NAME
athn —
Atheros IEEE 802.11a/g/n
wireless network device
SYNOPSIS
athn* at cardbus?
athn* at pci?
athn* at uhub? port ?
DESCRIPTION
The
athn driver provides support for a wide variety of Atheros
802.11n devices, ranging from the AR5008 up to the AR9287.
The AR5008 (codenamed Owl) is the first generation of Atheros 802.11n solutions.
It consists of two chips, a MAC/Baseband Processor and a Radio-on-a-Chip. The
MAC/Baseband Processor can be an AR5416 (PCI and CardBus form factors) or an
AR5418 (PCIe Mini Card form factor). The radio can be an AR2122, AR2133,
AR5122 or an AR5133 chip. The AR2122 chip operates in the 2GHz spectrum and
supports up to 2 transmit paths and 2 receiver paths (2T2R). The AR2133 chip
operates in the 2GHz spectrum and supports up to 3 transmit paths and 3
receiver paths (3T3R). The AR5122 chip operates in the 2GHz and 5GHz spectra
and supports up to 2 transmit paths and 2 receiver paths (2T2R). The AR5133
chip operates in the 2GHz and 5GHz spectra and supports up to 3 transmit paths
and 3 receiver paths (3T3R).
The AR9001 (codenamed Sowl) is a Mini-PCI 802.11n solution. It consists of two
chips, an AR9160 MAC/Baseband Processor and an AR9103 or AR9106
Radio-on-a-Chip. The AR9103 chip operates in the 2GHz spectrum and supports up
to 3 transmit paths and 3 receiver paths (3T3R). The AR9106 chip operates in
the 2GHz and 5GHz spectra and supports up to 3 transmit paths and 3 receiver
paths (3T3R).
The AR9220, AR9223 and AR9280 (codenamed Merlin) are the first generation of
Atheros single-chip 802.11n solutions. The AR9220 and AR9223 exist in PCI and
Mini-PCI form factors. The AR9280 exists in PCIe Mini Card (XB92), half Mini
Card (HB92) and USB 2.0 (AR9280+AR7010) form factors. The AR9220 and AR9280
operate in the 2GHz and 5GHz spectra and support 2 transmit paths and 2
receiver paths (2T2R). The AR9223 operates in the 2GHz spectrum and supports 2
transmit paths and 2 receiver paths (2T2R).
The AR9281 is a single-chip PCIe 802.11n solution. It exists in PCIe Mini Card
(XB91) and half Mini Card (HB91) form factors. It operates in the 2GHz
spectrum and supports 1 transmit path and 2 receiver paths (1T2R).
The AR9285 (codenamed Kite) is a single-chip PCIe 802.11n solution that targets
the value PC market. It exists in PCIe half Mini Card (HB95) form factor only.
It operates in the 2GHz spectrum and supports a single stream (1T1R). It can
be combined with the AR3011 chip to form a combo WiFi/Bluetooth device
(WB195).
The AR9271 is a single-chip USB 2.0 802.11n solution. It operates in the 2GHz
spectrum and supports a single stream (1T1R).
The AR2427 is a single-chip PCIe 802.11b/g solution similar to the other AR9280
solutions but with 802.11n capabilities removed. It exists in PCIe Mini Card
form factor only. It operates in the 2GHz spectrum.
The AR9227 and AR9287 are single-chip 802.11n solutions that target mid-tier
PCs. The AR9227 exists in PCI and Mini-PCI form factors. The AR9287 exists in
PCIe half Mini Card (HB97) and USB 2.0 (AR9287+AR7010) form factors. They
operate in the 2GHz spectrum and support 2 transmit paths and 2 receiver paths
(2T2R).
The following table summarizes the supported chips and their capabilities.
