned bitmap of
223flags that describe the channel attributes, a 16-bit unsigned
224frequency in MHz (typically the channel center), an 8-bit
225unsigned IEEE channel number, and a signed 8-bit value that
226holds the maximum regulatory transmit power cap in .5 dBm
227(8 bytes total).
228Channel flags are defined in:
229.In net80211/_ieee80211.h
230(only a subset are found in
231.In net80211/ieee80211_radiotap.h ).
232This property supersedes
233.Dv IEEE80211_RADIOTAP_CHANNEL
234and is the only way to completely express all
235channel attributes and the
236mapping between channel frequency and IEEE channel number.
237.El
238.Sh EXAMPLES
239Radiotap receive definitions for the Intersil Prism driver:
240.Bd -literal -offset indent
241#define WI_RX_RADIOTAP_PRESENT \\
242        ((1 << IEEE80211_RADIOTAP_TSFT) \\
243         (1 << IEEE80211_RADIOTAP_FLAGS) | \\
244         (1 << IEEE80211_RADIOTAP_RATE) | \\
245         (1 << IEEE80211_RADIOTAP_CHANNEL) | \\
246         (1 << IEEE80211_RADIOTAP_DB_ANTSIGNAL) | \\
247         (1 << IEEE80211_RADIOTAP_DB_ANTNOISE))
248
249struct wi_rx_radiotap_header {
250        struct ieee80211_radiotap_header wr_ihdr;
251        uint64_t       wr_tsf;
252        uint8_t        wr_flags;
253        uint8_t        wr_rate;
254        uint16_t       wr_chan_freq;
255        uint16_t       wr_chan_flags;
256        uint8_t        wr_antsignal;
257        uint8_t        wr_antnoise;
258} __packed __aligned(8);
259.Ed
260.Pp
261and transmit definitions for the Atheros driver:
262.Bd -literal -offset indent
263#define ATH_TX_RADIOTAP_PRESENT (               \\
264        (1 << IEEE80211_RADIOTAP_FLAGS)         | \\
265        (1 << IEEE80211_RADIOTAP_RATE)          | \\
266        (1 << IEEE80211_RADIOTAP_DBM_TX_POWER)  | \\
267        (1 << IEEE80211_RADIOTAP_ANTENNA)       | \\
268        (1 << IEEE80211_RADIOTAP_XCHANNEL)      | \\
269        0)
270
271struct ath_tx_radiotap_header {
272        struct ieee80211_radiotap_header wt_ihdr;
273        uint8_t        wt_flags;
274        uint8_t        wt_rate;
275        uint8_t        wt_txpower;
276        uint8_t        wt_antenna;
277        uint32_t       wt_chan_flags;
278        uint16_t       wt_chan_freq;
279        uint8_t        wt_chan_ieee;
280        int8_t         wt_chan_maxpow;
281} __packed;
282.Ed
283.Sh SEE ALSO
284.Xr tcpdump 1 ,
285.Xr bpf 4 ,
286.Xr ieee80211 9
287.Sh HISTORY
288The
289.Nm
290definitions first appeared in
291.Nx 1.5 .
292.\"
293.Sh AUTHORS
294.An -nosplit
295The original version of this manual page was written by
296.An Bruce M. Simpson Aq Mt bms@FreeBSD.org
297and
298.An Darron Broad Aq Mt darron@kewl.org .
299