2 Intel(R) PRO/Wireless 2915ABG Driver for Linux in support of:
4 Intel(R) PRO/Wireless 2200BG Network Connection
5 Intel(R) PRO/Wireless 2915ABG Network Connection
7 Note: The Intel(R) PRO/Wireless 2915ABG Driver for Linux and Intel(R)
8 PRO/Wireless 2200BG Driver for Linux is a unified driver that works on
9 both hardware adapters listed above. In this document the Intel(R)
10 PRO/Wireless 2915ABG Driver for Linux will be used to reference the
13 Copyright (C) 2004-2005, Intel Corporation
18 Date : October 20, 2005
22 -----------------------------------------------
23 0. IMPORTANT INFORMATION BEFORE USING THIS DRIVER
25 1.1. Overview of features
26 1.2. Module parameters
27 1.3. Wireless Extension Private Methods
28 1.4. Sysfs Helper Files
29 1.5. Supported channels
31 3. Interacting with Wireless Tools
33 4. About the Version Numbers
34 5. Firmware installation
39 0. IMPORTANT INFORMATION BEFORE USING THIS DRIVER
40 -----------------------------------------------
42 Important Notice FOR ALL USERS OR DISTRIBUTORS!!!!
44 Intel wireless LAN adapters are engineered, manufactured, tested, and
45 quality checked to ensure that they meet all necessary local and
46 governmental regulatory agency requirements for the regions that they
47 are designated and/or marked to ship into. Since wireless LANs are
48 generally unlicensed devices that share spectrum with radars,
49 satellites, and other licensed and unlicensed devices, it is sometimes
50 necessary to dynamically detect, avoid, and limit usage to avoid
51 interference with these devices. In many instances Intel is required to
52 provide test data to prove regional and local compliance to regional and
53 governmental regulations before certification or approval to use the
54 product is granted. Intel's wireless LAN's EEPROM, firmware, and
55 software driver are designed to carefully control parameters that affect
56 radio operation and to ensure electromagnetic compliance (EMC). These
57 parameters include, without limitation, RF power, spectrum usage,
58 channel scanning, and human exposure.
60 For these reasons Intel cannot permit any manipulation by third parties
61 of the software provided in binary format with the wireless WLAN
62 adapters (e.g., the EEPROM and firmware). Furthermore, if you use any
63 patches, utilities, or code with the Intel wireless LAN adapters that
64 have been manipulated by an unauthorized party (i.e., patches,
65 utilities, or code (including open source code modifications) which have
66 not been validated by Intel), (i) you will be solely responsible for
67 ensuring the regulatory compliance of the products, (ii) Intel will bear
68 no liability, under any theory of liability for any issues associated
69 with the modified products, including without limitation, claims under
70 the warranty and/or issues arising from regulatory non-compliance, and
71 (iii) Intel will not provide or be required to assist in providing
72 support to any third parties for such modified products.
74 Note: Many regulatory agencies consider Wireless LAN adapters to be
75 modules, and accordingly, condition system-level regulatory approval
76 upon receipt and review of test data documenting that the antennas and
77 system configuration do not cause the EMC and radio operation to be
80 The drivers available for download from SourceForge are provided as a
81 part of a development project. Conformance to local regulatory
82 requirements is the responsibility of the individual developer. As
83 such, if you are interested in deploying or shipping a driver as part of
84 solution intended to be used for purposes other than development, please
85 obtain a tested driver from Intel Customer Support at:
87 http://support.intel.com/support/notebook/sb/CS-006408.htm
91 -----------------------------------------------
92 The following sections attempt to provide a brief introduction to using
93 the Intel(R) PRO/Wireless 2915ABG Driver for Linux.
95 This document is not meant to be a comprehensive manual on
96 understanding or using wireless technologies, but should be sufficient
97 to get you moving without wires on Linux.
99 For information on building and installing the driver, see the INSTALL
103 1.1. Overview of Features
104 -----------------------------------------------
105 The current release (1.0.8) supports the following features:
107 + BSS mode (Infrastructure, Managed)
109 + WEP (OPEN and SHARED KEY mode)
110 + 802.1x EAP via wpa_supplicant and xsupplicant
111 + Wireless Extension support
112 + Full B and G rate support (2200 and 2915)
113 + Full A rate support (2915 only)
114 + Transmit power control
115 + S state support (ACPI suspend/resume)
117 The following features are currently enabled, but not officially
121 + long/short preamble support
122 + Monitor mode (aka RFMon)
124 The distinction between officially supported and enabled is a reflection
125 on the amount of validation and interoperability testing that has been
126 performed on a given feature.
