1
2 Intel(R) PRO/Wireless 2915ABG Driver for Linux in support of:
3
4 Intel(R) PRO/Wireless 2200BG Network Connection
5 Intel(R) PRO/Wireless 2915ABG Network Connection
6
7 Note: The Intel(R) PRO/Wireless 2915ABG Driver for Linux and Intel(R)
8 PRO/Wireless 2200BG Driver for Linux is a unified driver that works on
9 both hardware adapters listed above. In this document the Intel(R)
10 PRO/Wireless 2915ABG Driver for Linux will be used to reference the
11 unified driver.
12
13 Copyright (C) 2004-2006, Intel Corporation
14
15 README.ipw2200
16
17 Version: 1.0.8
18 Date : October 20, 2005
19
20
21 Index
22 -----------------------------------------------
23 0. IMPORTANT INFORMATION BEFORE USING THIS DRIVER
24 1. Introduction
25 1.1. Overview of features
26 1.2. Module parameters
27 1.3. Wireless Extension Private Methods
28 1.4. Sysfs Helper Files
29 1.5. Supported channels
30 2. Ad-Hoc Networking
31 3. Interacting with Wireless Tools
32 3.1. iwconfig mode
33 3.2. iwconfig sens
34 4. About the Version Numbers
35 5. Firmware installation
36 6. Support
37 7. License
38
39
40 0. IMPORTANT INFORMATION BEFORE USING THIS DRIVER
41 -----------------------------------------------
42
43 Important Notice FOR ALL USERS OR DISTRIBUTORS!!!!
44
45 Intel wireless LAN adapters are engineered, manufactured, tested, and
46 quality checked to ensure that they meet all necessary local and
47 governmental regulatory agency requirements for the regions that they
48 are designated and/or marked to ship into. Since wireless LANs are
49 generally unlicensed devices that share spectrum with radars,
50 satellites, and other licensed and unlicensed devices, it is sometimes
51 necessary to dynamically detect, avoid, and limit usage to avoid
52 interference with these devices. In many instances Intel is required to
53 provide test data to prove regional and local compliance to regional and
54 governmental regulations before certification or approval to use the
55 product is granted. Intel's wireless LAN's EEPROM, firmware, and
56 software driver are designed to carefully control parameters that affect
57 radio operation and to ensure electromagnetic compliance (EMC). These
58 parameters include, without limitation, RF power, spectrum usage,
59 channel scanning, and human exposure.
60
61 For these reasons Intel cannot permit any manipulation by third parties
62 of the software provided in binary format with the wireless WLAN
63 adapters (e.g., the EEPROM and firmware). Furthermore, if you use any
64 patches, utilities, or code with the Intel wireless LAN adapters that
65 have been manipulated by an unauthorized party (i.e., patches,
66 utilities, or code (including open source code modifications) which have
67 not been validated by Intel), (i) you will be solely responsible for
68 ensuring the regulatory compliance of the products, (ii) Intel will bear
69 no liability, under any theory of liability for any issues associated
70 with the modified products, including without limitation, claims under
71 the warranty and/or issues arising from regulatory non-compliance, and
72 (iii) Intel will not provide or be required to assist in providing
73 support to any third parties for such modified products.
74
75 Note: Many regulatory agencies consider Wireless LAN adapters to be
76 modules, and accordingly, condition system-level regulatory approval
77 upon receipt and review of test data documenting that the antennas and
78 system configuration do not cause the EMC and radio operation to be
79 non-compliant.
80
81 The drivers available for download from SourceForge are provided as a
82 part of a development project. Conformance to local regulatory
83 requirements is the responsibility of the individual developer. As
84 such, if you are interested in deploying or shipping a driver as part of
85 solution intended to be used for purposes other than development, please
86 obtain a tested driver from Intel Customer Support at:
87
88 http://support.intel.com/support/notebook/sb/CS-006408.htm
89
90
91 1. Introduction
92 -----------------------------------------------
93 The following sections attempt to provide a brief introduction to using
94 the Intel(R) PRO/Wireless 2915ABG Driver for Linux.