Chipset |
Spectrum |
TxR:S |
Bus |
AR5008-2NG (AR5416+AR2122) |
2GHz |
2x2:2 |
PCI/CardBus |
AR5008-3NG (AR5416+AR2133) |
2GHz |
3x3:2 |
PCI/CardBus |
AR5008-2NX (AR5416+AR5122) |
2GHz/5GHz |
2x2:2 |
PCI/CardBus |
AR5008-3NX (AR5416+AR5133) |
2GHz/5GHz |
3x3:2 |
PCI/CardBus |
AR5008E-2NG (AR5418+AR2122) |
2GHz |
2x2:2 |
PCIe |
AR5008E-3NG (AR5418+AR2133) |
2GHz |
3x3:2 |
PCIe |
AR5008E-2NX (AR5418+AR5122) |
2GHz/5GHz |
2x2:2 |
PCIe |
AR5008E-3NX (AR5418+AR5133) |
2GHz/5GHz |
3x3:2 |
PCIe |
AR9001-2NG (AR9160+AR9103) |
2GHz |
2x2:2 |
PCI |
AR9001-3NG (AR9160+AR9103) |
2GHz |
3x3:2 |
PCI |
AR9001-3NX2 (AR9160+AR9106) |
2GHz/5GHz |
3x3:2 |
PCI |
AR9220 |
2GHz/5GHz |
2x2:2 |
PCI |
AR9223 |
2GHz |
2x2:2 |
PCI |
AR9280 |
2GHz/5GHz |
2x2:2 |
PCIe |
AR9280+AR7010 |
2GHz/5GHz |
2x2:2 |
USB 2.0 |
AR9281 |
2GHz |
1x2:2 |
PCIe |
AR9285 |
2GHz |
1x1:1 |
PCIe |
AR9271 |
2GHz |
1x1:1 |
USB 2.0 |
AR2427 |
2GHz |
1x1:1 |
PCIe |
AR9227 |
2GHz |
2x2:2 |
PCI |
AR9287 |
2GHz |
2x2:2 |
PCIe |
AR9287+AR7010 |
2GHz |
2x2:2 |
USB 2.0 |
These are the modes the
athn driver can operate in:
-
-
- BSS mode
- Also known as infrastructure mode, this
is used when associating with an access point, through which all traffic
passes. This mode is the default.
-
-
- Host AP
- In this mode the driver acts as an access point (base
station) for other cards.
-
-
- monitor mode
- In this mode the driver is able to receive packets without
associating with an access point. This disables the internal receive
filter and enables the card to capture packets from networks which it
wouldn't normally have access to, or to scan for access points.
The
athn driver can be configured to use Wired Equivalent
Privacy (WEP) or Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA-PSK and WPA2-PSK). WPA is the de
facto encryption standard for wireless networks. It is strongly recommended
that WEP not be used as the sole mechanism to secure wireless communication,
due to serious weaknesses in it. The
athn driver relies on
the software 802.11 stack for both encryption and decryption of data frames.
The transmit speed is user-selectable or can be adapted automatically by the
driver depending on the number of hardware transmission retries.
FILES
For USB devices, the driver needs at least version 1.1 of the following firmware
files, which are loaded when an interface is attached:
- /libdata/firmware/athn-ar7010
-
- /libdata/firmware/athn-ar7010-11
-
- /libdata/firmware/athn-ar9271
-
EXAMPLES
The following
ifconfig.if(5)
example configures athn0 to join whatever network is available on boot, using
WEP key “0x1deadbeef1”, channel 11, obtaining an IP address using
DHCP:
dhcp NONE NONE NONE nwkey 0x1deadbeef1 chan 11
The following
ifconfig.if(5)
example creates a host-based access point on boot:
inet 192.168.1.1 255.255.255.0 NONE media autoselect \
mediaopt hostap nwid my_net chan 11
Join an existing BSS network, “my_net”:
# ifconfig athn0 192.168.1.1 netmask 0xffffff00 nwid my_net
DIAGNOSTICS
- athn%d: device timeout
- A frame dispatched to the hardware for transmission did
not complete in time. The driver will reset the hardware. This should not
happen.
- athn%d: radio is disabled by hardware
switch
- The radio transmitter is off and thus no packet can go
out. The driver will reset the hardware. Make sure the laptop radio switch
is on.
- athn%d: radio switch turned
off
- The radio switch has been turned off while the interface
was up and running. The driver will turn the interface down.
- athn%d: error %d, could not read
firmware %s
- For some reason, the driver was unable to read the
firmware file from the filesystem. The file might be missing or
corrupted.
SEE ALSO
arp(4),
cardbus(4),
ifmedia(4),
intro(4),
netintro(4),
pci(4),
usb(4),
ifconfig.if(5),
ifconfig(8)
HISTORY
The
athn driver first appeared in
OpenBSD
4.7. Support for USB 2.0 devices first appeared in
OpenBSD 4.9. It was later ported to
NetBSD 7.0.
AUTHORS
The
athn driver was written by
Damien
Bergamini
<
damien@openbsd.org>
based on source code licensed under the ISC released in 2008 by Atheros
Communications for Linux.
CAVEATS
The
athn driver does not support any of the 802.11n
capabilities offered by the adapters. Additional work is required in
ieee80211(9) before those
features can be supported.