NAME

     bwi — Broadcom BCM43xx IEEE 802.11b/g wireless network driver

SYNOPSIS

     To compile this driver into the kernel, place the following lines in your kernel
     configuration file:

           device bwi
           device wlan
           device wlan_amrr
           device firmware

     Alternatively, to load the driver as a module at boot time, place the following line in
     loader.conf(5):

           if_bwi_load="YES"

DESCRIPTION

     The bwi driver provides support for Broadcom BCM43xx based PCI/CardBus network adapters.

     It supports station and monitor mode operation.  Only one virtual interface may be
     configured at any time.  For more information on configuring this device, see ifconfig(8).

     This driver requires firmware to be loaded before it will work.  The
     ports/net/bwi-firmware-kmod port needs to be installed before ifconfig(8) will work.

HARDWARE

     The bwi driver supports Broadcom BCM43xx based wireless devices, including:

           Card                     Chip       Bus         Standard
           Apple Airport Extreme    BCM4306    PCI         b/g
           Apple Airport Extreme    BCM4318    PCI         b/g
           ASUS WL-100g             BCM4306    CardBus     b/g
           ASUS WL-138g             BCM4318    PCI         b/g
           Buffalo WLI-CB-G54S      BCM4318    CardBus     b/g
           Buffalo WLI-PCI-G54S     BCM4306    PCI         b/g
           Compaq R4035 onboard     BCM4306    PCI         b/g
           Dell Wireless 1390       BCM4311    Mini PCI    b/g
           Dell Wireless 1470       BCM4318    Mini PCI    b/g
           Dell Truemobile 1300 r2  BCM4306    Mini PCI    b/g
           Dell Truemobile 1400     BCM4309    Mini PCI    b/g
           HP nx6125                BCM4319    PCI         b/g
           Linksys WPC54G Ver 3     BCM4318    CardBus     b/g
           Linksys WPC54GS Ver 2    BCM4318    CardBus     b/g
           TRENDnet TEW-401PCplus   BCM4306    CardBus     b/g
           US Robotics 5411         BCM4318    CardBus     b/g

     The bwi driver uses the older v3 version of Broadcom's firmware.  While this older firmware
     does support most BCM43xx parts, the bwn(4) driver works better for the newer chips it
     supports.  You must use the bwi driver if you are using older Broadcom chipsets (BCM4301,
     BCM4303 and BCM4306 rev 2).  The v4 version of the firmware that bwn(4) uses does not
     support these chips.

EXAMPLES

     Join an existing BSS network (i.e., connect to an access point):

           ifconfig wlan create wlandev bwi0 inet 192.168.0.20 \
               netmask 0xffffff00

     Join a specific BSS network with network name “my_net”:

           ifconfig wlan create wlandev bwi0 ssid my_net up

     Join a specific BSS network with 64-bit WEP encryption:

           ifconfig wlan create wlandev bwi0 ssid my_net \
                   wepmode on wepkey 0x1234567890 weptxkey 1 up

SEE ALSO

     arp(4), cardbus(4), intro(4), pci(4), wlan(4), wlan_amrr(4), ifconfig(8), wpa_supplicant(8)

HISTORY

     The bwi driver first appeared in FreeBSD 8.0.

AUTHORS

     The bwi driver was written for DragonFly BSD by Sepherosa Ziehau and subsequently ported to
     FreeBSD.

BUGS

     Some card based on the BCM4306 and BCM4309 chips do not work properly on channel 1, 2 and 3.