ACX(4)                    OpenBSD Programmer's Manual                   ACX(4)

NAME
     acx - TI ACX100/ACX111 IEEE 802.11a/b/g wireless network device

SYNOPSIS
     acx* at cardbus?
     acx* at pci?

DESCRIPTION
     The acx driver provides support for TI TNETW1100/TNETW1100B (ACX100) and
     TNETW1130 (ACX111) based PCI/CardBus network adapters.

     The ACX100A and ACX100B are first generation 802.11b devices from TI.
     The ACX111 is a second generation device which supports 802.11b/g and in
     some cases 802.11a.

     These are the modes the acx driver can operate in:

     BSS mode       Also known as infrastructure mode, this is used when asso-
                    ciating 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.

     Host AP        In this mode the driver acts as an access point (base sta-
                    tion) for other cards.

     monitor mode   In this mode the driver is able to receive packets without
                    associating with an access point.  This disables the in-
                    ternal receive filter and enables the card to capture
                    packets from networks which it wouldn't normally have ac-
                    cess to, or to scan for access points.

     The acx driver can be configured to use Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP) in
     software for ACX111 or in hardware for ACX100.  It is strongly recommend-
     ed that WEP not be used as the sole mechanism to secure wireless communi-
     cation, due to serious weaknesses in it.

     The transmit speed is user-selectable or can be adapted automatically by
     the driver depending on the number of hardware transmission retries.

     The acx driver can be configured at runtime with ifconfig(8) or on boot
     with hostname.if(5).

FILES
     The driver needs a set of firmware files which are loaded when an inter-
     face is brought up:

           /etc/firmware/tiacx100
           /etc/firmware/tiacx100r0D
           /etc/firmware/tiacx100r11
           /etc/firmware/tiacx111
           /etc/firmware/tiacx111c16
           /etc/firmware/tiacx111r16

     These firmware files are not free because TI refuses to grant distribu-
     tion rights.  In fact they have rebuffed thousands of attempts to start a
     dialogue on this issue.  As a result, even though OpenBSD includes the
     driver, the firmware files cannot be included and users have to download
     these files on their own.

     A prepackaged version of the firmware, designed to be used with
     pkg_add(1), can be found at:

           http://www.nazgul.ch/acx/acx-firmware-1.4.tgz

HARDWARE
     The following cards are among those supported by the acx driver:

           Card                   Chip      Bus        Standard
           D-Link DWL-520+        ACX100    PCI        b
           D-Link DWL-650+        ACX100    CardBus    b
           D-Link DWL-G520+       ACX111    PCI        b/g
           D-Link DWL-G630+       ACX111    CardBus    b/g
           D-Link DWL-G650+       ACX111    CardBus    b/g
           Digitus DN-7001G       ACX111    CardBus    b/g
           Ergenic ERG WL-003     ACX100    CardBus    b
           Hamlet HNWP254         ACX111    CardBus    b/g
           Hawking HWP54G         ACX111    PCI        b/g
           Linksys WPC54Gv2       ACX111    CardBus    b/g
           Microcom Travelcard    ACX111    CardBus    b/g
           Netgear WG311v2        ACX111    PCI        b/g
           Sceptre SC254W+        ACX111    CardBus    b/g
           Tornado/ADT 211g       ACX111    PCI        b/g
           USR USR5410            ACX111    CardBus    b/g
           USR USR5416            ACX111    PCI        b/g
           ZyXEL G-160            ACX111    CardBus    b/g
           ZyXEL G-360 EE         ACX111    PCI        b/g

EXAMPLES
     The following hostname.if(5) example configures acx0 to join whatever
     network is available on boot, using WEP key ``0x1deadbeef1'', channel 11,
     obtaining an IP address using DHCP:

           dhcp NONE NONE NONE nwkey 0x1deadbeef1 chan 11

     The following hostname.if(5) example creates a host-based access point on
     boot:

           inet 192.168.1.1 255.255.255.0 NONE media autoselect \
                   mediaopt hostap nwid my_net chan 11

     Configure acx0 for WEP, using hex key ``0x1deadbeef1'':

           # ifconfig acx0 nwkey 0x1deadbeef1

     Return acx0 to its default settings:

           # ifconfig acx0 -bssid -chan media autoselect \
                   nwid "" -nwkey

     Join an existing BSS network, ``my_net'':

           # ifconfig acx0 192.168.1.1 netmask 0xffffff00 nwid my_net

SEE ALSO
     arp(4), cardbus(4), ifmedia(4), intro(4), netintro(4), pci(4),
     hostname.if(5), hostapd(8), ifconfig(8)

HISTORY
     The acx driver first appeared in OpenBSD 4.0.

AUTHORS
     The acx driver was written by Sepherosa Ziehau.  The manual page was
     written by Sascha Wildner.  Both are based on the http://wlan.kewl.org
     project team's original code.

     The hardware specification was reverse engineered by the good folks at
     http://acx100.sourceforge.net.  Without them this driver would not have
     been possible.

CAVEATS
     Host AP mode doesn't support power saving.  Clients attempting to use
     power saving mode may experience significant packet loss (disabling power
     saving on the client will fix this).

OpenBSD 4.7                     January 3, 2010                              3
