- Linux Wireless LAN HOWTO

8/3/2019 - Linux Wireless LAN HOWTO

1/64

< Linux Wireless LAN Howto >

1

Linux Wireless LAN How to

Jean Tourri lhes

7 March 03

Linux & Wireless LA N s : Un*x, with no string attached...

1 In t ro d u ct io n

This docum ent will explore th e ma gical world ofWireless LANs and Linux .

Wireless LAN is not a very widespread and well known technology, even in the

Linux world, so we will tr y to gather here most of t he available informa tion.

Despite the fact that it is very similar to common networking technologies, it is

significant ly different to just ify th is specific docum ent coverin g th e subject.

1.1 Wh at is a Wire le ss LAN ?

Its a networking technology allowing the connection of computers without

an y wires an d cables (apa rt from th e main s), mostly using radio techn ology (an d

sometime infrared). It s called LAN (Local Area Network) because th e ra nge

targeted is small (within an office, a building, a store, a small campus, a house...).

This t echn ology is slowly growing (I should say m at ur ing), an d despite a genera l

lack of int erest , Linu x is able to tak e advan ta ge of some of th e wireless networks

available.

1.2 Con te nt of th is docu m e n t

My first ta sk is to talk a bit about t he different Wireless LANs options u nder

Linux. What th e products on the market are, their compatibility with Linux and

where t o find th e necessar y bits a nd pieces to mak e th em work . This should help

you t o ma ke your mind on t he pr oduct of your drea ms.

Once youve picked a Wireless LAN, you will have to live with it. Th e next

chapter go through the main differences of Wireless LAN compared to other

net working techn ologies. This includes th e ma in steps of th e inst alla tion and usa ge

considerations.

Then , we will have a n ice overview of the Wireless Extensions . The Wireless

Extensions is a new standard interface to configure Wireless LAN devices and get

wireless specific st at ist ics from th em. Of cour se, th is is a Linu x exclus ivity !

At this point, you will find a long and dense section, talking mostly of the

different technolog ies used in Wireless LANs an d oth er bor ing relat ed stu ff. It is

quite safe to skip th at one.

1.3 Targe t an d Assu m ption s

The main goal of th is document is t o reduce the tra ffic of un answered

questions relat ed to wireless in t he Linux newsgroups an d ma iling lists (an d in my


2/64


2

mailbox). After that , you should have no more arguments for asking foolish

questions ar oun d (but I kn ow you will do anyway).

I hope tha t t his docum ent will help people to ma ke th e most of th eir Wireless

LAN under a competent operating system and understand what is in the box. If I

could convince people to give it a t ry, it would ma ke m e ha ppy.

This docum ent act mostly as a complemen t t o th e exha ust ive docum ent at ion

existing for Linux. Becau se of th at , I migh t n ot explain ever y details of everythin g

an d ta rget alr eady quit e knowledgeable people. Dont worr y, ther e is a section on

how to impr ove your cult ur e at th e beginnin g of the section 3.

1.4 Le gal s tu ff

Str an ge world wh ere everybody has to protect h imself from sh ar ks, lawyers

an d crazy people :

Any inform at ion in t his docum ent is pur ely fictious an d an y resemblan ce to

rea l ha rdwa re, softwa re or dr iver is pur ely coincident al...

I mea n, if becau se you r ead t his docum ent your h ar dwar e burn , you get fired

from your job or a nyt hin g else bad h app en, Im n ot respons ible, it can t be my fau lt,

so please u se your own br ain . Writ ing th is kind of docum ent s is not par t of my job

at HP , so I dont expect th em t o claim a ny r esponsibility for its cont ent .

Any bra nd m ent ioned in th is docum ent is tr adem ar k of its respective owner.

For example Linux is a tr adem ar k of Linus Torvalds.

Then, th is is my docum ent , writt en by me (J ean Tourr ilhes), ther efore I own

its copyrigh t. So dont r emove my na me (and copyrigh t n ot ice) an d pret end t ha t you

wrote it yourself. In matter of copy, distribution and modification, you should askme politely an d u se comm on sense.

Ha ving said th at , th is docum ent is also licensed un der th e term s of th e Linux

Documen tat ion Project Copying License .

1.5 Th is docu m e n t

This document is only available in the format that are convenient to me

(acrobat /pdf, htm l). It m ight be upd at ed in t he futu re (if I feel like it a nd if I ha ve

some t ime). I guess t ha t it is pret ty safe to assum e th at it will still be available for

th e time to come at th ese w e b addresses :

ht tp://www.hpl.hp.com/personal/J ean_Tour rilhes/Linu x/Wireless.htm l

ht tp://www.hpl.hp.com/personal/J ean_Tour rilhes/Linu x/Wavelan .htm l

I m ay be rea ched a t t he following e-mail address :

[email protected] p.com

Constructive comments and interesting information are welcomed. I hope

th at you will help me to keep this docum ent up t o dat e and im prove its cont ent .

Commen ts about my english an d my style will be answer ed in fren ch (becau se

I st ill cur se better in french th an in italian). Flames an d spam will be processed

th rough a Rayleig Fading chan nel with a -120 dB at tenu at ion in order to reduce

th e noise :-)


3/64


3

2 The dev i ces , t he dri vers

This section describes t he m ost comm on Wireless LAN products a vailable on

th e mar ket and their compatibil i ty with Lin ux. I will ma ke a short description of

each product an d will mainly focus on t he dr ivers.Except in a few case, you need a driver to interface you wireless network

device to the Linux kernel. The availability of a driver is as usual your main

concern , especially with wireless devices because few people ar e using such

ha rdwa re, so few of them ar e willing to develop, debug an d ma int ain su ch a piece

of code.

For each driver, I will list its status (stable, buggy...), the maintainer, the

version , how to get itand the main features. If you hear about somethin g new or if

you h ave developed your self a dr iver, please not ify me.

2.1 Lu ce nt Wa ve la n & D EC Roa mAbou t D S

Dr iver st at us : st able

Dr iver name : ISA : wavelan .o

Pcmcia : wavelan_cs.o

Version : v19 (20/4/99), v20 (29/7/99) or v23 (10/10/00)

Where : ISA : Linux kernel (2.0.37, 2.2.11 & 2.3.15)

Pcmcia : Pcmcia package (3.0.11)

Crea tors : Bruce Janson (ISA) and Anthony D. Joseph (Pcmcia)

Main ta iner : Jean Tourr ilhes

Web page : ht tp://www.hpl.hp.com/persona l/J ean_Tourr ilhes/Linu x/Wavelan .htm l

Mailing list : htt p://lists .samba.org/piperma il/wireless/

Documentation : man pages, headers

Configuration : Wireless Extensions

St at ist ics : Wir eless E xt en sion s

Mult i-devices : isa : up to 4

pcmcia : yes

Int eroperability : proprietar y protocol, interopera te with Windows

Other features : module, hardware multicast, Wireless Extensions, SMPNon implemented : roaming

Bu gs : see r elea se n ot es on web pa ge :-(

License : GPL & OpenSour ce

Vendor web pages : http://www.wavelan.com/

http://www.networks.digital.com/dr/wireless/

http://www.cabletron.com/dnpg/dr/npg/lanfm-mn.html


4/64


4

2.1.1 Th e de v ice

The Wavelan ha s been ar oun d for quit e a while now, an d th is product is now

discont inued (and r eplaced by th e Wavelan IE EE /Orinoco - see section 2.2). The

Wavelan is a radio LAN, using the 900 MHz or 2.4 GHz ISM band (Direct

Sequen ce). It is built by Lucent , former ly AT&T, form erly NCR, an d th ere is a few

OEM version (for example t he DE C Roam About DS). The Wavelan comes in two

flavour s, an ISA car d an d a PCMCIA car d (plus t he a ccess point).

The Wavelan appears to the PC as a standard network card and interfaces

natu rally with the networking st ack. The configura tion includes setting th e

frequen cy (10 differen t cha nn els), Net work ID (16 bits). Har dwar e en crypt ion is

opt iona l (DES or AES - 64 bits key).

This product is built around a standard Ethernet controller (that may be

foun d in some 3Com an d Int el Et her net cards), an d th e Eth ern et physical layer is

replaced by a radio modem. The ISA and Pcmcia cards share the same basic

ar chitectur e, have the sam e modem, but have different Et hern et Cont rollers a nd

bus interfaces (the pcmcia has only one tr ansm it buffer). Because th e Wavelan

doesnt use a specific radio MAC (no MAC level ret ra nsmissions for exam ple), it

uses very efficiently the bandwidth, but is more sensitive to packet loss and

collisions.

There is two versions of t he modem, a 900 MHz and a 2.4 GHz version.

Revision 2 of the 2.4 GHz modem allows the user to set the frequency (from a set

of pr edefined chan nels - th e availability of each cha nn el depend on the regu lat ion).

The Wavelan is Direct Sequence Spread Spectrum (11 chips encoding), using a

2 Mb/s signa lling ra te (using effectively 22 MHz of bandwidth) and diversity

antennas .

2.1.2 Th e drive r

The ISA driver h as a lso been ar oun d for qu ite a wh ile now in t he ker nel an d

is pret ty st able. The last set of modificat ions were t o solve a few rem ainin g sma ll

problems an d a dd Wireless Extensions and some oth er featu res, so the driver is

fair ly complete n ow. The only th ings rem ainin g to do is th e implement at ion of the

roam ing pr otocol (but it might come, if Im not too lazy...).

The Pcmcia dr iver h as caught up with th e ISA one t o offer t he sa me level of

functionality and reliability. The only difference are the pcmcia specific functions

(au to loading, a ut o unloading, cru de power saving).

The lat est r eleases of both drivers (v23) adds SMP su pport .

The drivers use the card EEprom to save the configuration changes for

subsequent reboots. Wireless Extensions let you configure the NWID, the

frequen cy, the sensit ivity a nd t he encryption key (optional). Sta tist ics include t he

signal quality, signal level, noise level and the count of packet received with an

invalid NWID (see Wavelan docum ent at ion). Privat e Wireless Exten sions include

th e sett ing of th e qua lity th resh old.

