airo(4)
NAME
airo - Driver for the Aironet 802.11 ISA/PCI/PCMCIA 4500 &
4800 and Cisco 340
SYNOPSIS
insmod airo.o [io=i,j,...] [irq=i,j,...] [basic_rate=n] [rates=i,j,...] [ssids=i,j,...] [adhoc=1] [aux_bap=1] [auto_wep=1] [maxencrypt=n]
DESCRIPTION
This driver is for Cisco 340 and Aironet 4500 and 4800
ISA/PCI/PCMCIA cards and 2.0 or 2.2 kernels. Just for
fun, I tested a 3500 for a total of 2 minutes and it
seemed to work more or less. (The configuration informa
tion displayed in the Config file seemed a bit messed up.)
- The card will create an ethX device for each wireless
card. An entry for each device will be created under
/proc/aironet/ethX with entries to view the status of the
card and configure it. - /proc/aironet
In the /proc/aironet partition there will be a subdirec
tory for each aironet interface. In that subdirectory are
four files: Status, Config, WepKey, and SSID. - Status Most of the fields in the Status file are self
- describing. The Mode: field is a bitmask. Here is
the description from the programmer's manual:
Bit Meaning
0x0001 Configured
0x0002 MAC Enabled
0x0004 Receive Enabled
0x0010 In Sync
0x0020 Associated
0x8000 Error - I'm not sure what the units are in the Signal:
field. - Config The Config file is mode up of fields separated by
- newlines. When setting the fields, they can occur
in any order. If the values are in error, a sane
default will be used. Note, there must be exactly
one space between the colon and the value. - Mode: can be "adhoc" or "ESS". Defaults to ESS.
- NodeName:
- Can be up to 16 characters in length
- PowerMode:
- Can be CAM (Constantly Awake Mode), PSP (Power
Saving something...), PSPCAM (you guess...). CAM
is default. - DataRates:
- Must be separated by exactly 1 space. The units
are 500 kps. So 2 is 1 mbs. There can be up to 8
rates specified. The basic rate set by setting the
high bit (bit 7). - Channel:
- Don't know anything about this except that you can
set it... - XmitPower:
- Transmit power in milliwatts.
- WEP: Can be open, encrypt, and shared, meaning no
- authentication, encrypted data only, shared key
authentication and encryption. Note that when WEP
is enabled the current cards (as of 9/9/99) do not
allow data rates above 2 mbs. - Modulation:
- Can be cck or mok. Sets the modulation type for
speeds above 2mbs. - WepKey This file allows all four wep keys to be set. The
- key is set by writing the index (0 == first key) of
the key to be set, followed by a space, followed by
the key as a string to the file. Each octet must
be written in hexadecimal with leading zeros and
separated by colons. For security reasons the key
cannot be read from the card. Writing to this file
sets both the permanent and temporary key. (Anyone
have a need for being able to write them sepa
rately?) For example:
echo 0 12:04:78:9a:bc > - /proc/aironet/eth0/WepKey
- When the file is read, it shows the length of the
keys that are set and the index of the key that is
set as the transmit key. - APList Contains the list of MACs of the preferred APs.
- Each MAC address must be separated by a delimiter
and each octet of the MAC should be separated by a
delimiter and each octet should have two digits.
01:02:03:04:05:06 and 01-02-03:04:05,06 are valid.
1:2:3:4:5:6 is not. I usually separate the MACs by
linefeeds but any character works. - SSID The SSID file has the list of usable SSIDs. If the
- list is empty, it will associate with any access
point that it can find. The SSIDs are separated by
line feeds. This file may also be written to to
change the list. - Stats/StatsDelta
- Basically a dump of all the statistics of the card.
The source has provisions for all the statistics
even though by default a lot of them are turned
off. Stats give the statistics from the time the
card was powered up. StatsDelta gives the statis
tics from the time the statistics were last reset.
The statistics are reset by opening the StatsDelta
file for writing.
PARAMETERS
- io=i,j,...
- Specifies the set of ioports used by the driver.
This is only used for ISA cards. The irq to be
used will match the irq in the same position in the
irq list. So basically ioport at index i will be
used with the irq at index i. - irq=i,j,...
- Specifies the set of interrupts are used by the
driver. - rates=i,j,...
- A comma separated list of rates. There are up to 8
of them. They are specified in 512 kps units. - basic_rate=n
- Sets the basic rate of the card. Same units as the
rates. (It must be one of the rates.) - ssids=i,j,k
- A comma separated list of ssids. There can be up
to 3. They are a maximum of 32 characters. - maxencrypt=n
- Sets the maximum speed of the card when doing
encryption. If zero (the default), it is not used.
Units are in 512kbs. Older cards could only do
2mbs (n=4) when doing encryption, even though they
could do 11 mbs without encryption. - auto_wep=n
- Turns on logic to cycle through the different WEP
settings until the card is able to associate. It
will also cycle through the wep keys. n is the
number of keys to cycle through. Note, it only
cycles through the keys for shared mode. When
encrypt is tried, it will use the permanent key
index. (See WepKey.) - aux_bap=1
- Enables logic that gets around bus timing problems
on older cards with some boards. The timing prob
lem manifests itself when receiving packets bigger
than 70 bytes.
SPECIFIC NOTES
When used with PCMCIA cards, it must be used with the
airo_cs module.
AUTHOR
Benjamin C. Reed - breed@almaden.ibm.com