IPW 2100/2200BG/2915ABG/3945ABG drivers for *BSD

Installing firmware binary images

The firmware is a program executed by the adapter itself (not by the host CPU!). The adapter can't do anything before it has received its firmware. For licensing reasons, the firmware images are not shipped with the ipw driver. They are made available in ports and binary packages. The port was created by Florent Thoumie.

Ports:
# cd /usr/ports/net/ipw-firmware/
# make install clean

Pre-compiled binary package:
# pkg_add -r ipw-firmware-1.3_2

Configuring the adapter

Firstly, load the if_ipw module:

# kldload -v if_ipw

Then, make sure that your card is correctly recognized:

# dmesg | grep ipw
ipw0: <Intel(R) PRO/Wireless 2100 MiniPCI> mem 0xe0206000-0xe0206fff irq 11 at device 4.0 on pci2
ipw0: Ethernet address: xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx

Note that the output may vary slightly depending on your system configuration.

Now, you must download the firmware binary image to the adapter. There are three different images. You must choose the correct image depending on how you want to use your adapter:

ipw.fw      BSS mode (aka infrastructure mode) firmware
ipw-i.fw    IBSS mode (aka ad-hoc mode) firmware
ipw-p.fw    Monitor mode firmware

For instance, to download firmware for BSS mode:

# ipwcontrol -i ipw0 -f /usr/local/share/ipw-firmware/ipw.fw

At this point, check that everything is correct:

# ifconfig ipw0
ipw0: flags=8806<BROADCAST,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> mtu 1500
	ether xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx
	media: IEEE 802.11 Wireless Ethernet autoselect (autoselect)
	status: no carrier
	ssid ""
	channel -1 authmode OPEN powersavemode OFF powersavesleep 100
	rtsthreshold 2312 protmode CTS txpower 100
	wepmode OFF weptxkey 0

Enabling the radio transmitter

All Centrino® laptops have the ability to enable/disable the radio transmitter via a button or a switch. The radio transmitter is usually off by default. To know if your radio transmitter is enabled or not, use the ipwcontrol tool with the -r option:

# sysctl dev.ipw.0.radio
dev.ipw.0.radio: 1

If your adapter radio transmitter is off (=0), use your laptop switch to turn it on and re-run the above command to see if it has some effect. If your radio transmitter is still off, it is likely that your laptop uses a software switch that requires additionnal drivers to work. Unfortunately, not all those laptops are supported at this time. Post a message in the forum to indicate your laptop model/brand and we will see if we can do something to make it work.
On some laptops, turning the interface up with ifconfig or dhclient can automatically switch the radio ON.

Associating to an Access Point

If your radio transmitter is on, you can start scanning for an access point:

# ifconfig ipw0 inet 192.168.0.20 netmask 255.255.255.0

Replace 192.168.0.20 and 255.255.255.0 with a valid IP address and netmask on your wired network. Once you have done that, you should be able to ping hosts on the network. If you are experiencing problems with you wireless connection, make sure that you are associated to an access point:

# ifconfig ipw0

should return some information, and you should see:

status: associated

If not, you may be out of range of the access point or have a configuration problem. It may also be the case that your adapter radio transmitter is off.

Advanced configuration

To enable debugging:

# sysctl debug.ipw=10
If you are running FreeBSD 5.4:
# sysctl debug.net80211=10
If you are running FreeBSD 6:
# sysctl net.wlan.debug=-1
# sysctl net.wlan.0.debug=-1

To join a specific BSS network with network name my_net, use ifconfig with the ssid option:

# ifconfig ipw0 inet 192.168.0.20 netmask 0xffffff00 ssid my_net

To join a specific BSS network with 40bits WEP encryption enabled:

# ifconfig ipw0 inet 192.168.0.20 netmask 0xffffff00 ssid my_net \
        wepkey 0x1234567890 weptxkey 1 wepmode on

To join a specific BSS network with 104bits WEP encryption enabled:

# ifconfig ipw0 inet 192.168.0.20 netmask 0xffffff00 ssid my_net \
        wepkey 0x01020304050607080910111213 weptxkey 1 wepmode on

The configuration of the ipw interface through DHCP is the same as for any ethernet adapter. You can use the following command to configure it via DHCP:

# dhclient ipw0

To kill the firmware and reset the adapter:

# ipwcontrol -i ipw0 -k

To get adapter internal statistics:

# ipwcontrol -i ipw0
Number of frames submitted for transfer                     [2331]
Number of frames transmitted                                [2328]
Number of unicast frames transmitted                        [0]
Number of unicast frames transmitted at 1Mb/s               [0]
Number of unicast frames transmitted at 2Mb/s               [0]
Number of unicast frames transmitted at 5.5Mb/s             [0]
Number of unicast frames transmitted at 11Mb/s              [2323]
Number of multicast frames transmitted at 1Mb/s             [4]
Number of multicast frames transmitted at 2Mb/s             [0]
Number of multicast frames transmitted at 5.5Mb/s           [0]
Number of multicast frames transmitted at 11Mb/s            [0]
Number of null frames transmitted                           [0]
Number of RTS frames transmitted                            [4]
Number of CTS frames transmitted                            [0]
Number of ACK frames transmitted                            [2927]
Number of association requests transmitted                  [3]
Number of association responses transmitted                 [0]
Number of reassociation requests transmitted                [0]
Number of reassociation responses transmitted               [0]
Number of probe requests transmitted                        [33]
Number of probe reponses transmitted                        [0]
Number of beacons transmitted                               [0]
Number of ATIM frames transmitted                           [0]
Number of disassociation requests transmitted               [0]
Number of authentication requests transmitted               [3]
Number of deauthentication requests transmitted             [0]
Number of bytes transmitted                                 [263186]
Number of transmission retries                              [0]
Number of transmission retries at 1Mb/s                     [0]
Number of transmission retries at 2Mb/s                     [0]
Number of transmission retries at 5.5Mb/s                   [0]
Number of transmission retries at 11Mb/s                    [0]
Number of transmission failures                             [0]
Number of transmission aborted due to DMA                   [0]
Number of disassociation failures                           [0]
Number of spanning tree frames transmitted                  [0]
Number of transmission errors due to missing ACK            [0]
Number of frames received                                   [3035]
Number of unicast frames received                           [2927]
Number of unicast frames received at 1Mb/s                  [0]
Number of unicast frames received at 2Mb/s                  [0]
Number of unicast frames received at 5.5Mb/s                [0]
Number of unicast frames received at 11Mb/s                 [2927]
Number of multicast frames received                         [102]
Number of multicast frames received at 1Mb/s                [102]
Number of multicast frames received at 2Mb/s                [0]
Number of multicast frames received at 5.5Mb/s              [0]
Number of multicast frames received at 11Mb/s               [0]
Number of null frames received                              [0]
Number of poll frames received                              [0]
Number of RTS frames received                               [0]
Number of CTS frames received                               [2]
Number of ACK frames received                               [2326]
Number of CF-End frames received                            [0]
Number of CF-End + CF-Ack frames received                   [0]
Number of association requests received                     [0]
Number of association responses received                    [0]
Number of reassociation requests received                   [0]
Number of reassociation responses received                  [0]
Number of probe requests received                           [0]
Number of probe reponses received                           [3]
Number of beacons received                                  [28267]
Number of ATIM frames received                              [0]
Number of disassociation requests received                  [2]
Number of authentication requests received                  [3]
Number of deauthentication requests received                [0]
Number of bytes received                                    [3226353]
Number of frames with a bad CRC received                    [7]
Number of frames with a bad CRC received at 1Mb/s           [0]
Number of frames with a bad CRC received at 2Mb/s           [7]
Number of frames with a bad CRC received at 5.5Mb/s         [0]
Number of frames with a bad CRC received at 11Mb/s          [0]
Number of duplicated frames received at 1Mb/s               [0]
Number of duplicated frames received at 2Mb/s               [0]
Number of duplicated frames received at 5.5Mb/s             [0]
Number of duplicated frames received at 11Mb/s              [0]
Number of duplicated frames received                        [0]
Number of frames with a bad protocol received               [0]
Boot time                                                   [0]
Number of frames dropped due to missing buffer              [0]
Number of frames dropped due to DMA                         [0]
Number of frames dropped due to missing fragment            [0]
Number of frames dropped due to non-seq fragment            [0]
Number of frames dropped due to missing first frame         [0]
Number of frames dropped due to uncompleted frame           [0]
Number of times adapter suspended                           [0]
Beacon timeout                                              [114]
Number of poll response timeouts                            [0]
Number of PSP DTIM frames received                          [0]
Number of PSP TIM frames received                           [0]
PSP station Id                                              [1]
RTC time of last association                                [89012371]
Percentage of missed beacons                                [0%]
Percentage of missed transmission retries                   [0%]
Number of access points in access points table              [1]
Number of associations                                      [3]
Number of association failures                              [0]
Number of full scans                                        [3]
Card disabled                                               [false]
RSSI at time of association                                 [57]
Number of reassociations due to no probe response           [3]
Number of reassociations due to poor line quality           [0]
Number of reassociations due to load                        [0]
Number of reassociations due to access point RSSI level     [0]
Number of reassociations due to load leveling               [0]
Number of times authentication failed                       [0]
Number of times authentication response failed              [0]
Number of entries in association table                      [1]
Average RSSI                                                [56]
Self test status                                            [0]
Power mode                                                  [0]
Power index                                                 [0]
IEEE country code                                           [0x00000000]
Channels supported for this country                         [0x00000000]
Number of adapter warm resets                               [0]
Beacon interval                                             [100]
Princeton version                                           [0]
Antenna diversity disabled                                  [false]
CCA RSSI                                                    [16383]
Number of times EEPROM updated                              [0]
Beacon intervals between DTIM                               [0]
Current channel                                             [6]
RTC time                                                    [2908090]
Operating mode                                              [1]
Transmission rate                                           [0x00080008]
Supported transmission rates                                [0x000F000F]
ATIM window                                                 [0]
Supported basic transmission rates                          [0x000F000F]
Adapter highest rate                                        [0x00080008]
Access point highest rate                                   [0x00080008]
Management frame capability                                 [true]
Type of authentication                                      [0]
Adapter card platform type                                  [0]
RTS threshold                                               [2312]
International mode                                          [true]
Fragmentation threshold                                     [0]
Microcode version                                           [1]

Intel® PRO/Wireless 2100/2200BG/2915ABG/3945ABG native drivers for *BSD

Installing firmware binary images

Configuring the adapter

Enabling the radio transmitter

Associating to an Access Point

Advanced configuration

Intel^® PRO/Wireless 2100/2200BG/2915ABG/3945ABG
native drivers for *BSD