2.2 Lu c e nt Wa ve la n IE EE , Ori no co , E nt e ra sy s Ro am Ab ou t 802,


5/64


5

Elsa AirLance r 11 and Melco/Buffalo 802.11b

Driver s ta tus : s table (but no longer maintained - see section 2.3)

Dr iver n a me : wvla n _cs.o

Version : v1.0.7Wher e : P cm cia pa cka ge (3.1.25)

Maintainers : Anton Blanchard

Andr eas Neu ha us

Ha rald Roelle

Mous ta fa A. Youssef

Web pages : http://www.hpl.hp.com/personal/Jean_Tourrilhes/Linux/Wavelan-IEEE.html

http://www.fasta.fh-dortmund.de/users/andy/wvlan/

http://www.roelle.com/wvlanPPC/index.htmlhttp://www.cs.umd.edu/~moustafa/mwvlan/mwvlan.html


Documentation : man page, headers

Configura tion : Wireless Extensions & module parameters


Mult i-devices : Yes

Int eroperability : 802.11-DS and 802.11-b, interopera te with Windows

Other fea tures : MTU select ion , mult icas t , p romiscuous mode, power

management , WEP hardware encrypt ion , SMP, mult i-

firmwar e and PP C support .

Non implement ed : Some optim isat ions...

Bu gs : Ma y ha ve som e per for man ce issu es

License : GPL

Vendor web page : ht tp://www.wavelan.com/

http://www.enterasys.com/wireless/

http://www.elsa.com/

http://www.hp.com/notebooks/us/eng/products/wireless/http://www.buffalotech.com/

http://www.1stwave.de/

http://www.artem.de/

2.2.1 Th e de v ice

Even if it uses the same name, the Wa v e la n IE EE product is completely

different from t he old Wavelan , an d t ota lly incompa tible in t erm of protocol an d

har dware int erface. It is still built by Lucent, an d it still operat e in t he 2.4 GHz

ISM band (Direct Sequence), but t he new ha rdwa re fully support t he IE EE 802.11

protocol (and 802.11-b for th e m ore recent versions) an d is no longer based on a


6/64


6

Et her net MAC chip. Ther e is only a Pcmcia version (the ISA vers ion u ses a ISA to

Pcmcia bridge) and the different access points. Recently, Lucent has added a USB

adapter and mini PCI version of the card for laptop (this one is based on a PCI-

Pcmcia br idge).

To confuse t he issue, Lucent has recently renamed the Wavelan IEEE as

Orinoco (Wavelan was bett er IMH O), and t his division was in th e par t of Lucent

spin-off into a n ew compan y called Agere . Enterasys is also selling the Wavelan

IEEE as RoamAbout 802 (this comp an y was form erly known as Cablet ron, which

was the former DEC networking division). Elsa is sel ling i t in Europe as

AirLa n cer 1 1 (on t he other ha nd, th e 2 Mb/s version is quit e different ). In J apa n

(and m aybe also in Eu rope), Melco is selling it as Bu ffalo WLI-P CM-L11. Lat ely,

more vendors have been joining the club, such as H P (HP 802.11b Wireless LAN ),

IBM (IB M H ig h R at e Wi re l e ss LAN ), Dell (Del l Tru eMo b ile 1 15 0 - on th e oth er

han d, the 1100 is an Aironetcard), Compaq (Co mp aq WL 110, WL 210 a nd WL

215 - the WL100 and WL200 are PrismIIbased), 1stWave (1stWave PC-Card)and ARtem (AR te m Co m Ca rd ). The Apple Airport is also derived from the

Wavelan I EE E (see section 2.5).

The Wavelan IEEE appears to the PC as a s tandard network card and

interfaces n at ur ally with th e n etworking stack. The configurat ion includes only

setting th e network n ame (ESSID), th e rest is aut oma tic (finding the equivalent

BSSID an d cha nn el). As usu al for Lu cent , the docum ent at ion a nd website ar e rich.

As with all IEEE 802.11 products, the Wavelan offer a fully featured MAC

protocol, including MAC level acknowledgement (good news for all of us having

dealt with th e old Wavelan car d), optional RTS/CTS, fragmenta tion, a ut oma tic

ra te selection, roam ing. This seems exhau stive, but is man dat ory for IE EE 802.11compliance. Different version of the card include different levels of security (bronze

is basic, silver is with WEP (RC4-40 bits) and gold is with RC4-128 bit encrypt ion).

The MAC support both Mana ged an d Ad -H oc m o de s . However, the initial

firm ware for those car ds did support only a non-complia n t Ad-Hoc mode (called Ad-

Hoc demo mode - which interoperat e with most Pr ismII cards). In order to gain

WiFi complian ce, Lucent a dded in recent firm war e (6.06 an d great er) a second Ad-

Hoc mode which is fully 802.11 compliant (called Peer to Peer mode or IBSS Ad-

Hoc mode - an d which int eropera te wit h Aironet car ds). Of cour se, th e two Ad-Hoc

modes ar e not int eroperable.

The 2.4 GHz modem is an en ha nced vers ion of th e previous gener at ion, DirectSequen ce Sprea d Spectrum (11 chips encoding), usin g both 1 an d 2 Mb/s signa lling

ra te (using effectively 22 MHz of bandwidth) and 5.5 and 11 Mb/s in second

generat ion cards, diversity an ten na s an d with 13 different frequen cies (depending

on t he r egulations).

Init ially, th e Wavelan was only offerin g 1 an d 2 Mb/s bit r at es (basic IEEE

802.11 DS standard). For a while, Lucent was also selling a turbo version of the

car d, which was adding 5 a nd 10 Mb/s bit-rat es for short er ra nge using Lucent

proprietary modulations (so, not compatible with 802.11-b).


7/64


7

Nowadays, Lucent offers only the second generation of the Wavelan IEEE,

which is much cheaper and fully compliant with the new 802.11-b s tandard,

sup port ing 1, 2, 5.5 an d 11 Mb/s bit-ra te (compa tible with oth er 11 Mb/s products).

All Wavelan I EE E car ds do not offer t he exact sa me set of feat ur es, becau se

Lucent keep changing the f irmware . Fr om firmware 1.00 to 4.52, Lucent was

mostly adding features (encryption, power saving) a nd keeping it backward

compa tible, but firm war e 6.04 an d lat er crea ted a major incompa tibility. Fir mwa re

6.06 an d lat er im plemen t a fully 802.11 complian t I BSS Ad-Hoc mode (on t op of th e

Ad-Hoc demo mode). Fir mwa re 6.04 dropped Fr agmenta tion Threshold sett ing in

favor of microwave oven robustness (an automatic fragmentation scheme).

Firmware 6.16 did fix a few bugs with the IBSS Ad-Hoc mode (securi ty,

ESSID=any).

2.2.2 Th e drive r

And reas N euhau s is n o longer work ing t o improve t his d river, t her efore itsnow discontin ued in favor of th e new Or inoco dr iver (see section 2.3). The dr iver is

based on Lu cent source code, which is a cut down version of th eir full dr iver. So, it

lacks a ll the par t about ha ndling natively 802.11 fra mes a nd Lucent pr oprietar y

API , and in itia lly it la cked some of the m ore fan cy feat ur es of Lucent s dr iver, but

Andreas is addin g them slowly. Of cour se, the driver su pport a ll vers ion of th e car d

(bronze, silver, gold - ba sic, t ur bo, t ur bo 11 Mb/s) an d is fully inter opera ble with

Access Point s an d Windows nodes.

Andreas has done a very good job into pr oviding featur es like Wireless

Exten sions (I must adm it th at I did help him quite a bit ;-) an d ma ny configur at ion

parameters (station name, chann el, m tu size). The new version adds Power

man agement and encryption setting, chan ge of the operat ing mode via Wireless

Exten sions, promiscuous an d mu lticast support ...

Andreas ha s done a lot of debugging of th e driver a nd it s eems n ow mu ch m ore

stable. Lastly, the ISA to Pcmcia and PCI to Pcmcia bridges may be a source

troubles under Linux. The latest version of the driver fixes SMP support, multi-

car ds configurat ion, improve wireless.opts support , add IBSS Ad-Hoc mode

support and support properly and sa nely the various firmware releases.

Harald R oelle ha s developped a pa tch for t his dr iver in order t o fully support

th e PP C ar chitectur e. This pa tch m ostly cont ain some bit order fixes. This pa tch

should help other architecture with endianess issues. His patch was eventually

integrated (with major changes) by David Hinds in version 1.0.6 of the dr iver. Iadded firmware detection support in 1.0.6 to properly handle all the various

firm war e releases an d th eir varia tions (in par ticular t he t wo Ad-Hoc modes), and

fixed th e rema ining SMP bugs.

The dr iver does not su pport th e USB an d Mini-PCI version of the Wavelan.

Nowadays, Anton Blanchardis th e official ma int ainer of th e driver, with th e

help ofDavid Gibson . Davidhas done a complete rewrite of the driver (see section

2.3), so this dr iver wont be ma int ained a nymore...

Moustafa ha s released a version of th is driver with scan ning support .


8/64


8

Note th at Lucent has also released a binar y librar y driver (see section 2.4)

which is maybe more solid and perform ant th an th e driver ofAndreas, but lack

proper su pport for Wireless Exten sions.

2.3 Wa ve la n IE EE /Ori no co , P r is m II an d S ym bo l c ar dsDriver s t atu s : somewha t s table

Driver name : Pcmcia : orinoco_cs .o

PLX : orin oco_plx.o

PCI : orinoco_pci.o

Version : v0.13b

Where : Linux kernel (2.4.19)

Pcmcia packa ge (3.1.34)

http://www.ozlabs.org/people/dgibson/dldwd

Maintainers : David Gibson

Pa vel Roskin

Web page : http://www.hpl.hp.com/personal/Jean_Tourrilhes/Linux/Orinoco.html

Mailing list : ht tp://sour ceforge.net/mail/?group_id=44338

Documentation : man page, headers

Configura tion : Wireless Extensions only





management , WEP hardware encrypt ion , SMP, mult i-

firm war e, multi vendors, PPC & ARM support, PLX and P CI

support.

