Ubuntu Manpage: ath — Atheros IEEE 802.11 wireless network driver

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NAME

     ath — Atheros IEEE 802.11 wireless network driver

SYNOPSIS

     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 wlan

     Alternatively, 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"

DESCRIPTION

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, PCIe and/or CardBus interface are supported.

Supported features include 802.11 and 802.3 frames, power management, BSS, IBSS, MBSS,
WDS/DWDS 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 Cardbus, ExpressCard, Mini-PCI and Mini-PCIe
packages. Wireless cards in Cardbus and ExpressCard slots may be inserted and ejected on
the fly.

HARDWARE

     The ath driver supports all Atheros Cardbus, ExpressCard, PCI and PCIe cards, except those
     that are based on the AR5005VL chipset.

EXAMPLES

     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

DIAGNOSTICS

ath%d: unable to attach hardware; HAL status %u The Atheros Hardware Access Layer was
unable to configure the hardware as requested. The status code is explained in the HAL
include file sys/dev/ath/ath_hal/ah.h.

ath%d: failed to allocate descriptors: %d The driver was unable to allocate contiguous
memory for the transmit and receive descriptors. This usually indicates system memory is
scarce and/or fragmented.

ath%d: unable to setup a data xmit queue! The request to the HAL to set up the transmit
queue for normal data frames failed. This should not happen.

ath%d: unable to setup a beacon xmit queue! The request to the HAL to set up the transmit
queue for 802.11 beacon frames failed. This should not happen.

ath%d: 802.11 address: %s The MAC address programmed in the EEPROM is displayed.

ath%d: hardware error; resetting An unrecoverable error in the hardware occurred. Errors
of this sort include unrecoverable DMA errors. The driver will reset the hardware and
continue.

ath%d: rx FIFO overrun; resetting The receive FIFO in the hardware overflowed before the
data could be transferred to the host. This typically occurs because the hardware ran short
of receive descriptors and had no place to transfer received data. The driver will reset
the hardware and continue.

ath%d: unable to reset hardware; hal status %u The Atheros Hardware Access Layer was unable
to reset the hardware as requested. The status code is explained in the HAL include file
sys/dev/ath/ath_hal/ah.h. This should not happen.

ath%d: unable to start recv logic The driver was unable to restart frame reception. This
should not happen.

ath%d: device timeout A frame dispatched to the hardware for transmission did not complete
in time. The driver will reset the hardware and continue. This should not happen.

ath%d: bogus xmit rate 0x%x An invalid transmit rate was specified for an outgoing frame.
The frame is discarded. This should not happen.

ath%d: ath_chan_set: unable to reset channel %u (%u MHz) The Atheros Hardware Access Layer
was unable to reset the hardware when switching channels during scanning. This should not
happen.

ath%d: failed to enable memory mapping The driver was unable to enable memory-mapped I/O to
the PCI device registers. This should not happen.

ath%d: failed to enable bus mastering The driver was unable to enable the device as a PCI
bus master for doing DMA. This should not happen.

ath%d: cannot map register space The driver was unable to map the device registers into the
host address space. This should not happen.

ath%d: could not map interrupt The driver was unable to allocate an IRQ for the device
interrupt. This should not happen.

ath%d: could not establish interrupt The driver was unable to install the device interrupt
handler. This should not happen.

HISTORY

     The ath device driver first appeared in FreeBSD 5.2.

CAVEATS

     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.

BUGS

     The driver does supports optional station mode power-save operation.

     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.