| ATH(4) | Device Drivers Manual | ATH(4) |
ath — Atheros IEEE
802.11 wireless network driver
To compile this driver into the kernel, place the following lines in your kernel configuration file:
device ath
device ath_pci
device ath_hal
options AH_SUPPORT_AR5416
device ath_rate_sample
device wlanAlternatively, to load the driver as a module at boot time, place the following line in loader.conf(5):
if_ath_load="YES" if_ath_pci_load="YES"
The ath driver provides support for
wireless network adapters based on the Atheros AR5210, AR5211, AR5212,
AR5416 and AR9300 programming APIs. These APIs are used by a wide variety of
chips; most all chips with a PCI and/or CardBus interface are supported.
Supported features include 802.11 and 802.3 frames, power management, BSS, IBSS, MBSS, TDMA, and host-based access point operation modes. All host/device interaction is via DMA.
Please note that from FreeBSD-9.0, the ath
driver does not include the PCI/PCIe bus glue. The same driver supports
multiple underlying bus types, including PCI/PCIe, but also embedded (AHB)
and USB in the future.
To enable use for PCI/PCIe systems, see the ath_pci(4) driver. For embedded systems which use the AHB to connect the wireless MAC, see the ath_ahb(4) driver.
The ath driver encapsulates all IP and ARP
traffic as 802.11 frames, however it can receive either 802.11 or 802.3
frames. Transmit speed and operating mode is selectable and depends on the
specific chipset. AR5210-based devices support 802.11a operation with
transmit speeds of 6 Mbps, 9 Mbps, 12 Mbps, 18 Mbps, 24 Mbps, 36 Mbps, 48
Mbps, and 54 Mbps. AR5211-based devices support 802.11a and 802.11b
operation with transmit speeds as above for 802.11a operation and 1Mbps,
2Mbps, 5.5 Mbps and 11Mbps for 802.11b operation. AR5212-based devices
support 802.11a, 802.11b, and 802.11g operation with transmit speeds
appropriate to each. AR5416 and later class devices are capable of 802.11n
operation. Most chips also support an Atheros Turbo Mode (TM) that operates
in the 5GHz frequency range with 2x the transmit speeds. Some chips also
support Turbo mode in the 2.4GHz range with 802.11g though this support is
not presently available due to regulatory requirements. (Note that Turbo
modes are, however, only interoperable with other Atheros-based devices.)
AR5212-based and AR5416-based devices also support half- (10MHz) and
quarter-width (5MHz) channels. The actual transmit speed used is dependent
on signal quality and the “rate control” algorithm employed by
the driver. All chips support WEP encryption. AR5212, AR5416 and later parts
have hardware support for the AES-CCM, TKIP, and Michael cryptographic
operations required for WPA. To enable encryption, use
ifconfig(8) as shown below.
The driver supports station,
adhoc, adhoc-demo,
hostap, mesh,
wds, and monitor mode
operation. Multiple hostap virtual interfaces may be
configured for simultaneous use on cards that use a 5212 or later part. When
multiple interfaces are configured each may have a separate mac address that
is formed by setting the U/L bits in the mac address assigned to the
underlying device. Any number of wds virtual
interfaces may be configured together with hostap
interfaces. Multiple station interfaces may be
operated together with hostap interfaces to
construct a wireless repeater device. The driver also support
tdma operation when compiled with
options IEEE80211_SUPPORT_TDMA (which also enables
the required 802.11 support). For more information on configuring this
device, see ifconfig(8).
Devices supported by the ath driver come
in either Cardbus or mini-PCI packages. Wireless cards in Cardbus slots may
be inserted and ejected on the fly.
The ath driver supports all Atheros
Cardbus and PCI cards, except those that are based on the AR5005VL
chipset.
Join a specific BSS network with WEP encryption:
ifconfig wlan0 create wlandev ath0 ifconfig wlan0 inet 192.168.0.20 netmask 0xffffff00 ssid my_net \ wepmode on wepkey 0x8736639624
Join/create an 802.11b IBSS network with network name
“my_net”:
ifconfig wlan0 create wlandev ath0 wlanmode adhoc ifconfig wlan0 inet 192.168.0.22 netmask 0xffffff00 ssid my_net \ mode 11b
Create an 802.11g host-based access point:
ifconfig wlan0 create wlandev ath0 wlanmode hostap ifconfig wlan0 inet 192.168.0.10 netmask 0xffffff00 ssid my_ap \ mode 11g
Create an 802.11a mesh station:
ifconfig wlan0 create wlandev ath0 wlanmode mesh ifconfig wlan0 meshid my_mesh mode 11a inet 192.168.0.10/24
Create two virtual 802.11a host-based access points, one with WEP enabled and one with no security, and bridge them to the fxp0 (wired) device:
ifconfig wlan0 create wlandev ath0 wlanmode hostap \ ssid paying-customers wepmode on wepkey 0x1234567890 \ mode 11a up ifconfig wlan1 create wlandev ath0 wlanmode hostap bssid \ ssid freeloaders up ifconfig bridge0 create addm wlan0 addm wlan1 addm fxp0 up
Create a master node in a two slot TDMA BSS configured to use 2.5 millisecond slots.
ifconfig wlan0 create wlandev ath0 wlanmode tdma \ ssid tdma-test tmdaslot 0 tdmaslotlen 2500 \ channel 36 up
ath_hal(4), cardbus(4), intro(4), pcic(4), wlan(4), wlan_ccmp(4), wlan_tkip(4), wlan_wep(4), wlan_xauth(4), hostapd(8), ifconfig(8), wpa_supplicant(8)
The ath device driver first appeared in
FreeBSD 5.2.
Revision A1 of the D-LINK DWL-G520 and DWL-G650 are based on an Intersil PrismGT chip and are not supported by this driver.
The driver does not fully enable power-save operation of the chip in station mode; consequently power use is suboptimal (e.g. on a laptop).
The AR5210 can only do WEP in hardware; consequently hardware assisted WEP is disabled in order to allow software implementations of TKIP and CCMP to function. Hardware WEP can be re-enabled by modifying the driver.
| April 14, 2014 | Debian |