Non implemen ted : Some optim isat ions, USB support ...

Bu gs : N ot fu lly fu nct ion al on som e P rism 2 ca rds, som e r ecen t

versions dont h an dle properly Symbol car ds.

License : MPL and GPL

Vendor web pages : [Too ma ny to list h ere]

2.3.1 Th e de v ice s

As explain ed in var ious sections, Lucent Wavelan -IEE E/Orin oco devices (see

section 2.2), Intersil PrismII devices (see section 2.10) and Symbol High Rate

devices (see section 2.16) ar e basically u sing the s am e MAC c on tro lle r. This

driver at tem pt t o support all th ose devices, which ar e described in deta ils in t heir

own sections .

However, even though those devices use the same MAC controller and the

sam e driver, those devices ar e not th e sam e. Each vendor ha s its own f irmware ,

so the set of feat ur es of th ose cards vary. Some differences ar e visible to th e user


9/64


9

(for example 128 bits key support and multicast), some are more related to

perform an ce and r obust ness t un ing of th e MAC.

Moreover, th ose devices dont u se th e sam e ra di o m o de m (mostly Lucent or

Int ersil) an d same ant enna s. For Pr ismII car ds, even th e actu al layout of th e radio

component s on th e card can ma ke a huge differen ce. This will most ly t ra nsla te int o

differen ce of coverage between the various cards (range and resistance to

interference). The range between some cards may vary by a factor 2 in some

conditions.

2.3.2 Th e drive r

Anton Blanchard and David Gibson became official maint ainers of t he

wvlan_cs driver (see section 2.2) in the end of 2000. David was not very happy

about t he st at e of wvlan_cs.

The H CF (th e low level libra ry pr ovided by Lucent ) hadn t been ma int ained

since the init ia l r e lease of the driver and was quite difficult to read andunderst an d. While the higher layer of th e driver had gone a long way and were

robust and fully featu red, the H CF was a m ess and th e cause of man y problems

(TxTimeout , dr iver corr upt ion/cra shes an d else).

Rather than put up with that , David looked deeply in the low level of the

wlan-ng driver from Mark(see section 2.10) an d th e FreeBSD driver and wr ote a

tota lly new driver combining a new low level core an d t he h igh level feat ur es of

wvlan_cs. The end result was a driver much more readable, robust and well

behaved t han wvlan_cs. In th e pr ocess, David added support for Pr ismII cards.

Then, I fixed a few Wireless Extensions bugs, added some support for Symbol

cards, and we pushed th e driver in t he kernel. The driver was initially nameddldwd_cs and was renamed orinoco_cs at this point. Later on, David Hinds

backport ed th is driver to th e Pcmcia package for u sers of ear lier k ern els.

The ma in goal of the dr iver is to support Wavelan IEEE/Orinoco car ds and

OEM. The driver support all th e firm wares a nd featu res of those car ds properly

an d fully (Ad-Hoc demo mode, IBSS m ode, bit-ra te, en crypt ion k eys...), an d su pport

all th e feat ur es available in wvlan_cs (except m odule par am eters ) with less bugs.

Ben has added Airport support to this driver (see section 2.5) , and the

support of th ose cards is similar to Orinoco car ds (i.e. most featu res support ed

properly).

Sta rt ing in r elease v0.6d, th e support ofS y mb ol ca rd s an d OEM is complete,at least for firmware 1.5 and 1.7. Bit rate, mode of operation (managed, ad-hoc

IBSS an d ad-hoc demo), encrypt ion an d power ma na gemen t ar e fully working. The

release v0.8 added full support for later Symbol firmware 2.00 and 2.20. On

firm war e 2.20 an d later , Power Man agem ent is disabled. Vers ion of the dr iver from

v 0.10 t o v 0.12b d on t w o rk properly with Symbol car ds du e t o a bug, so avoid

those releases. S ym bo l CF c ard s are very different and supported in their own

driver (see section 2.19).

The support ofPrismII ca rd s an d clones is st ill in pr ogress. More debugging

and testing need t o be done, but th e driver can set m ost featu res t o some degree

(Ad-Hoc demo mode, IBSS mode, bit-ra te, encryption keys have been seen to work).


10/64


10

It seems the upgrading firmware fixes problems related to encryption. However,

the wlan-ng and HostAP drivers still have more featur es and ar e more tested...

Sta rt ing in release v0.8, t he orinoco dr iver collection also support P LX

adapters th at a re sold with some PrismI I car ds (via th e orinoco_plx dr iver). Those

ada pter s ar e not r eal Pcmcia adapt ers an d the card looks to the system like a PCI

card. The driver also support Pcmcia cards in regular ISA to Pcmcia or PCI to

Pcmcia adapters, as long the P cm cia ad apte r is recognised a nd configur ed

properly by the Pcmcia pa cka ge (which might be tr icky).

Sta rt ing in release v0.11a, t he orinoco dr iver collection also support P CI

cards (all of them bein g Pr ismI I car ds - via th e orinoco_pci dr iver). The dr iver does

not support the various USB versions of the cards. There is various kind of

MiniPCI implement at ion of the car d, th e dr iver support some of them (Pcmcia

based - Lucent ; PCI based - Pr ismII) but n ot m ost (USB based - Prism II).

The latest version (v0.13b) seems to have fix most of the hardware reset

problems of pr evious versions. There a re m a ny p at ch e s not yet integrat ed in th e

base driver, such a s th e pat ch for Wireless Scan ning an d Wireless Event s support

an d th e pat ch to pr ovide Monit or m ode, most of those pat ches a re listed on my web

page.

2.4 Lu c e n t Wa v e la n & E n te r as y s R oa m a bo u t (b in a ry li br ar y d ri ve r )


Driver name : wavelan2_cs .o and roamabout_cs .o

Version : v6.16

Where : ftp://ftp.wavelan.com/pub/software/ORiNOCO/PC_Card/linux/http://www.enterasys.com/software/RoamAbout/

ftp://projects.sourceforge.net/pub/pcmcia-cs/contrib/

http://www.cs.umd.edu/~moustafa/mwavelan/mwavelan.html

Con tact : Lucen t suppor t

En ter aSys support

Maintainers : Richard van Leeuwen

Dean W. Gehn ert

Mous ta fa A. Youssef

Documentation : Extensive readme

Configura tion : Module parameters, Wireless Extensions


Multi-devices : yes, but th e ISA to Pcmcia bridge mu st be reconfigured


Other features : WEP encryption, power ma nagement an d microwave oven

robustness

Non implement ed : Do not support a ll firm war e releases

Bugs : ?


11/64


11

License : Binary on ly for the core + OpenSource Linux wrapper

Vendor web page : ht tp://www.wavelan.com/

http://www.enterasys.com/wireless/

2.4.1 Th e de v ice

This is the sa me device as t he pr evious ent ry (section 2.2).

2.4.2 Th e drive r

Lucentha s decided to not put all its eggs in t he sam e basket a nd developed a

bold strat egy for the support of th e Wavelan IE EE u nder Linu x. Not only they ha ve

released some source code to allow the source driver mentioned above, but they

have as well contracted Dean to release a dr iver based on a binar y librar y. This

gives Linux users t he choice, a GP L full source driver t o ha ck with an d a st able full

featured binary driver (the official term from Lucent is Linux Driver Source/

Library).Dean ha s writt en th e code int erfacing between Linux and t he libra ry, and ha d

put togeth er a nice package easy to inst all an d with docum ent at ion. As expected,

th e bina ry driver is probably more sta ble an d th an t he full sour ce driver m ent ioned

above, with a slightly different set of feature, and offers all the features of Lucent

Window drivers, plus a nice integra tion with Linu x. This driver supp ort s both th e

basic version of the car d a nd th e tu rbo. The ma jor dra wback is t he bina ry core,

prevent ing the u se on other ar chitectur es (PP C, Arm ...).

Now, th e driver is support ed by Lucent , an d th ey keep adding in it th e same

features they add to the Windows drivers (such as microwave oven robustness).

Their also have added support for the IBSS Ad-Hoc mode (see discussion above).The latest version adds support for 2.4 kernel an d many common Wireless

Exten sions. Note tha t E nt era sys/Cabletr on is also distr ibutin g a slight ly modified

version of th is driver (usu ally an older one).

Moustafa ha s released a version of th is driver with scan ning support .

But , as with an y bina ry dr iver, you should check if your a rchit ectur e and your

version of th e kern el and Pcmcia pa ckage ar e supported.

2.5 Apple Airport


Dr iver n am e : a ir por t .oVersion : 0.13b

Where : Linux kernel (2.4.18)

http://www.ozlabs.org/people/dgibson/dldwd

http://ppclinux.apple.com/~benh/

Maintainer : Benjamin Herrenschmidt

Documenta tion : web page, headers

Configura tion : Wireless Extensions & module parameters



12/64


12

Mu lt i-devices : N o

Int eroperability : 802.11-DS an d 802.11-b, int eroperat e with Mac-OS ;-)


management, WEP hardware encryption, SMP and multi-firmware.

Non implement ed : Some optim isat ions...

Bugs : -

License : GPL

Vendor web page : ht tp://www.apple.com/airport /

2.5.1 Th e de v ice

The Apple AirPort is in fact the Lucent Wa v ela n IEEE repa cka ged, so has

th e same char acteristic as t he Wavelan (see section 2.2). All Airport ha rdwa re is

802.11-b complian t (second gener at ion of Wavelan IEE E) and support 11 Mb/s, an dApple seem t o offer only th e version with 40 bit encrypt ion.

The AirPort card for the most Apple hardware is the OEM version of the

Wavelan I EE E, but it uses a specific slot in th ose compu ter s and t he an ten na s ar e

pre-integrated in the host. Most recent Apple machines offer this interface (iBook,

PowerBook 2000 (aka Pismo), AGP G4s, recent iMacs (DV/SE)...). Note that this

int erface is n o t P c m c i a c o m pa ti bl e even is th e connector is the same, so this card

can t be u sed in t he n orm al P C-Car d slot of oth er lapt ops. This is why th is car d

work only in specific Apple har dware slot a nd only with a specific dr iver.

