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awi(4)

NAME

     awi -- AMD PCnetMobile IEEE 802.11 PCMCIA wireless network driver

SYNOPSIS

     device awi
     device wlan

DESCRIPTION

     The awi driver supports various IEEE 802.11 wireless cards which run AMD
     PCnetMobile firmware based on AMD 79c930 controller with Intersil (for-
     merly Harris) PRISM radio chipset.  It provides access to 32kb of memory
     shared between the controller and the host.  All host/device interaction
     is via this shared memory, which can be accessed either via PCMCIA memory
     space or I/O space.  The awi driver encapsulates all IP and ARP traffic
     as 802.11 frames.

     The driver works both in infrastructure mode and in adhoc (independent
     BSS) mode.

     In infrastructure mode, it communicates with an Access Point which serves
     as a link-layer bridge between an Ethernet and the wireless network.  An
     access point also provides roaming capability which allows wireless nodes
     to move between access points.

     In adhoc mode, it communicates peer to peer.  Though it is more efficient
     to communicate between wireless nodes, the coverage is limited spatially
     due to lack of roaming capability.

     In addition to these two modes in the IEEE 802.11 specification, the awi
     driver also supports a variant of adhoc mode out of spec for DS radio
     cards, which makes it possible to communicate with adhoc mode of wi(8)
     driver.  The NWID doesn't affect in this mode.

     For more information on configuring this device, see ifconfig(8).

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

     cate the driver to operate in adhoc mode.	For DS radio cards,
     adhoc,flag0 mediaopt can be used for wi(4) compatible adhoc mode.	In
     addition to these station modes, hostap mediaopt can be used to create a
     host-based access point.

DIAGNOSTICS

     awi0: awi_pccard_probe: bad banner:  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 down-then-up interface may 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 ALSO

     arp(4), card(4), cnw(4), miibus(4), netintro(4), pccard(4), wi(4),
     wlan(4), ifconfig(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>.  Then the awi driver module was completely
     rewritten to support cards with DS phy and to support adhoc mode by
     Atsushi Onoe <onoe@netbsd.org>.

FreeBSD 5.4		       October 31, 1999 		   FreeBSD 5.4

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