ancontrol(8)

NAME

ancontrol - configure Aironet 4500/4800 devices

SYNOPSIS

ancontrol -i iface -A
ancontrol -i iface -N
ancontrol -i iface -S
ancontrol -i iface -I
ancontrol -i iface -T
ancontrol -i iface -C
ancontrol -i iface -Q
ancontrol -i iface -Z
ancontrol -i iface -R
ancontrol -i iface -t 0-4
ancontrol -i iface -s 0-3
ancontrol -i iface [-v 1-4] -a AP
ancontrol -i iface -b beacon_period
ancontrol -i iface [-v 0 | 1] -d 0-3
ancontrol -i iface -e 0-4
ancontrol -i iface [-v 0-8] -k key
ancontrol -i iface -K 0-2
ancontrol -i iface -W 0-2
ancontrol -i iface -L user_name
ancontrol -i iface -j netjoin_timeout
ancontrol -i iface -l station_name
ancontrol -i iface -m mac_address
ancontrol -i iface [-v 1-3] -n SSID
ancontrol -i iface -o 0 | 1
ancontrol -i iface -p tx_power
ancontrol -i iface -c frequency
ancontrol -i iface -f fragmentation_threshold
ancontrol -i iface -r RTS_threshold
ancontrol -i iface -M 0-15
ancontrol -h

DESCRIPTION

The ancontrol utility controls the operation of Aironet
wireless networking devices via the an(4) driver. Most of the parameters
that can be
changed relate to the IEEE 802.11 protocol which the Aironet
cards implement. This includes such things as the station name,
whether the station
is operating in ad-hoc (point to point) or infrastructure
mode, and the
network name of a service set to join. The ancontrol utili
ty can also be
used to view the current NIC status, configuration and to
dump out the
values of the card's statistics counters.
The iface argument given to ancontrol should be the logical
interface
name associated with the Aironet device (an0, an1, etc.).
If one is not
specified the device ``an0'' will be assumed.
The ancontrol utility is not designed to support the combi
nation of arguments from different SYNOPSIS lines in a single ancontrol
invocation, and
such combinations are not recommended.

OPTIONS

The options are as follows:

-i iface -A
Display the preferred access point list. The AP
list can be used
by stations to specify the MAC address of access
points with
which it wishes to associate. If no AP list is
specified (the
default) then the station will associate with the
first access
point that it finds which serves the SSID(s) speci
fied in the
SSID list. The AP list can be modified with the -a
option.
-i iface -N
Display the SSID list. This is a list of service
set IDs (i.e.,
network names) with which the station wishes to as
sociate. There
may be up to three SSIDs in the list: the station
will go through
the list in ascending order and associate with the
first matching
SSID that it finds.
-i iface -S
Display NIC status information. This includes the
current operating status, current BSSID, SSID, channel, beacon
period and
currently associated access point. The operating
mode indicates
the state of the NIC, MAC status and receiver sta
tus. When the
"synced" keyword appears, it means the NIC has suc
cessfully associated with an access point, associated with an ad
hoc ``master''
station, or become a ``master'' itself. The beacon
period can be
anything between 20 and 976 milliseconds. The de
fault is 100.
-i iface -I
Display NIC capability information. This shows the
device type,
frequency, speed and power level capabilities and
firmware revision levels.
-i iface -T
Display the NIC's internal statistics counters.
-i iface -C
Display current NIC configuration. This shows the
current operation mode, receive mode, MAC address, power save
settings, various timing settings, channel selection, diversity,
transmit power
and transmit speed.
-i iface -Q
Display the cached signal strength information main
tained by the
an(4) driver. The driver retains information about
signal
strength and noise level for packets received from
different
hosts. The signal strength and noise level values
are displayed
in units of dBms by default. The
hw.an.an_cache_mode sysctl(8)
variable can be set to raw, dbm or per.
-i iface -Z
Clear the signal strength cache maintained internal
ly by the
an(4) driver.
-i iface -R
Display RSSI map that converts from the RSSI index
to percent and
dBm.
-i iface -t 0-4
Select transmit speed. The available settings are
as follows:

