README.ipw2100 11 KB

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  1. Intel(R) PRO/Wireless 2100 Driver for Linux in support of:
  2. Intel(R) PRO/Wireless 2100 Network Connection
  3. Copyright (C) 2003-2006, Intel Corporation
  4. README.ipw2100
  5. Version: git-1.1.5
  6. Date : January 25, 2006
  7. Index
  8. -----------------------------------------------
  9. 0. IMPORTANT INFORMATION BEFORE USING THIS DRIVER
  10. 1. Introduction
  11. 2. Release git-1.1.5 Current Features
  12. 3. Command Line Parameters
  13. 4. Sysfs Helper Files
  14. 5. Radio Kill Switch
  15. 6. Dynamic Firmware
  16. 7. Power Management
  17. 8. Support
  18. 9. License
  19. 0. IMPORTANT INFORMATION BEFORE USING THIS DRIVER
  20. -----------------------------------------------
  21. Important Notice FOR ALL USERS OR DISTRIBUTORS!!!!
  22. Intel wireless LAN adapters are engineered, manufactured, tested, and
  23. quality checked to ensure that they meet all necessary local and
  24. governmental regulatory agency requirements for the regions that they
  25. are designated and/or marked to ship into. Since wireless LANs are
  26. generally unlicensed devices that share spectrum with radars,
  27. satellites, and other licensed and unlicensed devices, it is sometimes
  28. necessary to dynamically detect, avoid, and limit usage to avoid
  29. interference with these devices. In many instances Intel is required to
  30. provide test data to prove regional and local compliance to regional and
  31. governmental regulations before certification or approval to use the
  32. product is granted. Intel's wireless LAN's EEPROM, firmware, and
  33. software driver are designed to carefully control parameters that affect
  34. radio operation and to ensure electromagnetic compliance (EMC). These
  35. parameters include, without limitation, RF power, spectrum usage,
  36. channel scanning, and human exposure.
  37. For these reasons Intel cannot permit any manipulation by third parties
  38. of the software provided in binary format with the wireless WLAN
  39. adapters (e.g., the EEPROM and firmware). Furthermore, if you use any
  40. patches, utilities, or code with the Intel wireless LAN adapters that
  41. have been manipulated by an unauthorized party (i.e., patches,
  42. utilities, or code (including open source code modifications) which have
  43. not been validated by Intel), (i) you will be solely responsible for
  44. ensuring the regulatory compliance of the products, (ii) Intel will bear
  45. no liability, under any theory of liability for any issues associated
  46. with the modified products, including without limitation, claims under
  47. the warranty and/or issues arising from regulatory non-compliance, and
  48. (iii) Intel will not provide or be required to assist in providing
  49. support to any third parties for such modified products.
  50. Note: Many regulatory agencies consider Wireless LAN adapters to be
  51. modules, and accordingly, condition system-level regulatory approval
  52. upon receipt and review of test data documenting that the antennas and
  53. system configuration do not cause the EMC and radio operation to be
  54. non-compliant.
  55. The drivers available for download from SourceForge are provided as a
  56. part of a development project. Conformance to local regulatory
  57. requirements is the responsibility of the individual developer. As
  58. such, if you are interested in deploying or shipping a driver as part of
  59. solution intended to be used for purposes other than development, please
  60. obtain a tested driver from Intel Customer Support at:
  61. http://www.intel.com/support/wireless/sb/CS-006408.htm
  62. 1. Introduction
  63. -----------------------------------------------
  64. This document provides a brief overview of the features supported by the
  65. IPW2100 driver project. The main project website, where the latest
  66. development version of the driver can be found, is:
  67. http://ipw2100.sourceforge.net
  68. There you can find the not only the latest releases, but also information about
  69. potential fixes and patches, as well as links to the development mailing list
  70. for the driver project.
  71. 2. Release git-1.1.5 Current Supported Features
  72. -----------------------------------------------
  73. - Managed (BSS) and Ad-Hoc (IBSS)
  74. - WEP (shared key and open)
  75. - Wireless Tools support
  76. - 802.1x (tested with XSupplicant 1.0.1)
  77. Enabled (but not supported) features:
  78. - Monitor/RFMon mode
  79. - WPA/WPA2
  80. The distinction between officially supported and enabled is a reflection
  81. on the amount of validation and interoperability testing that has been
  82. performed on a given feature.
  83. 3. Command Line Parameters
  84. -----------------------------------------------
  85. If the driver is built as a module, the following optional parameters are used
  86. by entering them on the command line with the modprobe command using this
  87. syntax:
  88. modprobe ipw2100 [<option>=<VAL1><,VAL2>...]
  89. For example, to disable the radio on driver loading, enter:
  90. modprobe ipw2100 disable=1
  91. The ipw2100 driver supports the following module parameters:
  92. Name Value Example:
  93. debug 0x0-0xffffffff debug=1024
  94. mode 0,1,2 mode=1 /* AdHoc */
  95. channel int channel=3 /* Only valid in AdHoc or Monitor */
  96. associate boolean associate=0 /* Do NOT auto associate */
  97. disable boolean disable=1 /* Do not power the HW */
  98. 4. Sysfs Helper Files
  99. ---------------------------
  100. -----------------------------------------------
  101. There are several ways to control the behavior of the driver. Many of the
  102. general capabilities are exposed through the Wireless Tools (iwconfig). There
  103. are a few capabilities that are exposed through entries in the Linux Sysfs.
