README.ipw2200 16 KB

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  1. Intel(R) PRO/Wireless 2915ABG Driver for Linux in support of:
  2. Intel(R) PRO/Wireless 2200BG Network Connection
  3. Intel(R) PRO/Wireless 2915ABG Network Connection
  4. Note: The Intel(R) PRO/Wireless 2915ABG Driver for Linux and Intel(R)
  5. PRO/Wireless 2200BG Driver for Linux is a unified driver that works on
  6. both hardware adapters listed above. In this document the Intel(R)
  7. PRO/Wireless 2915ABG Driver for Linux will be used to reference the
  8. unified driver.
  9. Copyright (C) 2004-2006, Intel Corporation
  10. README.ipw2200
  11. Version: 1.1.2
  12. Date : March 30, 2006
  13. Index
  14. -----------------------------------------------
  15. 0. IMPORTANT INFORMATION BEFORE USING THIS DRIVER
  16. 1. Introduction
  17. 1.1. Overview of features
  18. 1.2. Module parameters
  19. 1.3. Wireless Extension Private Methods
  20. 1.4. Sysfs Helper Files
  21. 1.5. Supported channels
  22. 2. Ad-Hoc Networking
  23. 3. Interacting with Wireless Tools
  24. 3.1. iwconfig mode
  25. 3.2. iwconfig sens
  26. 4. About the Version Numbers
  27. 5. Firmware installation
  28. 6. Support
  29. 7. License
  30. 0. IMPORTANT INFORMATION BEFORE USING THIS DRIVER
  31. -----------------------------------------------
  32. Important Notice FOR ALL USERS OR DISTRIBUTORS!!!!
  33. Intel wireless LAN adapters are engineered, manufactured, tested, and
  34. quality checked to ensure that they meet all necessary local and
  35. governmental regulatory agency requirements for the regions that they
  36. are designated and/or marked to ship into. Since wireless LANs are
  37. generally unlicensed devices that share spectrum with radars,
  38. satellites, and other licensed and unlicensed devices, it is sometimes
  39. necessary to dynamically detect, avoid, and limit usage to avoid
  40. interference with these devices. In many instances Intel is required to
  41. provide test data to prove regional and local compliance to regional and
  42. governmental regulations before certification or approval to use the
  43. product is granted. Intel's wireless LAN's EEPROM, firmware, and
  44. software driver are designed to carefully control parameters that affect
  45. radio operation and to ensure electromagnetic compliance (EMC). These
  46. parameters include, without limitation, RF power, spectrum usage,
  47. channel scanning, and human exposure.
  48. For these reasons Intel cannot permit any manipulation by third parties
  49. of the software provided in binary format with the wireless WLAN
  50. adapters (e.g., the EEPROM and firmware). Furthermore, if you use any
  51. patches, utilities, or code with the Intel wireless LAN adapters that
  52. have been manipulated by an unauthorized party (i.e., patches,
  53. utilities, or code (including open source code modifications) which have
  54. not been validated by Intel), (i) you will be solely responsible for
  55. ensuring the regulatory compliance of the products, (ii) Intel will bear
  56. no liability, under any theory of liability for any issues associated
  57. with the modified products, including without limitation, claims under
  58. the warranty and/or issues arising from regulatory non-compliance, and
  59. (iii) Intel will not provide or be required to assist in providing
  60. support to any third parties for such modified products.
  61. Note: Many regulatory agencies consider Wireless LAN adapters to be
  62. modules, and accordingly, condition system-level regulatory approval
  63. upon receipt and review of test data documenting that the antennas and
  64. system configuration do not cause the EMC and radio operation to be
  65. non-compliant.
  66. The drivers available for download from SourceForge are provided as a
  67. part of a development project. Conformance to local regulatory
  68. requirements is the responsibility of the individual developer. As
  69. such, if you are interested in deploying or shipping a driver as part of
  70. solution intended to be used for purposes other than development, please
  71. obtain a tested driver from Intel Customer Support at:
  72. http://support.intel.com/support/notebook/sb/CS-006408.htm
  73. 1. Introduction
  74. -----------------------------------------------
  75. The following sections attempt to provide a brief introduction to using
  76. the Intel(R) PRO/Wireless 2915ABG Driver for Linux.
