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

NAME
     an - Aironet Communications 4500/4800 IEEE 802.11FH/b wireless network
     device

SYNOPSIS
     an* at pcmcia?
     an* at pci?
     an* at isapnp?

DESCRIPTION
     The an driver provides support for the Aironet Communications 4500, 4800
     (aka Cisco 340), and Cisco 350 IEEE 802.11 wireless network adapters.
     This includes the ISA, PCI, and PCMCIA varieties.  The 4500 series
     adapters operate at 1 and 2Mbps (FH) while the 4800 and 350 series can
     operate at 1, 2, 5.5, and 11Mbps (DS).  The ISA, PCI, and PCMCIA devices
     are all based on the same core PCMCIA modules and all have the same pro-
     gramming interface.  However, unlike the Lucent WaveLAN/IEEE cards, the
     ISA and PCI cards appear to the host as normal ISA and PCI devices and do
     not require any PCMCIA support.

     ISA cards can either be configured to use ISA Plug and Play or to use a
     particular I/O address and IRQ by properly setting the DIP switches on
     the board.  (The default switch setting is for plug and play.)  The an
     driver has Plug and Play support and will work in either configuration,
     however when using a hard-wired I/O address and IRQ, the driver configu-
     ration and the NIC's switch settings must agree.  PCI cards require no
     switch settings of any kind and will be automatically probed and at-
     tached.

     All host/device interaction with the Aironet cards is via programmed I/O.
     The an driver encapsulates all IP and ARP traffic as 802.11 frames,
     though it can receive either 802.11 or 802.3 frames.

     These are the modes the an 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.

     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 an driver can be configured to use hardware Wired Equivalent Privacy
     (WEP).  It is strongly recommended that WEP not be used as the sole mech-
     anism to secure wireless communication, due to serious weaknesses in it.

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

EXAMPLES
     The following hostname.if(5) example configures an0 to join whatever net-
     work is available on boot, using WEP key ``0x1deadbeef1'', channel 11,
     obtaining an IP address using DHCP:

           dhcp NONE NONE NONE nwkey 0x1deadbeef1 chan 11

     Configure an0 for WEP, using hex key ``0x1deadbeef1'':

           # ifconfig an0 nwkey 0x1deadbeef1

     Return an0 to its default settings:

           # ifconfig an0 -bssid -chan media autoselect \
                   nwid "" -nwkey

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

           # ifconfig an0 192.168.1.1 netmask 0xffffff00 nwid my_net

DIAGNOSTICS
     an%d: failed to allocate %d bytes on NIC  The driver was unable to allo-
     cate memory for transmit frames in the NIC's on-board RAM.

     an%d: device timeout  The Aironet card failed to generate an interrupt to
     acknowledge a transmit command.

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

HISTORY
     The an device driver first appeared in FreeBSD 4.0.  OpenBSD support was
     added in OpenBSD 2.7.  A version of the driver based on the one in NetBSD
     was added in OpenBSD 3.9.

AUTHORS
     The an driver was written by Bill Paul <wpaulATee.edu> and ported
     to OpenBSD by Michael Shalayeff <mickeyATopenbsd.org>.  Later the NetBSD
     version of the driver by Atsushi Onoe was subsequently ported to OpenBSD
     by Jonathan Gray <jsgATopenbsd.org>.

CAVEATS
     Scanning for access points is not currently supported.

OpenBSD 4.5                    September 2, 2009                             2