The Access Point (the famous flying saucer) is similar in functionality to the

Lucent RG-1000 Resident ial Gat eway, an d is fully int eropera ble with oth er 802.11-b hardware.

2.5.2 Th e drive r

Th e f ir s t v ers io n of th e Airport dr iver was done by Benjamin Herrenschmidt

by port ing th e dr iver ofAndreas Neuhaus (see section 2.2) to support th e Apple

Aiport car d. He ha s basically integra ted t he specific PPC pa tch ofHarald Roelle,

thrown away al l the Pcmcia code and replaced it with the specific Apple

initialisation code.

Apar t from th at , th e driver is basically th e same, with th e same feat ur es and

sam e bug ;-)

Th e s e c o nd v e rs i on of th e driver wa s also done by Benjamin Herrenschmidt

an d is just a wra pper on top of th e driver ofDavid Gibson (see section 2.3), an d was

integrated in version 0.05 (kernel 2.4.5). This is a much cleaner solution, because

both dr iver share the same source, so the fea ture set is iden t ica l and a ll

impr ovement s an d bug fixes of the Or inoco driver a re a ut oma tically in t he Airport

driver a nd vice-versa.

2.6 N etw av e AirS urfe r & Xirc om N etw av e

Driver s t atu s : fa ir ly s table

Dr iver name : netwave_cs .o


13/64


13

Version : v 0.4.1

Wher e : P cm cia pa cka ge (2.9.12)

Maintainers : J ohn Markus Bjrndalen

Dag Br at tli

Web pages : h t tp://www.cs .uit .no/~johnm/

http://www.cs.uit.no/~dagb/

Documenta t ion : man page

Configura tion : Module parameters & Wireless Extensions


Multi-devices : yes (except for module param eters setting)


Ot her fea tu res : -Non implement ed : har dware multicast, multiple tr ansm it buffers

Bugs : -

License : OpenSource

Vendor web page : ht tp://www.net wave-wireless.com/

2.6.1 Th e de v ice

The Net wave was also a quite comm on pr oduct, but n owada ys this pr oduct is

discont inued . This is a r adio LAN opera ting in the 2.4 GHz ISM band. It was

built by Netwave Technologies, formerly part of Xircom. The Netwave is Pcmcia

only, and comes in a small form factor (everyth ing is included on th e Pcmcia ca rd !).

The Netwave use a specific MAC protocol designed for radio (a pre 802.11

protocol, with fancy s tuff such as RTS/CTS, vir tua l ca rr ier sense and

fragmentation). It uses a 9 bits domain (Network ID), the highest bit of it used for

th e type of net work (set for a ccess point operat ion a nd u nset for a d-hoc opera tion).

The Net wave uses a lso a 16 bits scra mbling key (encryption). The Modem offers a

1 Mb/s signa lling rat e and frequ ency hopping (100 ms h op period). On t he bad side,

th e Netwave has no ant enna diversity and a high overh ead.

Note th at th e Netwa ve AirSu rfer plus is a very differen t bea st (see below).

2.6.2 Th e drive rThe original aut hor of t he driver (John ) has made a very good job for

debugging it, and his good friend (Dag) has joined the project, and is fixing the

rema ining bugs and adding new featur es. The driver is quite simple an d dont

implement yet the full Wireless Extensions. The driver uses only one transmit

buffer, which lower slight ly the per forma nce. The device configur at ion includes t he

doma in an d th e scra mbling key which can be set t hr ough Wireless Exten sions or

as module pa ra met ers (need to be set in /etc/pcmcia/config.opts - dont forget to

res tart cardmgrafter a cha nge).

It seems th at th e Netwa ve is quite picky with some pcmcia sockets a nd you

might need to choose carefully the interrupt (try different ones) and set the


14/64


14

mem ory speed cor rectly. In some cases, under h igh load (big ftp), th e tr an smission

somet ime get stu ck (I guess tha t some int err upt a re lost) and th e driver ha s to reset

th e car d (you wont n otice it, it just decreases th e performa nce).

2.7 Ne tw ave AirSu rfe r p lu sDriver s t atu s : fa ir ly s table

Dr iver n a me : a splu s_cs.o

Version : 1.0.2

Where : h t tp ://ipoin t .vls i.u iuc.edu/wire less /asplus .h tml


Main ta iner : Jay Moorman

Documentation : Readme, man page

Configura tion : Module parameters, Wireless Extensions


Multi-devices : yes (except for module param eters setting)

Interoperability : proprietar y protocol (same as Netwave), interoperat e with

Windows

Ot her fea tu res : -

Non implemented : 802.11 mode, har dware mu lticast, mu ltiple tr ansm it buffers

Bugs : -

License : OpenSource

Vendor web page : ht tp://www.net wave-wireless.com/

2.7.1 Th e de v ice

The Netwave AirSurfer plus is the second generation of Netwave card (this

product is now also discont inued ), still opera te in th e 2.4 GHz ISM band a nd is

as well a small Pcmcia card. Netwave Technologies has now been acquired by

BayNetwork, n ow a part of Nortel. The BayStack 650 is the new na me of the

hardware.

The AirSurfer plus has two modes of operation, compatible with the old

generation of Netwave, or 802.11 compliant. The hardware is based on an AMD

core, and a 1 Mb/s frequ ency hopping modem.2.7.2 Th e drive r

Jay took th e code of th e or iginal Net wave driver a nd m odified it to support t he

new AirSur fer plus, keeping most of the featu res with it. So, you still have th e

Wireless Ext ensions, an d modules pa ra met ers (in /etc/pcmcia/config.opts).

The current driver support th e AirSu rfer plus only in N etwave compat ible

mode, an d doesnt su pport th e AirSu rfer plus with th e 802.11 firm war e.

2 .8 Ba y S ta ck 6 60 , Zo o mAir, YDI a n d oth er Ha rr is Pr ism ba sed card s ...



15/64


15

Dr iver n a me : wla n _cs .o

Version : 0.2.7, 0.2.7a, 0.3.1.1 (beta version) and 0.3.4 (beta version)

Where : h t tp://www.linux-wlan .com/linux-wlan /

http://www.astro.umd.edu/~teuben/linux/wireless.html

http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~jhill/linuxwlan/

http://www.spesh.com/danny/wlan

Maintainers : Mark S. Mathews

Pet er Teuben

J ason Hill

Dan ny OBrien

Mailing list : htt p://www.linux-wlan.com/linux-wlan/

Documentation : Readme, man pageFAQ : h tt p://linu x.gr mbl.be/wla n/

Configura tion : Module parameters & configura tion tool

St at ist ics : St at ist ic t ool

Mult i-devices : yes

Int eroperability : 802.11-DS, interopera te with Windows

Other features : Quite exhaustive 802.11 support

Non implemented : WEP

Bugs : -

License : MPL

Vendor web pages : http://www.netwave-wireless.com/

http://www.zoomtel.com/zoomair/

http://www.ydi.com

http://www.intalk.com/

http://www.dbtel.com.tw/english.html

http://www.gemtek.com.tw/

http://www.sem.samsung.co.kr/

http://www.intersil.com/prism/

ht tp://www.am d.com/products/npd/npd.ht ml

2.8.1 Th e de v ice

The H ar ris P rism chipset a nd th e AMD AM930 cont roller a re some h ighly

integra ted pa rt s designed to ease th e process of building 802.11 products. Har ris

has done a Pcmcia reference design based on their chipset and the AMD core,

which explain th e high nu mber of vendors building var ian ts of th is car d (the Ha rr is

website has a longer list than mine ;-). A special mention for YDI (Young Design

Inc) which openly support Lin ux (see below). Note tha t a ll those products a re n ow

discont inued (an d replaced with P rism II design)...


16/64


16

The AMD core integrates a generic microcontroller and the hardware

baseba nd (ASIC) to do the t ime crit ical fun ctions of 802.11. AMD ha s developed the

802.11 firm war e with all t he usu al ba sic 802.11 feat ur es (MAC level ACK, RTS/

CTS, Fra gment at ion...). The P rism chipset is a 2.4 GHz Direct Sequence modem

offerin g 1 and 2 Mb/s. The Pr ism chipset can a lso be exten ded to support s th e new802.11 HR s tandard, with 5 .5 and 11 Mb/s bit-ra te (e ither MBOK or CCK

modulation).

The Pcmcia cards are mostly similar from vendor to vendor. Some vendors

offer ISA cards, a nd the Access Points are where vendors are making their

difference (ZoomTelephonics uses a software AP on a PC, others have hardware

AP). Each vendor also has to provide the high level 802.11 in their drivers

(authentication, WEP, Roaming...), so those might be different (not that it does

mat ter m uch under Linux).

The BaySta ck 650 and N etwave AirSu rfer plus u se th e sam e AMD cont roller,

but a differen t ph ysical layer (Frequen cy Hopping), so ar e not compat ible with t hisdriver.

Harris has just become Intersil and released the Prism II chipset, successor

of the P r ismI chipset , this t ime including the MAC contr oller (so th ey wont u se an y

more t he AMD pa rt in their r eferen ce design). Ill detail it in t he n ext section (see

section 2.10).

2.8.2 Th e drive r

Markan d th e people at AVS ha ve developed a full 802.11 driver for t he P r ism

reference design card (AMD cont roller + Pr ism chipset), an d t his dr iver work for

th e man y oth er implemen ta tions as well (see web page).The dr iver is well writt en a nd very complete : its curr ent ly the only dr iver

where m ost of the h igher layer 802.11 fun ctionality is implement ed. There is also

ma ny initialisat ion pa ra met ers a nd a tool to configur e th e car d. Becau se th e 802.11

stan da rd is very complex, not everyth ing is tota lly finish ed and a few feat ur es like

WEP (RC4 40 bits encryption) ar e missing.

There is cur rent ly two bran ches ma intained by Mark, 0.2.X which is stable

an d 0.3.X which is experim ent al.