  77. This document is not meant to be a comprehensive manual on
  78. understanding or using wireless technologies, but should be sufficient
  79. to get you moving without wires on Linux.
  80. For information on building and installing the driver, see the INSTALL
  81. file.
  82. 1.1. Overview of Features
  83. -----------------------------------------------
  84. The current release (1.1.2) supports the following features:
  85. + BSS mode (Infrastructure, Managed)
  86. + IBSS mode (Ad-Hoc)
  87. + WEP (OPEN and SHARED KEY mode)
  88. + 802.1x EAP via wpa_supplicant and xsupplicant
  89. + Wireless Extension support
  90. + Full B and G rate support (2200 and 2915)
  91. + Full A rate support (2915 only)
  92. + Transmit power control
  93. + S state support (ACPI suspend/resume)
  94. The following features are currently enabled, but not officially
  95. supported:
  96. + WPA
  97. + long/short preamble support
  98. + Monitor mode (aka RFMon)
  99. The distinction between officially supported and enabled is a reflection
  100. on the amount of validation and interoperability testing that has been
  101. performed on a given feature.
  102. 1.2. Command Line Parameters
  103. -----------------------------------------------
  104. Like many modules used in the Linux kernel, the Intel(R) PRO/Wireless
  105. 2915ABG Driver for Linux allows configuration options to be provided
  106. as module parameters. The most common way to specify a module parameter
  107. is via the command line.
  108. The general form is:
  109. % modprobe ipw2200 parameter=value
  110. Where the supported parameter are:
  111. associate
  112. Set to 0 to disable the auto scan-and-associate functionality of the
  113. driver. If disabled, the driver will not attempt to scan
  114. for and associate to a network until it has been configured with
  115. one or more properties for the target network, for example configuring
  116. the network SSID. Default is 1 (auto-associate)
  117. Example: % modprobe ipw2200 associate=0
  118. auto_create
  119. Set to 0 to disable the auto creation of an Ad-Hoc network
  120. matching the channel and network name parameters provided.
  121. Default is 1.
  122. channel
  123. channel number for association. The normal method for setting
  124. the channel would be to use the standard wireless tools
  125. (i.e. `iwconfig eth1 channel 10`), but it is useful sometimes
  126. to set this while debugging. Channel 0 means 'ANY'
  127. debug
  128. If using a debug build, this is used to control the amount of debug
  129. info is logged. See the 'dvals' and 'load' script for more info on
  130. how to use this (the dvals and load scripts are provided as part
  131. of the ipw2200 development snapshot releases available from the
  132. SourceForge project at http://ipw2200.sf.net)
  133. led
  134. Can be used to turn on experimental LED code.
  135. 0 = Off, 1 = On. Default is 0.
  136. mode
  137. Can be used to set the default mode of the adapter.
  138. 0 = Managed, 1 = Ad-Hoc, 2 = Monitor
  139. 1.3. Wireless Extension Private Methods
  140. -----------------------------------------------
  141. As an interface designed to handle generic hardware, there are certain
  142. capabilities not exposed through the normal Wireless Tool interface. As
  143. such, a provision is provided for a driver to declare custom, or
  144. private, methods. The Intel(R) PRO/Wireless 2915ABG Driver for Linux
  145. defines several of these to configure various settings.
  146. The general form of using the private wireless methods is:
  147. % iwpriv $IFNAME method parameters
  148. Where $IFNAME is the interface name the device is registered with
  149. (typically eth1, customized via one of the various network interface
  150. name managers, such as ifrename)
  151. The supported private methods are:
  152. get_mode
  153. Can be used to report out which IEEE mode the driver is
  154. configured to support. Example:
  155. % iwpriv eth1 get_mode
  156. eth1 get_mode:802.11bg (6)
  157. set_mode
  158. Can be used to configure which IEEE mode the driver will
  159. support.