130 1.2. Command Line Parameters
131 -----------------------------------------------
133 Like many modules used in the Linux kernel, the Intel(R) PRO/Wireless
134 2915ABG Driver for Linux allows configuration options to be provided
135 as module parameters. The most common way to specify a module parameter
136 is via the command line.
140 % modprobe ipw2200 parameter=value
142 Where the supported parameter are:
145 Set to 0 to disable the auto scan-and-associate functionality of the
146 driver. If disabled, the driver will not attempt to scan
147 for and associate to a network until it has been configured with
148 one or more properties for the target network, for example configuring
149 the network SSID. Default is 1 (auto-associate)
151 Example: % modprobe ipw2200 associate=0
154 Set to 0 to disable the auto creation of an Ad-Hoc network
155 matching the channel and network name parameters provided.
159 channel number for association. The normal method for setting
160 the channel would be to use the standard wireless tools
161 (i.e. `iwconfig eth1 channel 10`), but it is useful sometimes
162 to set this while debugging. Channel 0 means 'ANY'
165 If using a debug build, this is used to control the amount of debug
166 info is logged. See the 'dvals' and 'load' script for more info on
167 how to use this (the dvals and load scripts are provided as part
168 of the ipw2200 development snapshot releases available from the
169 SourceForge project at http://ipw2200.sf.net)
172 Can be used to turn on experimental LED code.
173 0 = Off, 1 = On. Default is 0.
176 Can be used to set the default mode of the adapter.
177 0 = Managed, 1 = Ad-Hoc, 2 = Monitor
180 1.3. Wireless Extension Private Methods
181 -----------------------------------------------
183 As an interface designed to handle generic hardware, there are certain
184 capabilities not exposed through the normal Wireless Tool interface. As
185 such, a provision is provided for a driver to declare custom, or
186 private, methods. The Intel(R) PRO/Wireless 2915ABG Driver for Linux
187 defines several of these to configure various settings.
189 The general form of using the private wireless methods is:
191 % iwpriv $IFNAME method parameters
193 Where $IFNAME is the interface name the device is registered with
194 (typically eth1, customized via one of the various network interface
195 name managers, such as ifrename)
197 The supported private methods are:
200 Can be used to report out which IEEE mode the driver is
201 configured to support. Example:
203 % iwpriv eth1 get_mode
204 eth1 get_mode:802.11bg (6)
207 Can be used to configure which IEEE mode the driver will
211 % iwpriv eth1 set_mode {mode}
212 Where {mode} is a number in the range 1-7:
213 1 802.11a (2915 only)
215 3 802.11ab (2915 only)
217 5 802.11ag (2915 only)
219 7 802.11abg (2915 only)
222 Can be used to report configuration of preamble length.
225 Can be used to set the configuration of preamble length:
228 % iwpriv eth1 set_preamble {mode}
229 Where {mode} is one of:
231 0 Auto (long or short based on connection)
234 1.4. Sysfs Helper Files:
235 -----------------------------------------------
237 The Linux kernel provides a pseudo file system that can be used to
238 access various components of the operating system. The Intel(R)
239 PRO/Wireless 2915ABG Driver for Linux exposes several configuration
240 parameters through this mechanism.
242 An entry in the sysfs can support reading and/or writing. You can
243 typically query the contents of a sysfs entry through the use of cat,
244 and can set the contents via echo. For example:
246 % cat /sys/bus/pci/drivers/ipw2200/debug_level
248 Will report the current debug level of the driver's logging subsystem
249 (only available if CONFIG_IPW_DEBUG was configured when the driver was
252 You can set the debug level via:
254 % echo $VALUE > /sys/bus/pci/drivers/ipw2200/debug_level
256 Where $VALUE would be a number in the case of this sysfs entry. The
257 input to sysfs files does not have to be a number. For example, the
258 firmware loader used by hotplug utilizes sysfs entries for transfering
259 the firmware image from user space into the driver.
261 The Intel(R) PRO/Wireless 2915ABG Driver for Linux exposes sysfs entries
262 at two levels -- driver level, which apply to all instances of the driver
263 (in the event that there are more than one device installed) and device
264 level, which applies only to the single specific instance.