TX rate NIC speed
0 Auto -- NIC selects optimal
speed
1 1Mbps fixed
2 2Mbps fixed
3 5.5Mbps fixed
4 11Mbps fixed
Note that the 5.5 and 11Mbps settings are only sup
ported on the
4800 series adapters: the 4500 series adapters have
a maximum
speed of 2Mbps.
-i iface -s 0-3
Set power save mode. Valid selections are as fol
lows:

Selection Power save mode 0 None - power save disabled
1 Constantly awake mode (CAM)
2 Power Save Polling (PSP)
3 Fast Power Save Polling (PSP
CAM)
Note that for IBSS (ad-hoc) mode, only PSP mode is
supported, and
only if the ATIM window is non-zero.
-i iface [-v 1-4] -a AP
Set preferred access point. The AP is specified as
a MAC address
consisting of 6 hexadecimal values separated by
colons. By
default, the -a option only sets the first entry in
the AP list.
The -v modifier can be used to specify exactly which
AP list
entry is to be modified. If the -v flag is not
used, the first
AP list entry will be changed.
-i iface -b beacon_period
Set the ad-hoc mode beacon period. The
beacon_period is specified in milliseconds. The default is 100ms.
-i iface [-v 0 | 1] -d 0-3
Select the antenna diversity. Aironet devices can
be configured
with up to two antennas, and transmit and receive
diversity can
be configured accordingly. Valid selections are as
follows:

Selection Diversity 0 Select factory default diver
sity
1 Antenna 1 only
2 Antenna 2 only
3 Antenna 1 and 2
The receive and transmit diversity can be set inde
pendently. The
user must specify which diversity setting is to be
modified by
using the -v option: selection 0 sets the receive
diversity and 1
sets the transmit diversity.
-i iface -e 0-4
Set the transmit WEP key to use. Note that until
this command is
issued, the device will use the last key programmed.
The transmit key is stored in NVRAM. Currently set transmit
key can be
checked via -C option. Selection 4 sets the card in
``Home
Network Mode'' and uses the home key.
-i iface [-v 0-8] -k key
Set a WEP key. For 40 bit prefix 10 hex character
with 0x. For
128 bit prefix 26 hex character with 0x. Use "" as
the key to
erase the key. Supports 4 keys; even numbers are
for permanent
keys and odd number are for temporary keys. For ex
ample, -v 1
sets the first temporary key. (A ``permanent'' key
is stored in
NVRAM; a ``temporary'' key is not.) Note that the
device will
use the most recently-programmed key by default.
Currently set
keys can be checked via -C option, only the sizes of
the keys are
returned. The value of 8 is for the home key. Note
that the
value for the home key can be read back from
firmware.
-i iface -K 0-2
Set authorization type. Use 0 for none, 1 for
``Open'', 2 for
``Shared Key''.
-i iface -W 0-2
Enable WEP. Use 0 for no WEP, 1 to enable full WEP,
2 for mixed
cell.
-i iface -L user_name
Enable LEAP and query for password. It will check
to see if it
has authenticated for up to 60s. To disable LEAP,
set WEP mode.
-i iface -j netjoin_timeout
Set the ad-hoc network join timeout. When a station
is first
activated in ad-hoc mode, it will search out a
``master'' station
with the desired SSID and associate with it. If the
station is
unable to locate another station with the same SSID
after a suitable timeout, it sets itself up as the ``master'' so
that other
stations may associate with it. This timeout de
faults to 10000
milliseconds (10 seconds) but may be changed with
this option.
The timeout should be specified in milliseconds.
-i iface -l station_name
Set the station name used internally by the NIC.
The
station_name can be any text string up to 16 charac
ters in
length. The default name is set by the driver to
``FreeBSD''.
-i iface -m mac_address
Set the station address for the specified interface.
The
mac_address is specified as a series of six hexadec
imal values
separated by colons, e.g.: 00:60:1d:12:34:56. This
programs the
new address into the card and updates the interface
as well.
-i iface [-v 1-3] -n SSID
Set the desired SSID (network name). There are
three SSIDs which
allows the NIC to work with access points at several
locations
without needing to be reconfigured. The NIC checks
each SSID in
sequence when searching for a match. The SSID to be
changed can
be specified with the -v modifier option. If the -v
flag is not
used, the first SSID in the list is set.
-i iface -o 0 | 1
Set the operating mode of the Aironet interface.
Valid selections are 0 for ad-hoc mode and 1 for infrastructure
mode. The
default driver setting is for infrastructure mode.
-i iface -p tx_power
Set the transmit power level in milliwatts. Valid
power settings
vary depending on the actual NIC and can be viewed
by dumping the
device capabilities with the -I flag. Typical val
ues are 1, 5,
20, 50 and 100mW. Selecting 0 sets the factory de
fault.
-i iface -c frequency
Set the radio frequency of a given interface. The
frequency
should be specified as a channel ID as shown in the
table below.
The list of available frequencies is dependent on
radio regulations specified by regional authorities. Recognized
regulatory
authorities include the FCC (United States), ETSI
(Europe),
France and Japan. Frequencies in the table are
specified in MHz.