  160. Usage:
  161. % iwpriv eth1 set_mode {mode}
  162. Where {mode} is a number in the range 1-7:
  163. 1 802.11a (2915 only)
  164. 2 802.11b
  165. 3 802.11ab (2915 only)
  166. 4 802.11g
  167. 5 802.11ag (2915 only)
  168. 6 802.11bg
  169. 7 802.11abg (2915 only)
  170. get_preamble
  171. Can be used to report configuration of preamble length.
  172. set_preamble
  173. Can be used to set the configuration of preamble length:
  174. Usage:
  175. % iwpriv eth1 set_preamble {mode}
  176. Where {mode} is one of:
  177. 1 Long preamble only
  178. 0 Auto (long or short based on connection)
  179. 1.4. Sysfs Helper Files:
  180. -----------------------------------------------
  181. The Linux kernel provides a pseudo file system that can be used to
  182. access various components of the operating system. The Intel(R)
  183. PRO/Wireless 2915ABG Driver for Linux exposes several configuration
  184. parameters through this mechanism.
  185. An entry in the sysfs can support reading and/or writing. You can
  186. typically query the contents of a sysfs entry through the use of cat,
  187. and can set the contents via echo. For example:
  188. % cat /sys/bus/pci/drivers/ipw2200/debug_level
  189. Will report the current debug level of the driver's logging subsystem
  190. (only available if CONFIG_IPW2200_DEBUG was configured when the driver
  191. was built).
  192. You can set the debug level via:
  193. % echo $VALUE > /sys/bus/pci/drivers/ipw2200/debug_level
  194. Where $VALUE would be a number in the case of this sysfs entry. The
  195. input to sysfs files does not have to be a number. For example, the
  196. firmware loader used by hotplug utilizes sysfs entries for transfering
  197. the firmware image from user space into the driver.
  198. The Intel(R) PRO/Wireless 2915ABG Driver for Linux exposes sysfs entries
  199. at two levels -- driver level, which apply to all instances of the driver
  200. (in the event that there are more than one device installed) and device
  201. level, which applies only to the single specific instance.
  202. 1.4.1 Driver Level Sysfs Helper Files
  203. -----------------------------------------------
  204. For the driver level files, look in /sys/bus/pci/drivers/ipw2200/
  205. debug_level
  206. This controls the same global as the 'debug' module parameter
  207. 1.4.2 Device Level Sysfs Helper Files
  208. -----------------------------------------------
  209. For the device level files, look in
  210. /sys/bus/pci/drivers/ipw2200/{PCI-ID}/
  211. For example:
  212. /sys/bus/pci/drivers/ipw2200/0000:02:01.0
  213. For the device level files, see /sys/bus/pci/drivers/ipw2200:
  214. rf_kill
  215. read -
  216. 0 = RF kill not enabled (radio on)
  217. 1 = SW based RF kill active (radio off)
  218. 2 = HW based RF kill active (radio off)
  219. 3 = Both HW and SW RF kill active (radio off)
  220. write -
  221. 0 = If SW based RF kill active, turn the radio back on
  222. 1 = If radio is on, activate SW based RF kill
  223. NOTE: If you enable the SW based RF kill and then toggle the HW
  224. based RF kill from ON -> OFF -> ON, the radio will NOT come back on
  225. ucode
  226. read-only access to the ucode version number
  227. led
  228. read -
  229. 0 = LED code disabled
  230. 1 = LED code enabled
  231. write -
  232. 0 = Disable LED code
  233. 1 = Enable LED code
  234. NOTE: The LED code has been reported to hang some systems when
  235. running ifconfig and is therefore disabled by default.
  236. 1.5. Supported channels
  237. -----------------------------------------------
  238. Upon loading the Intel(R) PRO/Wireless 2915ABG Driver for Linux, a
  239. message stating the detected geography code and the number of 802.11
  240. channels supported by the card will be displayed in the log.
  241. The geography code corresponds to a regulatory domain as shown in the
  242. table below.
