IPW(4) FreeBSD Kernel Interfaces Manual IPW(4)
NAME
ipw - Intel PRO/Wireless 2100 IEEE 802.11b wireless network device
SYNOPSIS
ipw* at pci?
DESCRIPTION
The ipw driver provides support for the Intel PRO/Wireless 2100 Mini PCI
network adapter.
These are the modes the ipw 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.
IBSS mode Also known as IEEE ad-hoc mode or peer-to-peer mode. This
is the standardized method of operating without an access
point. Stations associate with a service set. However,
actual connections between stations are peer-to-peer.
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 ipw driver can be configured to use Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP) or
Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA1 and WPA2). WPA2 is currently the most
secure encryption standard for wireless networks supported by OpenBSD.
It is strongly recommended that neither WEP nor WPA1 are used as the sole
mechanism to secure wireless communication, due to serious weaknesses.
WPA1 is disabled by default and may be enabled using the option
"wpaprotos wpa1,wpa2". For standard WPA networks which use pre-shared
keys (PSK), keys are configured using the "wpakey" option. WPA-
Enterprise networks require use of the wpa_supplicant package. The ipw
driver relies on the software 802.11 stack for both encryption and
decryption of data frames.
The ipw driver can be configured at runtime with ifconfig(8) or on boot
with hostname.if(5).
FILES
The driver needs at least version 1.3 of the following firmware files,
which are loaded when an interface is brought up:
/etc/firmware/ipw-bss
/etc/firmware/ipw-ibss
/etc/firmware/ipw-monitor
These firmware files are not free because Intel refuses to grant
distribution rights without contractual obligations. As a result, even
though OpenBSD includes the driver, the firmware files cannot be included
and users have to find these files on their own. The official person to
state your views to about this issue is
[email protected].
A prepackaged version of the firmware can be installed using
fw_update(8).
EXAMPLES
The following example scans for available networks:
# ifconfig ipw0 scan
The following hostname.if(5) example configures ipw0 to join network
"mynwid", using WPA key "mywpakey", obtaining an IP address using DHCP:
join mynwid wpakey mywpakey
inet autoconf
DIAGNOSTICS
ipw0: device timeout The driver will reset the hardware. This should
not happen.
ipw0: error N, could not read firmware ... For some reason, the driver
was unable to read the firmware image from the filesystem. The file
might be missing or corrupted.
SEE ALSO
arp(4), ifmedia(4), intro(4), netintro(4), pci(4), hostname.if(5),
ifconfig(8)
HISTORY
The ipw driver first appeared in OpenBSD 3.7.
AUTHORS
The ipw driver was written by Damien Bergamini
<
[email protected]>.
FreeBSD 14.1-RELEASE-p8 March 27, 2025 FreeBSD 14.1-RELEASE-p8