  104. ----- Driver Level ------
  105. For the driver level files, look in /sys/bus/pci/drivers/ipw2100/
  106. debug_level
  107. This controls the same global as the 'debug' module parameter. For
  108. information on the various debugging levels available, run the 'dvals'
  109. script found in the driver source directory.
  110. NOTE: 'debug_level' is only enabled if CONFIG_IPW2100_DEBUG is turn
  111. on.
  112. ----- Device Level ------
  113. For the device level files look in
  114. /sys/bus/pci/drivers/ipw2100/{PCI-ID}/
  115. For example:
  116. /sys/bus/pci/drivers/ipw2100/0000:02:01.0
  117. For the device level files, see /sys/bus/pci/drivers/ipw2100:
  118. rf_kill
  119. read -
  120. 0 = RF kill not enabled (radio on)
  121. 1 = SW based RF kill active (radio off)
  122. 2 = HW based RF kill active (radio off)
  123. 3 = Both HW and SW RF kill active (radio off)
  124. write -
  125. 0 = If SW based RF kill active, turn the radio back on
  126. 1 = If radio is on, activate SW based RF kill
  127. NOTE: If you enable the SW based RF kill and then toggle the HW
  128. based RF kill from ON -> OFF -> ON, the radio will NOT come back on
  129. 5. Radio Kill Switch
  130. -----------------------------------------------
  131. Most laptops provide the ability for the user to physically disable the radio.
  132. Some vendors have implemented this as a physical switch that requires no
  133. software to turn the radio off and on. On other laptops, however, the switch
  134. is controlled through a button being pressed and a software driver then making
  135. calls to turn the radio off and on. This is referred to as a "software based
  136. RF kill switch"
  137. See the Sysfs helper file 'rf_kill' for determining the state of the RF switch
  138. on your system.
  139. 6. Dynamic Firmware
  140. -----------------------------------------------
  141. As the firmware is licensed under a restricted use license, it can not be
  142. included within the kernel sources. To enable the IPW2100 you will need a
  143. firmware image to load into the wireless NIC's processors.
  144. You can obtain these images from <http://ipw2100.sf.net/firmware.php>.
  145. See INSTALL for instructions on installing the firmware.
  146. 7. Power Management
  147. -----------------------------------------------
  148. The IPW2100 supports the configuration of the Power Save Protocol
  149. through a private wireless extension interface. The IPW2100 supports
  150. the following different modes:
  151. off No power management. Radio is always on.
  152. on Automatic power management
  153. 1-5 Different levels of power management. The higher the
  154. number the greater the power savings, but with an impact to
  155. packet latencies.
  156. Power management works by powering down the radio after a certain
  157. interval of time has passed where no packets are passed through the
  158. radio. Once powered down, the radio remains in that state for a given
  159. period of time. For higher power savings, the interval between last
  160. packet processed to sleep is shorter and the sleep period is longer.
  161. When the radio is asleep, the access point sending data to the station
  162. must buffer packets at the AP until the station wakes up and requests
  163. any buffered packets. If you have an AP that does not correctly support
  164. the PSP protocol you may experience packet loss or very poor performance
  165. while power management is enabled. If this is the case, you will need
  166. to try and find a firmware update for your AP, or disable power
  167. management (via `iwconfig eth1 power off`)
  168. To configure the power level on the IPW2100 you use a combination of
  169. iwconfig and iwpriv. iwconfig is used to turn power management on, off,
  170. and set it to auto.
  171. iwconfig eth1 power off Disables radio power down
  172. iwconfig eth1 power on Enables radio power management to
  173. last set level (defaults to AUTO)
  174. iwpriv eth1 set_power 0 Sets power level to AUTO and enables
  175. power management if not previously
  176. enabled.
  177. iwpriv eth1 set_power 1-5 Set the power level as specified,
  178. enabling power management if not
  179. previously enabled.
  180. You can view the current power level setting via:
  181. iwpriv eth1 get_power
  182. It will return the current period or timeout that is configured as a string
  183. in the form of xxxx/yyyy (z) where xxxx is the timeout interval (amount of
  184. time after packet processing), yyyy is the period to sleep (amount of time to
  185. wait before powering the radio and querying the access point for buffered
  186. packets), and z is the 'power level'. If power management is turned off the
  187. xxxx/yyyy will be replaced with 'off' -- the level reported will be the active
  188. level if `iwconfig eth1 power on` is invoked.
  189. 8. Support
  190. -----------------------------------------------
  191. For general development information and support,
  192. go to:
  193. http://ipw2100.sf.net/
  194. The ipw2100 1.1.0 driver and firmware can be downloaded from:
  195. http://support.intel.com
  196. For installation support on the ipw2100 1.1.0 driver on Linux kernels
  197. 2.6.8 or greater, email support is available from:
  198. http://supportmail.intel.com
  199. 9. License
  200. -----------------------------------------------
  201. Copyright(c) 2003 - 2006 Intel Corporation. All rights reserved.
  202. This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
  203. under the terms of the GNU General Public License (version 2) as
  204. published by the Free Software Foundation.
  205. This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT
  206. ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or
  207. FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for
  208. more details.
  209. You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with
  210. this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 59
  211. Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA.
  212. The full GNU General Public License is included in this distribution in the
  213. file called LICENSE.
  214. License Contact Information:
  215. James P. Ketrenos <ipw2100-admin@linux.intel.com>
  216. Intel Corporation, 5200 N.E. Elam Young Parkway, Hillsboro, OR 97124-6497