  243. Supported channels
  244. Code Geography 802.11bg 802.11a
  245. --- Restricted 11 0
  246. ZZF Custom US/Canada 11 8
  247. ZZD Rest of World 13 0
  248. ZZA Custom USA & Europe & High 11 13
  249. ZZB Custom NA & Europe 11 13
  250. ZZC Custom Japan 11 4
  251. ZZM Custom 11 0
  252. ZZE Europe 13 19
  253. ZZJ Custom Japan 14 4
  254. ZZR Rest of World 14 0
  255. ZZH High Band 13 4
  256. ZZG Custom Europe 13 4
  257. ZZK Europe 13 24
  258. ZZL Europe 11 13
  259. 2. Ad-Hoc Networking
  260. -----------------------------------------------
  261. When using a device in an Ad-Hoc network, it is useful to understand the
  262. sequence and requirements for the driver to be able to create, join, or
  263. merge networks.
  264. The following attempts to provide enough information so that you can
  265. have a consistent experience while using the driver as a member of an
  266. Ad-Hoc network.
  267. 2.1. Joining an Ad-Hoc Network
  268. -----------------------------------------------
  269. The easiest way to get onto an Ad-Hoc network is to join one that
  270. already exists.
  271. 2.2. Creating an Ad-Hoc Network
  272. -----------------------------------------------
  273. An Ad-Hoc networks is created using the syntax of the Wireless tool.
  274. For Example:
  275. iwconfig eth1 mode ad-hoc essid testing channel 2
  276. 2.3. Merging Ad-Hoc Networks
  277. -----------------------------------------------
  278. 3. Interaction with Wireless Tools
  279. -----------------------------------------------
  280. 3.1 iwconfig mode
  281. -----------------------------------------------
  282. When configuring the mode of the adapter, all run-time configured parameters
  283. are reset to the value used when the module was loaded. This includes
  284. channels, rates, ESSID, etc.
  285. 3.2 iwconfig sens
  286. -----------------------------------------------
  287. The 'iwconfig ethX sens XX' command will not set the signal sensitivity
  288. threshold, as described in iwconfig documentation, but rather the number
  289. of consecutive missed beacons that will trigger handover, i.e. roaming
  290. to another access point. At the same time, it will set the disassociation
  291. threshold to 3 times the given value.
  292. 4. About the Version Numbers
  293. -----------------------------------------------
  294. Due to the nature of open source development projects, there are
  295. frequently changes being incorporated that have not gone through
  296. a complete validation process. These changes are incorporated into
  297. development snapshot releases.
  298. Releases are numbered with a three level scheme:
  299. major.minor.development
  300. Any version where the 'development' portion is 0 (for example
  301. 1.0.0, 1.1.0, etc.) indicates a stable version that will be made
  302. available for kernel inclusion.
  303. Any version where the 'development' portion is not a 0 (for
  304. example 1.0.1, 1.1.5, etc.) indicates a development version that is
  305. being made available for testing and cutting edge users. The stability
  306. and functionality of the development releases are not know. We make
  307. efforts to try and keep all snapshots reasonably stable, but due to the
  308. frequency of their release, and the desire to get those releases
  309. available as quickly as possible, unknown anomalies should be expected.
  310. The major version number will be incremented when significant changes
  311. are made to the driver. Currently, there are no major changes planned.
  312. 5. Firmware installation
  313. ----------------------------------------------
  314. The driver requires a firmware image, download it and extract the
  315. files under /lib/firmware (or wherever your hotplug's firmware.agent
  316. will look for firmware files)
  317. The firmware can be downloaded from the following URL:
  318. http://ipw2200.sf.net/
  319. 6. Support
  320. -----------------------------------------------
  321. For direct support of the 1.0.0 version, you can contact
  322. http://supportmail.intel.com, or you can use the open source project
  323. support.
  324. For general information and support, go to:
  325. http://ipw2200.sf.net/
  326. 7. License
  327. -----------------------------------------------
  328. Copyright(c) 2003 - 2006 Intel Corporation. All rights reserved.
  329. This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
  330. under the terms of the GNU General Public License version 2 as
  331. published by the Free Software Foundation.
  332. This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT
  333. ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or
  334. FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for
  335. more details.
  336. You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with
  337. this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 59
  338. Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA.
  339. The full GNU General Public License is included in this distribution in the
  340. file called LICENSE.
  341. Contact Information:
  342. James P. Ketrenos <ipw2100-admin@linux.intel.com>
  343. Intel Corporation, 5200 N.E. Elam Young Parkway, Hillsboro, OR 97124-6497