Peter (with help from YDI) has created a alternative version of Marks

packa ge to add ISA support , fix a few bugs an d with explicit su pport of car ds from

YDI. In th e long ru n, th ose cha nges should find t heir wa y in Marks pa ckage...Jason has created a version of the 0.3.1 beta driver with support for the

BaySt ack 660, by port ing bits from 0.2.6 (this a llow support for both t he BaySt ack

660 and infra str ucture).

Danny ha s a pa tch to mak e the dr iver compile and work with kern el 2.4.X.

I believe th at th is driver doesnt support th e BayStack 650 and N etwave

AirSu rfer plus car ds (which dont u se th e Pr ism chipset but Fr equency Hopping),

but t he chan ges for t hat might not be th at har d to implement .

2.9 Z-Co m LAN Es c a pe , E LS A MC2, S i e m e ns I-Ga te

Dr iver st at us : ?


17/64


17

Dr iver n a me : wl24_cs .o

Version : 1 .3 (s table), 2 .03 (unstable) and 1.20 (Elsa full source)

Where : h t tp://www.boerde.de/~ma t th ia s/a irnet /zcom/

http://www.boerde.de/~tobias/

http://www.elsa.de

ht tp ://pcmcia-cs.sour ceforge.net /ftp /contr ib/

Maintainers : Matthias Weingart

Alfred Arnold

Heiko Kirs chk e

Tobias H int ze

Documenta tion : README file

Configura tion : Specific toolSta t ist ics : no

Mult i-devices : unknown

Interoperabil ity : 802.11-DS (need updated firmware), in teroperate with

Windows


Non implemented : -

Bugs : Must have the cor rect firmware revis ion (or d river vers ion ).

License : Binar y only (1.3, 2.03) or Open source (1.20), no license info

Vendor web page : ht tp ://www.zcom.com.tw/

http://www.elsa.de

2.9.1 Th e de v ice

Z-Com is based in Taiwan, and the WL2400 family is based on the classic

AMD+Prism design. The family includes the usual ISA and Pcmcia cards, the

Access Point , and a lso a P C104 vers ion (th at s int erest ing)...

Z-Com claims th at th e WL2400 is firmwar e upgr ada ble to 802.11, but Ive

been told t hat some old cards ha ve an h ar dware bug pr eventing it. Anyway, the

car d has a ll the usu al 802.11 featu res, an d th e modem is clas ssical Direct Sequence

at 2.4 GHz, support ing 1 an d 2 Mb/s. Those car ds ar e based on the clas sical Pr ismdesign (AMD controller + Prism chipset - see section 2.8), but use a f irmware

written by Z-Com which is very different from the regular AMD firmware. This

firmwar e has more featu res, is more perform ant , but h as m ore bugs.

Z-Com also offers th e XI fam ily, which support 5.5. a nd 11 Mb/s (probably

using a P rism II chipset). Those are not supp ort ed by th is driver.

Elsa is a German compan y selling various h ar dware component and star ted

to sell Z-Com cards as Elsa AirLancer MC2. Those cards were quite popular in

Germany.


18/64


18

Elsa also sell a new AirLa ncer MC11 which has n othin g to do with Z-Com and

is the Wavelan-IEE E (see section 2.2).

2.9.2 Th e drive r

The driver ha s been written by the ma nu facturer, an d Matthias put it on itsweb site. The dr iver only conta ins t he object files (no sour ce) an d seem to have been

designed for ker nel 1.3.X an d working in 2.0.X ker nels (but , as th e dr iver int erfaces

in t he k ern el have chan ged since, this dr iver m ight n ot work in 2.2.X). The driver

only work wit h old firm war e revisions (1.2/1.3), and doesnt work with th e 802.11

compliant firmware (2.0).

Matthias seems to now have a ccess to the driver source code and is

investigating compa tibility with 2.2.X an d n ew firm war e r evisions.

Lately, Elsa ha s r eleased t he full sour ce code of this dr iver for th eir car d,

including configur at ion ut ility. Elsa has m ade the setup easier an d seem t o have

also fixed a few bugs, because it is now working with ker nel 2.2.X... This ver sionworks with 802.11 compliant firmware (2.0).

More recently, Heiko port ed th e version of the dr iver from Elsa to 2.4.X. This

version works with the Pcmcia package (in the Pcmcia contrib directory) and with

fi rm w a r e 2.0. And then, Tobias has released a full source code version of this

driver for kern el 2.4.X, likely based on th e lat est version on Matthias web page.

This version is a pat ch t o th e kern el (on h is web page) an d work s with f irmware

1.2/1.3.

2 .1 0 In ters il Pr i smII b a sed ca rd s (th e mo st co mmo n 80 2.1 1b cards)


Driver name : Pcmcia : p r ism2_cs .o

PLX : pr ism2_plx.o

PCI : prism 2_pci.o

USB : prism2_usb.o

Version : 0.2.0

Where : h t tp://www.linux-wlan .com/linux-wlan

Maintainers : Mark S. Mathews

Solomon Peachy

Mailing list : htt p://www.linux-wlan.com/linux-wlan/

ht tp ://www.lifix.fi/exta rchive/lwlan /

Documenta t ion : Readme

ftp://ftp.linux-wlan.org/pub/linux-wlan-ng/FAQ

http://www.linux-wlan.org/docs/linux-wlan-FAQ.html

Configura tion : Module parameters & configura tion tool

Sta t is t ics : S ta t is t ic tool & Wire less Extens ions



19/64


19


Other features : Quite exhaustive 802.11 support, Encryption, PPC support,

PLX, PCI and USB sup port .

Non implemented : ?Bugs : ?

License : MPL

Vendor web pages : http://www.compaq.com/products/wlan/index.html

http://www.magiclan.com/

http://www.dlink.com/products/wireless/index.asp

http://www.linksys.com/products/

http://www.zoomtel.com/zoomair/za11index.html

http://www.nokia.com/corporate/wlan/card_c110.html

http://www.addtron.com/

http://www.gemtek.com.tw/

http://www.smc.com/

http://www.netgear.com/

http://www.ambicom.com/

http://www.teletronics.com/

http://www.intersil.com/design/prism/

2.10.1 Th e de v ice

The PrismII chipset is the successor of the PrismI chipset, described in the

previous section (see section 2.8), and is bu ild by Int ersil (form erly Har ris). Int ersil

offer this chipset and some reference design to various OEM, allowing th em to

build various 802.11-b products (cards or integrated in their own products). I

expect t ha t a ll the people tha t were form erly using the P rism I chipset will switch

sooner or lat er t o the Pr ismII.

The first m an ufactu rer s to offer Pr ismII car ds were S a msu n g and Compaq

(WL100, WL200, ru mored t o be a r ebadged Sam sun g car d), with a Pcmcia card, a

PCI card and an Access Point. Other Prism vendors like ZoomAir , Nokia and

GemTek did release later their own version of the PrismII cards, as well as

Proxim (RangeLAN DS, Harmony 802.11b...). Some big networking vendors likeD-Link , LinkSys , NetGear and SMC were also quick to jump on this new

opport un ity for t hem , as well as ma ny sma ller vendors like AddTron , Ambicom ,

Teletronics , Ampwave and man y oth er t hat I cant list... The rule of th umb is

th at if your car d is not listed in an oth er section of the Howto, it could be a Pr ismII

car d (or not, ser e below).

Some notable except ions wh ich ar e n ot Pr ismII cards : th e Co mp a q WL 1 10 ,

WL 210 a nd WL 215 cards (which are Orinoco car ds), th e D-Link 650H (which is

a Symbol car d), most D-Link/LinkSys/SMC USB car ds (which a re Atmel cards),

the SMC 2632W-v2 (which is an Atmel car d), all 22 Mb/s cards such as the D-

Link 650+/520+ (based on the TI chipset), all CardBus car ds such as th e n e w D-


20/64


20

Lin k 650 (which is an ADMtek card), all 802.11a cards (which are Atheros or

Intersil Prism Ind igo car ds) an d all 802.11g car ds (which a re Broadcom or Intersil

PrismGT cards). In fact, so many vendors seem to be moving away from the

Pr ismII chipset (usually without warn ing and with out chan ging th e model nam e)

an d th ere is so ma ny cha nges ha ppening th at its impossible to keep tr ack of whois using what .

Please note that everything that looks like a P rism II c ard ma y not be a

Pr ismII card, and m an y people are quite confused about th at . The car ds described

in th is section use both a I nt ersil PrismI I chipset an d an In ter sil firm war e. Oth er

vendors, such as Lucent (see section 2.2), Aironet (see section 2.21), Symbol (see

section 2.16) and Atm el (see section 2.28) use part of the PrismII chipset but with

th eir own firm war e an d ther efore ar e n o t c o m pa t ib le (even if th ey somet ime use

the same device identification as PrismII cards and sort of work with PrismII

drivers).

Most PrismII vendors offer regular Pcm cia cards for laptops. For desktopmachines, the situation is a bit more messy, some vendors offer standard PCI-

Pcm cia cards (where you can slot the Pcmcia card ), dedicat ed PLX cards (tha t look

like a regular PCI-Pcmcia br idge but is not) or some fully integrated PCI cards

(Pr ism 2.5). Some vendors also offer US B adapters (bewar e, some of them a re Amtel

cards, and all of them have performance issues). Lastly, some laptop include

Min iPCI cards th at m ay be eith er integrated PCI car ds or USB adapt ers.

Like the initia l Pr ismI design, the Pr ismI I is fully compat ible with 802.11 an d

include a 2.4 GHz Direct Sequence modem, with a ll the u sua l feat ur es (Roam ing,

WEP...).

The main differences between th e Pr ismI an d Pr ismII chipset ar e a h igherintegrat ion, a higher performan ce modem and the replacement of t he AMD

controller with Intersil own design. The higher integration (5 chips instead of 8)

al lows to reduce the price and the s ize of the product , and to s implify the

int egra tion. The new physical layer (modem) ha s a bett er performa nce (but a lower

transmit power), increasing range, speed and battery life, and is fully compliant

with the 802.11-b standard (5.5 and 11 Mb/s). Finally, the new MAC controller

handle most of the 802.11 functionality (instead of leaving it to the driver), which

simplify driver development and help perform ance on slow devices (palmtop,

embedded design).