95
96 This document is not meant to be a comprehensive manual on
97 understanding or using wireless technologies, but should be sufficient
98 to get you moving without wires on Linux.
99
100 For information on building and installing the driver, see the INSTALL
101 file.
102
103
104 1.1. Overview of Features
105 -----------------------------------------------
106 The current release (1.0.8) supports the following features:
107
108 + BSS mode (Infrastructure, Managed)
109 + IBSS mode (Ad-Hoc)
110 + WEP (OPEN and SHARED KEY mode)
111 + 802.1x EAP via wpa_supplicant and xsupplicant
112 + Wireless Extension support
113 + Full B and G rate support (2200 and 2915)
114 + Full A rate support (2915 only)
115 + Transmit power control
116 + S state support (ACPI suspend/resume)
117
118 The following features are currently enabled, but not officially
119 supported:
120
121 + WPA
122 + long/short preamble support
123 + Monitor mode (aka RFMon)
124
125 The distinction between officially supported and enabled is a reflection
126 on the amount of validation and interoperability testing that has been
127 performed on a given feature.
128
129
130
131 1.2. Command Line Parameters
132 -----------------------------------------------
133
134 Like many modules used in the Linux kernel, the Intel(R) PRO/Wireless
135 2915ABG Driver for Linux allows configuration options to be provided
136 as module parameters. The most common way to specify a module parameter
137 is via the command line.
138
139 The general form is:
140
141 % modprobe ipw2200 parameter=value
142
143 Where the supported parameter are:
144
145 associate
146 Set to 0 to disable the auto scan-and-associate functionality of the
147 driver. If disabled, the driver will not attempt to scan
148 for and associate to a network until it has been configured with
149 one or more properties for the target network, for example configuring
150 the network SSID. Default is 1 (auto-associate)
151
152 Example: % modprobe ipw2200 associate=0
153
154 auto_create
155 Set to 0 to disable the auto creation of an Ad-Hoc network
156 matching the channel and network name parameters provided.
157 Default is 1.
158
159 channel
160 channel number for association. The normal method for setting
161 the channel would be to use the standard wireless tools
162 (i.e. `iwconfig eth1 channel 10`), but it is useful sometimes
163 to set this while debugging. Channel 0 means 'ANY'
164
165 debug
166 If using a debug build, this is used to control the amount of debug
167 info is logged. See the 'dvals' and 'load' script for more info on
168 how to use this (the dvals and load scripts are provided as part
169 of the ipw2200 development snapshot releases available from the
170 SourceForge project at http://ipw2200.sf.net)
171
172 led
173 Can be used to turn on experimental LED code.
174 0 = Off, 1 = On. Default is 0.
175
176 mode
177 Can be used to set the default mode of the adapter.
178 0 = Managed, 1 = Ad-Hoc, 2 = Monitor
179
180
181 1.3. Wireless Extension Private Methods
182 -----------------------------------------------
183
184 As an interface designed to handle generic hardware, there are certain
185 capabilities not exposed through the normal Wireless Tool interface. As
186 such, a provision is provided for a driver to declare custom, or
187 private, methods. The Intel(R) PRO/Wireless 2915ABG Driver for Linux
188 defines several of these to configure various settings.
189
190 The general form of using the private wireless methods is:
191
192 % iwpriv $IFNAME method parameters
193
194 Where $IFNAME is the interface name the device is registered with
195 (typically eth1, customized via one of the various network interface
196 name managers, such as ifrename)
197
198 The supported private methods are:
199
200 get_mode
201 Can be used to report out which IEEE mode the driver is
202 configured to support. Example:
203
204 % iwpriv eth1 get_mode
205 eth1 get_mode:802.11bg (6)
206
207 set_mode
208 Can be used to configure which IEEE mode the driver will
209 support.