267 1.4.1 Driver Level Sysfs Helper Files
268 -----------------------------------------------
270 For the driver level files, look in /sys/bus/pci/drivers/ipw2200/
274 This controls the same global as the 'debug' module parameter
278 1.4.2 Device Level Sysfs Helper Files
279 -----------------------------------------------
281 For the device level files, look in
283 /sys/bus/pci/drivers/ipw2200/{PCI-ID}/
286 /sys/bus/pci/drivers/ipw2200/0000:02:01.0
288 For the device level files, see /sys/bus/pci/drivers/ipw2200:
292 0 = RF kill not enabled (radio on)
293 1 = SW based RF kill active (radio off)
294 2 = HW based RF kill active (radio off)
295 3 = Both HW and SW RF kill active (radio off)
297 0 = If SW based RF kill active, turn the radio back on
298 1 = If radio is on, activate SW based RF kill
300 NOTE: If you enable the SW based RF kill and then toggle the HW
301 based RF kill from ON -> OFF -> ON, the radio will NOT come back on
304 read-only access to the ucode version number
308 0 = LED code disabled
314 NOTE: The LED code has been reported to hang some systems when
315 running ifconfig and is therefore disabled by default.
318 1.5. Supported channels
319 -----------------------------------------------
321 Upon loading the Intel(R) PRO/Wireless 2915ABG Driver for Linux, a
322 message stating the detected geography code and the number of 802.11
323 channels supported by the card will be displayed in the log.
325 The geography code corresponds to a regulatory domain as shown in the
329 Code Geography 802.11bg 802.11a
332 ZZF Custom US/Canada 11 8
333 ZZD Rest of World 13 0
334 ZZA Custom USA & Europe & High 11 13
335 ZZB Custom NA & Europe 11 13
336 ZZC Custom Japan 11 4
339 ZZJ Custom Japan 14 4
340 ZZR Rest of World 14 0
342 ZZG Custom Europe 13 4
348 -----------------------------------------------
350 When using a device in an Ad-Hoc network, it is useful to understand the
351 sequence and requirements for the driver to be able to create, join, or
354 The following attempts to provide enough information so that you can
355 have a consistent experience while using the driver as a member of an
358 2.1. Joining an Ad-Hoc Network
359 -----------------------------------------------
361 The easiest way to get onto an Ad-Hoc network is to join one that
364 2.2. Creating an Ad-Hoc Network
365 -----------------------------------------------
367 An Ad-Hoc networks is created using the syntax of the Wireless tool.
370 iwconfig eth1 mode ad-hoc essid testing channel 2
372 2.3. Merging Ad-Hoc Networks
373 -----------------------------------------------
376 3. Interaction with Wireless Tools
377 -----------------------------------------------
380 -----------------------------------------------
382 When configuring the mode of the adapter, all run-time configured parameters
383 are reset to the value used when the module was loaded. This includes
384 channels, rates, ESSID, etc.
387 4. About the Version Numbers
388 -----------------------------------------------
390 Due to the nature of open source development projects, there are
391 frequently changes being incorporated that have not gone through
392 a complete validation process. These changes are incorporated into
393 development snapshot releases.
395 Releases are numbered with a three level scheme:
397 major.minor.development
399 Any version where the 'development' portion is 0 (for example
400 1.0.0, 1.1.0, etc.) indicates a stable version that will be made
401 available for kernel inclusion.
403 Any version where the 'development' portion is not a 0 (for
404 example 1.0.1, 1.1.5, etc.) indicates a development version that is
405 being made available for testing and cutting edge users. The stability
406 and functionality of the development releases are not know. We make
407 efforts to try and keep all snapshots reasonably stable, but due to the
408 frequency of their release, and the desire to get those releases
409 available as quickly as possible, unknown anomalies should be expected.
411 The major version number will be incremented when significant changes
412 are made to the driver. Currently, there are no major changes planned.
414 5. Firmware installation
415 ----------------------------------------------
417 The driver requires a firmware image, download it and extract the
418 files under /lib/firmware (or wherever your hotplug's firmware.agent
419 will look for firmware files)
421 The firmware can be downloaded from the following URL:
423 http://ipw2200.sf.net/
427 -----------------------------------------------
429 For direct support of the 1.0.0 version, you can contact
430 http://supportmail.intel.com, or you can use the open source project
433 For general information and support, go to:
435 http://ipw2200.sf.net/
439 -----------------------------------------------
441 Copyright(c) 2003 - 2005 Intel Corporation. All rights reserved.
443 This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
444 under the terms of the GNU General Public License version 2 as
445 published by the Free Software Foundation.
447 This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT
448 ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or
449 FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for
452 You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with
453 this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 59
454 Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA.
456 The full GNU General Public License is included in this distribution in the
460 James P. Ketrenos <ipw2100-admin@linux.intel.com>
461 Intel Corporation, 5200 N.E. Elam Young Parkway, Hillsboro, OR 97124-6497