Th e Prism2.5 and Prism3 chipsets a re evolutions of th e P rismII chipset,offering even higher integration, lower cost and backward compatibility. With

respect to the driver, these 3 chipset look th e same, and th erefore driver support ing

Pr ismII har dware will also support Pr ism2.5 and Pr ism3 hardwar e.

Note that the PrismII f irmwares ar e usua lly not of the highest qua lity an d

quit e incons isten t from one release to anoth er, both on t he cards and on t he Access

Point s, and you ma y have to tr y a few of th em before findin g the one t ha t work for

you. For example, encryption and IBSS ad-hoc mode seems to be working only in

the latest firmwares (0.8.3 and later), and multicast is not working at all. It also

usua lly takes a bit of time to get t he worka round for t he latest firmwar es in th e


21/64


21

var ious Linux dr ivers. Lat est firm war e seem to ha ve fixed most problems an d have

added th e featu re m issing from earlier firmwar es.

A few words about Ad -H oc m o de s : like for Orinoco card, the firmware

support two ad-hoc mode, the Ad-Hoc demo mode (not 802.11-b compliant, but

repor ted to be Orinoco Ad-Hoc demo mode compat ible) an d t he I BSS Ad-Hoc mode

(802.11-b complian t). The I BSS Ad-Hoc mode is only a vailable in firm war es 0.8.3

and later.

2.10.2 Th e drive r

Who was more qualified to write this driver than Mark, from AVS, who

already wrote t he driver for th e Pr imsI car ds ? In fact, Intersil did par tn er with

Markto get th is driver writ ten for u s !

As usual with Mark, t he driver is really complete and well written. It is

curr ently only in beta stage, an d Mark to ld me tha t he needs to add more

docum ent at ion and debug some more featu res . The driver support both Pcmcia an dPCI cards. This driver is compatible with Linux bridging software, includes a

generic 802.11 int erface, exposing t he full 802.11 MIB t o user space, and include

hooks t o build a n Access Point . The dr iver also come with a configurat ion t ools, an

ut ility to dum p 802.11 fra mes a nd a daem on r esponding t o 802.11 event s.

The release 0.1.10 fixes a number of long standing problems and include a

nu mber of pat ches an d feat ur es tha t were float ing around on the ma iling lists. This

version su pport s pr operly WEP en crypt ion a nd Ad-Hoc mode. Note th at th e driver

support s only IBS S a d -h o c mode (0.1.10 and lat er) and only for r ecent firm war es,

wherea s most car ds also support t he old ad-hoc demo mode.

The driver support s P cm cia , P LX a nd P CI c ard s. The P LX car d a llow t oadd a Pcmcia card in a PCI s lot , but does not support any of the Pcmcia

fun ctionality, so is not support ed th rough t he P cmcia package but dir ectly by the

driver. PCI support is for fully int egrat ed PCI cards or MiniPCI cards. Markhas

also added USB support (only for Intersil USB cards, not Atmel cards).

Reyk has developped a patch that adds basic Wireless Extension support to

th e driver, and t ha t wa s included in version 0.1.13. He needs h elp for t esting an d

impr oving it.

Since t hen, Mark is concentr at ing on a Int ersil 802.11a dr iver (not Ather os)

and has transferred the maintenance of the driver to Solomon (a new AVS

employee). Solomon is making the driver SMP compliant, cleaning it up andkeeping up with t he n ew firmwar es from Int ersil.

Mark is also selling a Wireless Developmen t kit an d a n Access Point, ba sed

on a PPC plat form and th is driver.

2.11 In t e rs i l P r is m II s u p po rt in t h e Or in o c o d ri ve r

The Or inoco driver (see section 2.3) may be used with most Pr ismII car ds.

2.12 In te rs il P ri sm II dri ve r w i th H os tAP m o d e

Dr iver s ta t us : qu it e st a ble

Driver name : Pcmcia : hos tap_cs .o


22/64


22

PLX : hosta p_plx.o

PCI : host ap_pci.o

Version : 2002-10-12

Wh er e : h tt p://h ost ap.epit est .fi/

Maintainer : J ouni Malinen

Mailing list : htt p://lists .shmoo.com/pipermail/hostap/

Documenta tion : Readme, web page

Configura tion : Module parameters and Wireless Extensions

Sta t is t ics : Wire less Extens ions and /p roc in terface



Other featu res : Host AP mode, bridging, access list, WDS, scann ing, PLX andPCI support

Non implemented : ?

Bugs : ?

License : GPL

Vendor web pages : [Sam e as Prism II driver]


This is the sam e device as t he pr evious ent ry (section 2.10).

One of the most int eresting featu re of th e stan dar d Pr ismII firmwar e is that

it can a llow th e host to act a s an Access Point (H os t AP m o de ). This a llow to tu rn

a regular PC with a Pr ism2 car ds int o an Access Point , allowing oth er n odes to

conn ect to it. In HostAP m ode, th e card does only th e critical pa rt of the Access

Point (sending beacons) and simply pass all th e 802.11 man agement fram es to th e

driver (which does 802.11 m an agement itself).

Note th at th is HostAP mode doesnt exist or is not docum ent ed for oth er cards

(non-PrismII firmwares). Also, it is possible to load special firmware in PrismII

card which allows the card to perform the full Access Point functionality by itself

(tertiary firmware).

2.12.2 Th e drive rJouni ha s recent ly writt en th is tota lly new driver for P rism II car d. It is well

writt en, it was probably inspired by the various oth er dr iver float ing around a nd is

mu ch more simpler th an th e linux-wlan -ng driver (see section 2.10).

The driver has complete support for the various feature of the PrismII card

(WEP, IBSS Ad-Hoc m ode, scann ing...), very complete support for Wireless

Ext ensions an d offer var ious extr a inform at ion in a /pr oc directory, ma king alr eady

an excellent choice for a sta nda rd wireless client .

What set this driver apart from the other driver is its support for HostAP

mode. In this mode, the driver act as an Access Point on the air and does all the

802.11 management necessary. In this mode, the driver also allows bridging


23/64


23

th rough th e regular E th ern et bridge driver of Linux. This explain wh y this driver

is use by m ost Linu x Access-Point p rojects .

Jouni continues to refine his driver and has added PLX and PCI cards

sup port , monit or m ode, MAC add res s based access list an d WDS sup port (to allow

Access P oint to comm un icat e with each other ).

In oth er words : impr essive work ...

2.13 S a m su n g Ma g ic LAN (b in a ry li br ar y d ri ve r )

Dr iver st at us : bet a

Dr iver name : swld11_cs .o

Version : 1.22

Where : http://www.magiclan.com/product/magiclan/download/mlist.jsp

Maintainer : J ae-J un Lee

Documenta t ion : Readme

Configura tion : Module parameters, Wireless Extensions and utility




Other features : Encryption, Proprietar y Samsung API

Non implemented : ?

Bugs : ?

License : Binary on ly for the core + (?)source wrapper

Vendor web pages : http://www.sem.samsung.co.kr/

http://www.magiclan.com/


The Samsung MagicLAN is one of th e var ious pr oduct s based on th e Int ers il

PrismII chipset (see section 2.10 for full details). Its a fully feat ur ed wireless lan

compliant with 802.11-b. The Compaq products ar e ru mored to be th e Sam sung

one, with a new st icker...

2.13.2 Th e drive r

Samsun g ha s relea sed their own version of a Pr ismI I driver for th eir car d. The

dr iver seems complete an d well writ t en, the new relea ses fixes more bugs and I ha d

repor t of people successfully usin g it (with Sa msun g cards an d even some Link Sys

an d D-Link cards).

The ma in differen ce with th e Pr ismII dr iver ofMark(see section 2.10) is tha t

the Samsung driver is based on a binary library (so, only a vailable on x86

plat forms ), offer encrypt ion a nd Ad-Hoc mode an d offer some su pport for Wireless

Extensions.

2.14 P ro xi m Ra ng eLa n2, P ro xi m S ym ph on y, D EC Ro am Abo ut F H, AMP


24/64


24

Wireless, Intel AnyP oint an d Compaq Symph ony


Dr iver n am e : r lm od.o

Version : 1.7.1Where : h t tp://www.komacke.com/d is tr ibu t ion .h tml

Crea tor : Pau l Ch inn

Maintainer : Dave Kobers te in

Mailing list : htt p://www.komacke.com/archive/rl2-library/

Documenta tion : Readme file

Configurat ion : specific tool, part ial implement at ion of Wireless Extensions

Sta t ist ics : none

Multi-devices : no (insmod -o multiple modules)Int eroperability : proprietar y protocol or HomeRF, interopera te with Windows

Other features : Uses Proxim source code

Non implemented : -

Bugs : -

License : Binary on ly for the core + OpenSource Linux wrapper

Vendor web pa ges : ht tp ://www.pr oxim.com

http://www.wlif.com

http://www.homerf.org/

http://www.networks.digital.com/dr/wireless/

http://www.intel.com/anypoint/


Th e RangeLan2 is a classical product using the 2.4 GHz band, made by

Proxim, a small californian company. The products are certified and sold in

approximately 50 count ries. The RangeLan2 is based on Proxim proprietar y

protocol, OpenAir , tha t P roxim is tr ying to push a s an altern at ive to 802.11. Of

cour se, you will find ma ny OEM version (like th e DEC an d AMP versions). It comes

as ISA car ds, Pcmcia car ds, design-in m odules, an d a ccess point .

The RangeLan2 implement s a specific MAC protocol designed for ra dio

(OpenAir , an other pre 802.11) implem ent ed on a gener ic microcont roller. It uses a

4 bits domain, 4 bits chann el and 4 bits subchann el, an d also a station type

(primary master, secondary, slave - this is used for network synchronisation).

There is n o encryption, inst ead it uses a technique called Secur ity ID (which is a

simple password u sed t o derive t he n etwork ID). The OpenAir protocol is hea vily

based on RTS/CTS, offer a good robustness but some overhead. It offers as well a

modulable cont ent ion window size, cont ent ion free access for th e m ast er, pa cket

fragmentation and power saving.