210
211 Usage:
212 % iwpriv eth1 set_mode {mode}
213 Where {mode} is a number in the range 1-7:
214 1 802.11a (2915 only)
215 2 802.11b
216 3 802.11ab (2915 only)
217 4 802.11g
218 5 802.11ag (2915 only)
219 6 802.11bg
220 7 802.11abg (2915 only)
221
222 get_preamble
223 Can be used to report configuration of preamble length.
224
225 set_preamble
226 Can be used to set the configuration of preamble length:
227
228 Usage:
229 % iwpriv eth1 set_preamble {mode}
230 Where {mode} is one of:
231 1 Long preamble only
232 0 Auto (long or short based on connection)
233
234
235 1.4. Sysfs Helper Files:
236 -----------------------------------------------
237
238 The Linux kernel provides a pseudo file system that can be used to
239 access various components of the operating system. The Intel(R)
240 PRO/Wireless 2915ABG Driver for Linux exposes several configuration
241 parameters through this mechanism.
242
243 An entry in the sysfs can support reading and/or writing. You can
244 typically query the contents of a sysfs entry through the use of cat,
245 and can set the contents via echo. For example:
246
247 % cat /sys/bus/pci/drivers/ipw2200/debug_level
248
249 Will report the current debug level of the driver's logging subsystem
250 (only available if CONFIG_IPW_DEBUG was configured when the driver was
251 built).
252
253 You can set the debug level via:
254
255 % echo $VALUE > /sys/bus/pci/drivers/ipw2200/debug_level
256
257 Where $VALUE would be a number in the case of this sysfs entry. The
258 input to sysfs files does not have to be a number. For example, the
259 firmware loader used by hotplug utilizes sysfs entries for transfering
260 the firmware image from user space into the driver.
261
262 The Intel(R) PRO/Wireless 2915ABG Driver for Linux exposes sysfs entries
263 at two levels -- driver level, which apply to all instances of the driver
264 (in the event that there are more than one device installed) and device
265 level, which applies only to the single specific instance.
266
267
268 1.4.1 Driver Level Sysfs Helper Files
269 -----------------------------------------------
270
271 For the driver level files, look in /sys/bus/pci/drivers/ipw2200/
272
273 debug_level
274
275 This controls the same global as the 'debug' module parameter
276
277
278
279 1.4.2 Device Level Sysfs Helper Files
280 -----------------------------------------------
281
282 For the device level files, look in
283
284 /sys/bus/pci/drivers/ipw2200/{PCI-ID}/
285
286 For example:
287 /sys/bus/pci/drivers/ipw2200/0000:02:01.0
288
289 For the device level files, see /sys/bus/pci/drivers/ipw2200:
290
291 rf_kill
292 read -
293 0 = RF kill not enabled (radio on)
294 1 = SW based RF kill active (radio off)
295 2 = HW based RF kill active (radio off)
296 3 = Both HW and SW RF kill active (radio off)
297 write -
298 0 = If SW based RF kill active, turn the radio back on
299 1 = If radio is on, activate SW based RF kill
300
301 NOTE: If you enable the SW based RF kill and then toggle the HW
302 based RF kill from ON -> OFF -> ON, the radio will NOT come back on
303
304 ucode
305 read-only access to the ucode version number
306
307 led
308 read -
309 0 = LED code disabled
310 1 = LED code enabled
311 write -
312 0 = Disable LED code
313 1 = Enable LED code
314
315 NOTE: The LED code has been reported to hang some systems when
316 running ifconfig and is therefore disabled by default.
317
318
319 1.5. Supported channels
320 -----------------------------------------------
321
322 Upon loading the Intel(R) PRO/Wireless 2915ABG Driver for Linux, a
323 message stating the detected geography code and the number of 802.11
324 channels supported by the card will be displayed in the log.
325
326 The geography code corresponds to a regulatory domain as shown in the
327 table below.
328
329 Supported channels
330 Code Geography 802.11bg 802.11a
331
332 --- Restricted 11 0
333 ZZF Custom US/Canada 11 8
334 ZZD Rest of World 13 0
335 ZZA Custom USA & Europe & High 11 13
336 ZZB Custom NA & Europe 11 13
337 ZZC Custom Japan 11 4
338 ZZM Custom 11 0
339 ZZE Europe 13 19
340 ZZJ Custom Japan 14 4
341 ZZR Rest of World 14 0
342 ZZH High Band 13 4
343 ZZG Custom Europe 13 4
344 ZZK Europe 13 24
345 ZZL Europe 11 13
346
347
348 2. Ad-Hoc Networking
349 -----------------------------------------------
350
351 When using a device in an Ad-Hoc network, it is useful to understand the
352 sequence and requirements for the driver to be able to create, join, or
353 merge networks.
