AWI(4) BSD Kernel Interfaces Manual AWI(4)NAMEawi — AMD PCnetMobile IEEE 802.11 PCMCIA wireless network driver
SYNOPSIS
awi* at pcmcia? function ?
DESCRIPTION
The awi driver supports various IEEE 802.11 wireless cards that run AMD
PCnetMobile firmware based on the AMD 79c930 controller with the Intersil
(formerly Harris) PRISM radio chipset. It provides access to 32kb of
memory shared between the controller and the host. All host/device
interaction is accomplished via this shared memory, which can be accessed
either via PCMCIA or I/O memory spaces. The awi driver encapsulates all
IP and ARP traffic in 802.11 frames.
The driver works both in infrastructure mode and in ad-hoc (independent
BSS) mode.
In infrastructure mode, it communicates with an Access Point, which
serves as a link-layer bridge between an Ethernet segment and the wire‐
less network. An access point also provides roaming capability, which
allows a wireless node to move between access points.
In ad-hoc mode, the device communicates peer to peer. Although it is
more efficient to communicate between wireless nodes, the coverage is
limited spatially due to the lack of roaming capability.
In addition to these two modes in the IEEE 802.11 specification, the awi
driver also supports a variant of ad-hoc mode outside of the spec for DS
radio cards. This makes it possible to communicate with the WaveLAN ad-
hoc mode of wi(4) driver. The NWID has no effect in this mode.
Another mode added to the awi driver can be used with old Melco access
points with 2Mbps cards. This mode actually uses the IEEE 802.11 ad-hoc
mode with encapsulation of raw Ethernet packets (including headers) in
802.11 frames.
For more information on configuring this device, see ifconfig(8) and
ifmedia(4).
HARDWARE
Cards supported by the awi driver include:
BayStack 650 1Mbps Frequency Hopping PCCARD adapter
BayStack 660 2Mbps Direct Sequence PCCARD adapter
Icom SL-200 2Mbps Direct Sequence PCCARD adapter
Melco WLI-PCM 2Mbps Direct Sequence PCCARD adapter
NEL SSMagic 2Mbps Direct Sequence PCCARD adapter
Netwave AirSurfer Plus
1Mbps Frequency Hopping PCCARD adapter
Netwave AirSurfer Pro
2Mbps Direct Sequence PCCARD adapter
Nokia C020 WLAN
2Mbps Direct Sequence PCCARD adapter
Farallon SkyLINE
2Mbps Direct Sequence PCCARD adapter
Zoom Air Model 4000
The original Xircom Netwave AirSurfer is supported by the cnw(4) driver,
and the PRISM-II cards are supported by the wi(4) driver.
MEDIA SELECTION
In addition to default Auto media type, the DS cards support DS1 and DS2
media types, while the FH cards support the FH1 media type. For each
media type, the adhoc mediaopt can be used to indicate to the driver to
operate in ad-hoc mode. The flag0 mediaopt should be used only with old
access points, which operate in IBSS mode. For DS radio cards, the
adhoc,flag0 mediaopt can be used for wi(4) compatible WaveLAN ad-hoc
mode.
DIAGNOSTICS
awi0: no suitable CIS info found The device cannot be mapped due to a
resource conflict. Or, the device failed to initialize its firmware.
awi0: failed to complete selftest (%s) The device failed to complete its
self test. In some circumstances, resetting device after power on fails.
Re-inserting the card or setting the interface up and then down again
(using ifconfig(8)) may also be helpful.
awi0: transmit timeout The device failed to generate an interrupt to
acknowledge a transmitted packet.
awi0: failed to lock interrupt The system was unable to obtain the lock
to access shared memory.
awi0: command %d failed %x The device failed to complete the request
from the system.
SEE ALSOarp(4), cnw(4), ifmedia(4), netintro(4), pcmcia(4), wi(4), ifconfig(8),
wiconfig(8)
Am79C930 PCnet Mobile Single-Chip Wireless LAN Media Access Controller,
http://www.amd.com.
HISTORY
The awi device driver first appeared in NetBSD 1.5.
AUTHORS
The initial version of the awi driver was written by Bill Sommerfeld
⟨sommerfeld@NetBSD.org⟩. It was then completely rewritten to support
cards with the DS phy and ad-hoc mode by
Atsushi Onoe ⟨onoe@NetBSD.org⟩.
BSD January 2, 2006 BSD