25/64


25

The Modem uses frequency hopping, and 2 levels of modulations (2FSK/

4FSK) : it ru ns a 1.6 Mb/s signalling r at e for good cha nnel condition (short to

medium dista nces) an d falls back t o 0.8 Mb/s other wise.

Th e Symphony line of pr oduct (home n etwork ing) offered by P roxim uses th e

MAC pr otocol of th e Ran geLan 2 (OpenAir) with a lower cost ra dio, an d t he ma in

difference is the software bundle and the price. On the other hand, the Proxim

RangeLan802 line is very different from OpenAir products, using the 802.11-FH

protocol an d a different int erface, so the Linu x driver wont work with it.

Recently, Proxim has released its first Symphony products compatible with

the H om e RF S WAP s tandard. These are a lso sold as In te l An yP o in t and

Co mp a q S y mp h o n y-HRF. The ISA, PCI and Pcmcia versions are still offered,

an d a USB version h as been added. Those products use th e same ph ysical layer as

the original Symphony, but the MAC protocol can either operate in OpenAir mode

or SWAP mode. The main advantage of SWAP is the support for cordless

telephony.

Proxim has also various 802.11-b products, named Harmony, Skyline or

RangeLan-DS which ar e Prism II car ds (see section 2.10). Pr oxim ha s also relea sed

some 802.11-a products which ar e Ath eros car ds (see section 2.31).

2.14.2 Th e drive r

Dave uses the Proxim driver source code to build a library (distributed as

object only), so we should expect a good quality code. Paul wrote the par t to

interface with the Linux kern el and Dave ma intains it. He has writt en as well a

small utility to set the configuration in the driver (through ioctl). The driver

support s th e Proxim Ran gelan 2, th e Proxim Symph ony, the DEC Roam About FHand the AMP Wireless products. The driver support both ISA PnP and Pcmcia

car ds, both with t he Ran geLan 2 and Symph ony labels...

Starting with version 1.7.0, the driver also support the SWAP protocol and

SWAP compliant devices from Proxim, Intel and Compaq (in both OpenAir and

SWAP mode). Both the driver and the configuration tools have been extended for

th is support . Also, some pr imitive support for U SB har dwar e has been a dded.

What I like about t his driver is th at a fter a ll th ose year s, Dave is still st rongly

support ing the dr iver, fixing bugs, adding new feat ur es and a dding support for t he

newer car ds. Its impr essive to see such consist ency an d dedication...

2.15 S ym bo l S pe c tru m24 (F H)

Driver s ta tus : Beta (Pcmcia on ly)

Dr iver name : spect rum24_cs .o

Version : Beta 4

Where : h t tp://sou rceforge.net /p roject s /spect rum24


Maintainer : Lee J ohn Keyser-Allen

Discuss ion forum s : ht tp ://sour ceforge.net /forum /?group_id=11099



26/64


26

Configura tion : module parameters, partial support of Wireless Extensions

Sta t ist ics : None

Mu lt i-devices : -

Int eroperability : 802.11-FH , interopera te with Windows

Other featu res : Support of micro-AP, multicast, stat istics...

Non implemented : -

Bugs : -

License : GPL

Vendor web page : ht tp ://www.symbol.com/pr oducts/wireless/wireless.ht ml


Symbol is one of th e other ma jor pla yer for F requ ency Hopping devices in th e

2.4 GHz band an d has been selling its Spectr um 24 line of pr oduct s for ages. Symbolsells mostly t o vertical mar ket (in their bar-code readers, in warehouses, in

super ma rk et), so th eir products ar e not usu ally foun d in reta ilers. The Spectr um 24

family include an Access Point , a ISA card , a Pcmcia car d an d a Pcmcia card with

micro-AP fun ctiona lity. However, the m ain s t ren gth of Symbol is th eir all-in-one

products, includin g a Palm or a WinCE device with a bar code rea der a nd a 802.11

car d, all neatly integrat ed.

The Spectr um 24 products were designed from t he sta rt to be complian t with

th e 802.11 stan dar d, way before t he st anda rd was eventua lly adopted. The first

generation (1 Mb/s only) was compatible and interoperable with other 802.11

products (but not compliant), and the second generation of Spectrum24 (1 and

2 Mb/s) is officially 802.11 compliant .

Symbol is also very active in developing Voice over IP solutions for their

wireless LANs, an d th at s why th ey ar e also selling some Spectr um 24 phones. They

ar e using the H .323 codec, compression and call setu p (ra w 64 kb/s, compressed 10

tim es) an d a 30 ms pa cket r at e (but I fail to see what th ey have done t o overcome

overhead an d lat ency issues at th e MAC level).

The MAC has all the usual features of the 802.11 standard, like MAC level

retransmission, RTS/CTS, fragmentation, auto bit-rate selection, power saving

and roaming. A n ice fea ture of the MAC is the suppor t of the micro-AP

fun ctionality, which allows t o tur n a PC in to an Access Point (I would like more

vendors to sta rt doing th at ). However, t heir p roducts dont seem t o support ad-hocmode.

The physical layer is F requency H opping support ing 1 and 2 Mb/s, with

100 mW or 500 m W out put power a nd 100 m s dwell size.

2.15.2 Th e drive r

Lee ha s writt en th e dr iver as a student p roject for Symbol, so with a ct ive help

from Symbol. He plan s t o cont inue su pport ing it, an d Symbol ma y get more a ctive

in distributing th e driver.

The driver is designed for the Pcmcia card (LA2400 and micro-AP version),

an d th e new 2 Mb/s vers ion of th e car d. It is possible to use older car ds (1 Mb/s) by


27/64


27

upda tin g th e firm war e for 802.11 complian ce, and to use I SA car d by configur ing

properly the P cmcia package (th ose car ds u se a r egular I SA to Pcmcia br idge).

Despite being beta, the driver is stable, well written and supports most

feat ur es of the car d (like m icro-AP, sh ar ed mem ory access...).

2 .1 6 S y mb ol Sp ectru m2 4 High Ra te , 3 Co m AirCo n n ect , In te l PRO/ Wireless and Socke t Comm unic ation

Driver s ta tus : Beta (Pcmcia on ly)

Dr iver name : spect rum24t_cs .o

Ver sion : 1.03 a nd 1.03-CF

Where : h t tp://sou rceforge.net /p roject s /spect rum24

ftp://ftp.symbol.com/pub/SOFTWARE/IEEE/PC_CARD/LINUX/

Contact : Brad LeFore

Maintainer : Lee J ohn Keyser-Allen

Discuss ion forum s : ht tp ://sour ceforge.net /forum /?group_id=11099


Configura t ion : module parameters

Sta t ist ics : None

Mu lt i-devices : -


Other features : Multicast, WEP encryption and support for CF cards

Non implemented : -

Bugs : -

License : GPL or BSD

Vendor web page : ht tp ://www.symbol.com/pr oducts/wireless/wireless.ht ml

http://www.intel.com/network/products/wireless.htm

http://www.3Com.com/

http://www.socketcom.com/


Despite being a long tim e proponent of Fr equen cy Hopping, Symbol couldn tignore t he su ccess of 802.11-b. After a str at egic agreement with Int el, Symbol is

back with a comp lete line of 802.11-b products, tha t a re called S p ectru m2 4 High

Rate (to better confuse them with their old FH products). Symbol still sell mostly

to vert ical ma rk ets th rough VAR, but both 3Com an d Int el ar e repackaging Symbol

car ds, as Intel PRO/Wireless and 3 Co m AirCo n n ect . The Symbol CF card is

also sold by Socket Communicat ions .

Of course, there are exceptions : the S y m bo l/S o ck e t CF cards (Compact

Flash) and the Inte l 2011B card dont have a built in firmware and require a

specific version of th e driver (called CF). On th e oth er h an d, th e 3Com/Intel PCI


28/64


28

cards are PrismII cards , and the la tes t 3Com Wire le ss LAN XJ ac k card

(3CRWE62092A, with th e XJ ack an ten na ) is a N o Wires N eededcard.

The card is mostly sold in the Pcmcia form factor, along with the Access Point.

Ther e is a PCI version th at looks like a Pcmcia car d in a regula r PCI to Pcmcia slot .

The main originality of Symbol is that it offer those famous all-in-one products

(PDA + barcode + wireless) with 802.11-b (bewar e, th ey sha re th e same model

nu mber s as t he n on-802.11b devices). Recent ly Symbol released a Co mp a ct F lash

(CF) version of their card called Wireless N etw orkerwhich h as a n a mazing form

factor.

The Symbol product is composed of th e In ter sil Pr ismII chipset (see section

2.10) with Symbol own MAC contr oller (which is origina lly derived from t he sa me

core as the MAC from Lucent, Aironet and Intersil). From Symbol, we can expect

a design giving good quality and performance.

The MAC has all the usual features of the 802.11 standard, like MAC level

retr ansm ission, RTS/CTS, fra gmentat ion, au to bit-rat e selection, power saving,

WEP encryption and roaming, which extensive configurability. The physical layer

ha s th e classic Pr ismII featu re, support ing 1, 2, 5.5 and 11 Mb/s.

2.16.2 Th e drive r

The dr iver was initially written by TriplePoint, an d Lee has t aken over t he

maintenance. Not surprisingly, the driver is very similar to the Wavelan-IEEE

bina ry dr iver (except for bein g full source), to th e point of men tioning Tur bo car ds

(what Symbol calls High Ra te).

The dr iver is well writt en, ha s a n exten sive collection of module par am eters

an d ha s been test ed successfully with Symbol, 3Com a nd I nt el car ds. Lee plans toadd Wireless Exten sions a nd fix the few rema ining bugs...

The version 1.01 of the driver fixes some bugs related to higher bit rate

(11 Mb/s) a nd encryption. The version 1.02, adds support for kernel 2.4.X an d

disable power m an agement (doesnt work on la test firm war es).

Symbol has recently release a separate version of this driver to support

Co m p ac t F la s h car ds. Compa ct F lash car ds need a specific driver becau se th ey

dont have the firmware s tored on the card and therefore the driver has to

download t he firm war e to th e car d after each reset.