Channel ID FCC ETSI France
Japan
1 2412 2412
2 2417 2417
3 2422 2422
4 2427 2427
5 2432 2432
6 2437 2437
7 2442 2442
8 2447 2447
9 2452 2452
10 2457 2457 2457
11 2462 2462 2462
12 - 2467 2467
13 - 2472 2472
14 - -
2484
If an illegal channel is specified, the NIC will re
vert to its
default channel. For NICs sold in the United States
and Europe,
the default channel is 3. For NICs sold in France,
the default
channel is 11. For NICs sold in Japan, the only
available channel is 14. Note that two stations must be set to
the same channel in order to communicate.
-i iface -f fragmentation_threshold
Set the fragmentation threshold in bytes. This
threshold controls the point at which outgoing packets will be
split into multiple fragments. If a single fragment is not sent
successfully,
only that fragment will need to be retransmitted in
stead of the
whole packet. The fragmentation threshold can be
anything from
64 to 2312 bytes. The default is 2312.
-i iface -r RTS_threshold
Set the RTS/CTS threshold for a given interface.
This controls
the number of bytes used for the RTS/CTS handshake
boundary. The
RTS_threshold can be any value between 0 and 2312.
The default
is 2312.
-i iface -M 0-15
Set monitor mode via bit mask, meaning:

Bit Meaning
0 to not dump 802.11 packet.
1 to enable 802.11 monitor.
2 to monitor any SSID.
4 to not skip beacons, monitor beacons
produces a
high system load.
8 to enable full Aironet header returned
via BPF.
Note it appears that a SSID must be
set.
-h Print a list of available options and sample usage.

SECURITY NOTES

WEP (``wired equivalent privacy'') is based on the RC4 algo
rithm, using a
24 bit initialization vector.
RC4 is supposedly vulnerable to certain known plaintext at
tacks, especially with 40 bit keys. So the security of WEP in part de
pends on how
much known plaintext is transmitted.
Because of this, although counter-intuitive, using ``shared
key'' authentication (which involves sending known plaintext) is less
secure than
using ``open'' authentication when WEP is enabled.
Devices may alternate among all of the configured WEP keys
when transmitting packets. Therefore, all configured keys (up to four)
must agree.

EXAMPLES

ancontrol -i an0 -v 0 -k 0x12345678901234567890123456
ancontrol -i an0 -K 2
ancontrol -i an0 -W 1
ancontrol -i an0 -e 0
Sets a WEP key 0, enables ``Shared Key'' authentication, en
ables full WEP
and uses transmit key 0.

SEE ALSO

an(4), ifconfig(8)

HISTORY

The ancontrol utility first appeared in FreeBSD 4.0.

AUTHORS

The ancontrol utility was written by Bill Paul
<wpaul@ee.columbia.edu>.

BUGS

The statistics counters do not seem to show the amount of
transmit and
received frames as increasing. This is likely due to the
fact that the
an(4) driver uses unmodified packet mode instead of letting
the NIC perform 802.11/ethernet encapsulation itself.
Setting the channel does not seem to have any effect.
BSD September 10, 1999

BSD

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