354
355 The following attempts to provide enough information so that you can
356 have a consistent experience while using the driver as a member of an
357 Ad-Hoc network.
358
359 2.1. Joining an Ad-Hoc Network
360 -----------------------------------------------
361
362 The easiest way to get onto an Ad-Hoc network is to join one that
363 already exists.
364
365 2.2. Creating an Ad-Hoc Network
366 -----------------------------------------------
367
368 An Ad-Hoc networks is created using the syntax of the Wireless tool.
369
370 For Example:
371 iwconfig eth1 mode ad-hoc essid testing channel 2
372
373 2.3. Merging Ad-Hoc Networks
374 -----------------------------------------------
375
376
377 3. Interaction with Wireless Tools
378 -----------------------------------------------
379
380 3.1 iwconfig mode
381 -----------------------------------------------
382
383 When configuring the mode of the adapter, all run-time configured parameters
384 are reset to the value used when the module was loaded. This includes
385 channels, rates, ESSID, etc.
386
387 3.2 iwconfig sens
388 -----------------------------------------------
389
390 The 'iwconfig ethX sens XX' command will not set the signal sensitivity
391 threshold, as described in iwconfig documentation, but rather the number
392 of consecutive missed beacons that will trigger handover, i.e. roaming
393 to another access point. At the same time, it will set the disassociation
394 threshold to 3 times the given value.
395
396
397 4. About the Version Numbers
398 -----------------------------------------------
399
400 Due to the nature of open source development projects, there are
401 frequently changes being incorporated that have not gone through
402 a complete validation process. These changes are incorporated into
403 development snapshot releases.
404
405 Releases are numbered with a three level scheme:
406
407 major.minor.development
408
409 Any version where the 'development' portion is 0 (for example
410 1.0.0, 1.1.0, etc.) indicates a stable version that will be made
411 available for kernel inclusion.
412
413 Any version where the 'development' portion is not a 0 (for
414 example 1.0.1, 1.1.5, etc.) indicates a development version that is
415 being made available for testing and cutting edge users. The stability
416 and functionality of the development releases are not know. We make
417 efforts to try and keep all snapshots reasonably stable, but due to the
418 frequency of their release, and the desire to get those releases
419 available as quickly as possible, unknown anomalies should be expected.
420
421 The major version number will be incremented when significant changes
422 are made to the driver. Currently, there are no major changes planned.
423
424 5. Firmware installation
425 ----------------------------------------------
426
427 The driver requires a firmware image, download it and extract the
428 files under /lib/firmware (or wherever your hotplug's firmware.agent
429 will look for firmware files)
430
431 The firmware can be downloaded from the following URL:
432
433 http://ipw2200.sf.net/
434
435
436 6. Support
437 -----------------------------------------------
438
439 For direct support of the 1.0.0 version, you can contact
440 http://supportmail.intel.com, or you can use the open source project
441 support.
442
443 For general information and support, go to:
444
445 http://ipw2200.sf.net/
446
447
448 7. License
449 -----------------------------------------------
450
451 Copyright(c) 2003 - 2006 Intel Corporation. All rights reserved.
452
453 This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
454 under the terms of the GNU General Public License version 2 as
455 published by the Free Software Foundation.
456
457 This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT
458 ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or
459 FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for
460 more details.
461
462 You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with
463 this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 59
464 Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA.
465
466 The full GNU General Public License is included in this distribution in the
467 file called LICENSE.
468
469 Contact Information:
470 James P. Ketrenos <ipw2100-admin@linux.intel.com>
471 Intel Corporation, 5200 N.E. Elam Young Parkway, Hillsboro, OR 97124-6497
472
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