2.17 Eri cs so n WLAN 11 Mb/sDr iver s ta t us : F ir st sh ot

Dr iver name : er iwlan_cs .o

Ver sion : 1.0 (2000-10-11)

Where : h t tp ://www.er icsson .com/wlan/su-downloads11.asp

Maintainer : Christian Olrog


Configura tion : module parameters and /proc interface

St at ist ics : /pr oc in ter fa ce


29/64


29

Mu lt i-devices : -


Other fea tures : Power management

Non implemented : -

Bugs : -

License : GPL

Vendor web page : ht tp://www.ericsson.com/wlan/


After their success with wide area communications (GSM and co.), Ericsson

decided to expand in new markets and s tarted looking seriously a t local

connectivity. Ericsson is of course the main driving force behind BlueTooth (see

section 5), but th ey rea lised pret ty quickly th e BlueTooth would not fulfil the need

of the Wireless LAN market. Ericsson is also pushing hard H ip e rLAN II (seesection 5), a high perform ance system (54 Mb/s) in the 5 GHz band with strong

quality of service support.

The initial Ericsson Wireless LAN products were OEM of BreezeCom

pro.11 pr oduct s (Frequ ency Hopping, 3 Mb/s - see section 2.33). Due t o the su ccess

of 802.11-b, th eir second p roduct line ar e fully 802.11-b complian t, and ar e in fact

OEM of the Symbol car ds (see section 2.16). As such, th is product has a ll th e usua l

802.11-b featu res...

2.17.2 Th e drive r

This dr iver apply only to th e 11 Mb/s version of the E r icsson car d. This is only

the second driver written by Christian from scratch, after the BreezeCom driver

(see section 2.33 - th is other d river a pplies to Er icsson 3 Mb/s cards). And as usu al

for h im, th e sour ce code is well writt en, concise an d clean . Impr essive job !

This dr iver is very new, so I dont h ave yet r eport of its u se. The driver seem s

to support only a min ima l set of configurat ion and st at istics for now. Christian told

me th at it sh ould work with other Symbol car ds with m inor cha nges, an d tha t th e

driver h as been t ested with IPsec and MobileIP. I h ope to ha ve more in fo about it

at a lat er date...

2.18 S y m bo l H ig h Ra t e s u p po rt in t he Or in o c o d ri ve r

The Or inoco driver (see section 2.3) ma y be used with m ost Symbol HR cards.

2.19 S y m bo l CF dr iv e r b as e d on th e Or in o c o d ri ve r

Dr iver st at us : Bet a

Dr iver name : spect rum_cs .o

Version : 0.3.4

Where : h t tp://www.red -bean .com/~proski/symbol/

Maintainer : Pavel Roskin



30/64


30


Configura tion : Wireless Extensions only




Other featu res : Similar to Orinoco driver (including ARM support )

Non implemented : -

Bugs : -

License : MPL and GPL

Vendor web pages : [Sam e as Symbol HR dr iver]


This is the sa me device as t he pr evious ent ry (section 2.16).Note th at th is driver is specific to the Co m p ac t F la s h (CF) version of th e

card an d the Intel 2011B .

2.19.2 Th e drive r

The Orinoco driver (see section 2.3) already includes support for regular

Symbol HR car ds. However, th e Compact Fla sh car ds dont work with th e st an da rd

Orinoco driver because they lack built in firmware. This is the same reason why

th ere is two differen t Spectru m24 dr ivers (see section 2.16).

Pavel ha s crea ted a n ew driver bas ed on t he Orinoco driver an d Spectr um 24-

CF dr iver for those car ds. It is simila r to th e regular Orin oco Pcmcia driver, but a ddthe f irmwa re d o wn lo a d at each reset necessa ry for t hose car ds. As th e core of th e

dr iver is comm on with t he Orin o co d r iv er, th is driver ha s the exact same feat ur e

set (which is quit e extensive - see section 2.3).

Note tha t for cards t ha t dont r equire th e firm war e download (regular Pcmcia

car ds), it is r ecomm ended t o use t he r egular Orinoco driver inst ead of th is one.

2.20 Airon et ARLAN

Driver s ta tus : s table (ISA only)

Dr iver n am e : a rla n.o

Version : 2.0 & 2.1bWhere : Linux kernel (2 .3 .10 & 2.2.7-acX), web-page for 2 .0 .X version

Maintainers : Elmer J oandi

Cullen J enn ings

Web pages : h t tp://www.ylenurme.ee/~elmer/655/

http://www.cs.ubc.ca/spider/jennings/

Docum enta tion : README file + web page

Configurat ion : /proc interface (2.1.X kernels and up only)

Sta t ist ics : ?


31/64


31

Mu lt i-devices : ?



Non implemented : Multicast (driver is point t o point ?)

Bugs : -

License : GPL

Vendor web page : ht tp://www.air onet .com/products/2200fam /2200fams.ht ml


The Arlan was a ra dio LAN, built by Aironet, using t he 900MHz or 2.4GHz

ISM ban d (Direct Sequen ce). This pr oduct ha s been discont inued an d replaced by

the 4500 series (see below). The Arlan comes in 3 flavour, an ISA (655), an MCA

(670) an d a pcmcia (690) car d (plus t he access point ). Lat er, th ey rena med t he ISA

car d IC2200 and t he Pcmcia car d PC2200 (still the sam e har dwar e).

The configur at ion include set tin g th e frequency and Network ID (24 bits ?).

The MAC protocol is implement ed on a generic microcont roler. There is two

versions of the modem, a 900 MHz and a 2.4 GHz version. Both use Direct

Sequence Spread Spectru m. The 900 MHz m odem allow signalling rat e up to

860 kb/s (fall back to 215 kb/s) an d 12 chan nels. The 2.4 GHz version allow

signa lling r at e up to 2 Mb/s (fall back to 1 Mb/s) and 5 cha nn els.

2.20.2 Th e drive r

Russell N elson told me a wh ile ago th at he wa s tr ying t o convince Aironet t o

release the specifications of the Arlan to develop a Linux driver. Cullen Jennings

started the development of a point to point driver, Elm er J oandi rewrote some

par ts a nd a dded a lot of feat ur es to be compa tible with th e Access Point , released

th e whole under GPL, and her e is the result.

The driver support only the ISA version of the card (655 or IC 2200). The

driver h ave been fully tested an d optim ised by Elmer Joandi, includes a complete

/proc int erface a nd should be soon included in t he k ern el.

2 .21 Aironet ARLAN 4500, 4800, Cisco 340 and Cisco 350 series


Dr iver name : ISA, PCI : a iro.o

Pcmcia : air o_cs.o

Version : 1.4

Where : Pcmcia package (3.1.26) and Linux kernel (2.4.6)

Maintainers : Benjamin Reed

J avier Achir ica

Web pages : htt p://sourceforge.net/projects/airo-linux/

Mailing list : htt p://sourceforge.net/mail/?group_id=24926

Documenta tion : README file


32/64


32

Configurat ion : /proc interface and Wireless Extensions

Sta t is t ics : /p roc in terface and Wire less Extensions

Mult i-devices : N /A


Other fea tures : Suppor t ad-hoc and managed mode, WEP (encrypt ion),

scan ning an d dumpin g raw 802.11 fra mes.

Non implemented : -

Bugs : -

License : MPL & GPL

Vendor web page : ht tp://www.air onet .com/


Aironet ha s been th e producer of some of th e most performa nt wireless LANsfor a long t ime. Aironet wa s a division of Telxon, a nd was spun-off when S ymbol,

one of th eir competit or , did acquir e Telxon. After a short indepen dent life, Aironet

was a cquir ed by Cisco.

The previous section wa s dea ling with Aironet old pr e-802.11 pr oducts (see

section 2.20), th is section deals with th eir more r ecent 802.11 complian t products.

Their first 802.11 pr oducts were th e 3500 family, Fr equen cy Hopping (1 and 2 Mb/

s), an d 4500, Direct Sequen ce (1 an d 2 Mb/s).

The Arlan 4500 family is 802.11 comp lian t wir eless LANs in t he 2.4 GH z ISM

ban d, an d is Direct Sequen ce. It includes an ISA, PCI , Pcmcia, ser ial, Et her net a nd

mu lti-Et her net versions, plus t he Access Point .These cards are based on the Harris Prism chipset, like m any oth er car ds

(see section 2.8), but Aironet are using their own MAC controller. The 4500 offer

sta nda rd 1 an d 2 Mb/s bit r at e. The MAC includes all th e stan dar d 802.11 feat ur es,

with Power Saving, WEP, Ad-Hoc m ode and roaming, plus a lot of Aironet

extensions (short header s, var iable base r at e...). Conform to their r eput at ion, th eir

MAC is one of th e richest in ter m of feat ur es, and one of th e most per form an t.

Th e 3500 family (Fr equen cy Hopping) event ua lly died, and I wont t alk a bout

it here.

The 4500 family was quickly followed by the 4800 fam ily, still based on th e

Prism chipset, adding 5.5 and 11 Mb/s bit rate, either in MBOK (proprietary) orCCK, which is 802.11-b complian t . The 4800 can do encrypt ion only at 1 an d 2 Mb/

s (this limita tion was r emoved in t he 4800B).

With introduction of the PrismII chipset, Aironet did release the 4800B

family. It is functionally equivalent to t he 4800, except tha t the new P rismII

chipset allows lower price, greater sensitivity but force a lower transmit power

(30 mW). Aironet st ill us e th eir own MAC cont roller in th e 4800B (and n ot t he new

Pr ismII MAC - see section 2.10).

After the acquisition by Cisco, the Aironet 4800B was renamed Ci sc o 340

series (exact same hardware, new name). Dell also sell the same hardware under


33/64


33

its own bra nd as Del l Tru eMo b ile 1 10 0 (on t he other ha nd, th e TrueMobile 1150

is a Wavelan IEE E).

Like Lucent , Cisco offer differen t cards with d ifferent level of encrypt ion. Th e

cards labelled 340 featu re no encryption

Date post:	06-Apr-2018
Category:	Documents
Upload:	pedroandal
View:	246 times
Download:	0 times

- Linux Wireless LAN HOWTO

Documents