Changeset 1454

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Timestamp:
02/21/06 13:12:31 (3 years ago)
Author:
kelmo
Message:

Update README: autocreation, VAP's and link to wiki debug page.

Signed-off-by: Kel Modderman <kelrin@tpg.com.au>

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  • trunk/README

    r1241 r1454  
    121121installed on your system with make install. 
    122122 
    123 First, run "modprobe ath_pci" or the equivalent using "insmod". When 
    124 the driver is successfully loaded it creates a device named "wifi0" 
    125 The output from iwconfig should look like this: 
     123First, run "modprobe ath_pci" or the equivalent using "insmod". When 
     124the driver is successfully loaded it creates two devices, named 
     125"wifi0" and "ath0". The output from iwconfig should look like this: 
    126126 
    127127    lo      no wireless extensions. 
     128     
    128129    wifi0   no wireless extensions. 
     130     
     131    ath0    IEEE 802.11b  ESSID:"" 
     132            Mode:Managed  Channel:0  Access Point: Not-Associated 
     133            Bit Rate:0 kb/s   Tx-Power:50 dBm   Sensitivity=0/3 
     134            Retry:off   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off 
     135            Power Management:off 
     136            Link Quality=0/94  Signal level=-95 dBm  Noise level=-95 dBm 
     137            Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0 
     138            Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:0   Missed beacon:0 
     139 
    129140 
    130141This driver uses wifi%d only as a placeholder for the phyical device,  
    131142and will create one wifi device for each wireless NIC in the system.   
    132 These wifi devices will reject ifconfig and iwconfig commands. 
    133  
    134 The next step is to bring one or more ath%d device into existence. 
    135 All of the usual commands - ifconfig, iwconfig, iwpriv - should operate 
    136 on the ath%d devices as expected with exceptions noted below. 
    137  
    138 Here is one example, but for more information, see the man page for 
    139 wlanconfig. It is installed when you run "make install". 
    140  
    141 Station mode: 
    142  
    143 wlanconfig ath0 create wlandev wifi0 wlanmode sta 
    144 iwconfig ath0 essid ANY 
    145 ifconfig ath0 up 
    146  
    147 This will create a device named ath0 to be associated with wireless 
    148 device wifi0 and set it to be a station. The iwconfig command will set 
    149 the device to choose any available essid, and then ifconfig up will 
    150 start the device and begin scanning so that you can begin to send 
    151 packets over the interface. 
    152  
    153  
    154 You can lock the operating mode to one of 11a, 11b, or 11g if you have 
    155 a multi-mode card (if you do not lock the mode then the driver will 
    156 select a mode for you; usually 11a).  You can use the following commands: 
     143These wifi devices will reject ifconfig and iwconfig commands. The 
     144wifi interface provides indicates the existance of a physical Madwifi 
     145device, but is not of any functional interest other than as a target 
     146for VAP creation via wlanconfig (see Virtual AP section below). 
     147 
     148By default, an ath%d Managed mode interface is also created. This 
     149device is a "virtual ap" (VAP) of the wifi%d physical device, and is 
     150configurable by the standard networking tools  - ifconfig, iwconfig, 
     151iwpriv.  
     152 
     153The autocreation function can be manipulated to automatically create 
     154any one of the other supported device types by using the 
     155autocreate=mode option when the ath_pci module is first loaded. The 
     156following example will cause ath%d to be in Master mode: 
     157 
     158modprobe ath_pci autocreate=ap 
     159 
     160Autocreation can be disabled: 
     161 
     162modprobe ath_pci autocreate=none 
     163 
     164Please see the following link for more information: 
     165http://madwifi.org/wiki/UserDocs/autocreate 
     166 
     167Virtual AP's (VAP's) and wlanconfig 
     168=================================== 
     169An interesting feauture of Madwifi is Virtual AP (VAP) mode, which 
     170allows the operation of multiple concurrent (virtual) access points, 
     171and concurrent interfaces running in both AP and station mode. To  
     172manipulate VAP's, Madwifi comes with a tool called wlanconfig which 
     173is used to create and destroy VAPS with various different modes. 
     174 
     175The following examples assume that the "autocreate=none" option has 
     176been parsed to the module at load time. This allows fine control over 
     177management of VAP's, as the creation of a Managed mode station should 
     178be delayed until all other required VAP's are first created, as only 
     179one sta mode VAP can exist per physical device. 
     180 
     181To create an access point, use: 
     182 
     183wlanconfig ath0 create wlandev wifi0 wlanmode ap 
     184 
     185To create an access point and a station, use: 
     186 
     187wlanconfig ath0 create wlandev wifi0 wlanmode ap 
     188wlanconfig ath1 create wlandev wifi0 wlanmode sta nosbeacon 
     189 
     190To create APs which share a single MAC address, use the -bssid flag 
     191when creating the VAPs: 
     192 
     193wlanconfig ath0 create wlandev wifi0 wlanmode ap -bssid 
     194wlanconfig ath1 create wlandev wifi0 wlanmode ap -bssid 
     195 
     196Finally, to destroy a VAP, issue the command: 
     197 
     198wlanconfig ath0 destroy 
     199 
     200For more information about Virtual AP's, please refer to the 
     201users-guide document distributed with the Madwifi source code. 
     202 
     203For more information about wlanconfig, see its manpage, it is 
     204installed when you run "make install". 
     205 
     206Operating Mode 
     207============== 
     208To lock the operating mode to one of 11a, 11b, or 11g if you have 
     209a multi-mode card, issue one of the following commands: 
    157210iwpriv ath0 mode 1              lock operation to 11a only 
    158211iwpriv ath0 mode 2              lock operation to 11b only 
    …… 
    160213iwpriv ath0 mode 0              autoselect from 11a/b/g (default) 
    161214 
     215Debugging 
     216========= 
    162217There are some debugging mechanisms for the curious/masochistic: 
    163218 
    …… 
    186241summary of all non-zero statistics from the time the driver was loaded. 
    187242By default the ath0 device is used; to override this use the -i option. 
     243 
     244A wiki page describes common Madwifi debugging methods here: 
     245http://madwifi.org/wiki/DevDocs/AthDebug 
    188246 
    189247Security/Crypto Support