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ATHN(4)                      Device Drivers Manual                     ATHN(4)

NAME
     athn - Atheros IEEE 802.11a/g/n wireless network device

SYNOPSIS
     athn* at cardbus?
     athn* at pci?
     athn* at uhub? port ?

DESCRIPTION
     The athn driver provides support for a wide variety of Atheros 802.11n
     devices, ranging from the AR5008 up to the AR9287.

     The AR5008 (codenamed Owl) is the first generation of Atheros 802.11n
     solutions.  It consists of two chips, a MAC/Baseband Processor and a
     Radio-on-a-Chip.  The MAC/Baseband Processor can be an AR5416 (PCI and
     CardBus form factors) or an AR5418 (PCIe Mini Card form factor).  The
     radio can be an AR2122, AR2133, AR5122 or an AR5133 chip.  The AR2122
     chip operates in the 2GHz spectrum and supports up to 2 transmit paths
     and 2 receiver paths (2T2R).  The AR2133 chip operates in the 2GHz
     spectrum and supports up to 3 transmit paths and 3 receiver paths (3T3R).
     The AR5122 chip operates in the 2GHz and 5GHz spectra and supports up to
     2 transmit paths and 2 receiver paths (2T2R).  The AR5133 chip operates
     in the 2GHz and 5GHz spectra and supports up to 3 transmit paths and 3
     receiver paths (3T3R).

     The AR9001 (codenamed Sowl) is a Mini-PCI 802.11n solution.  It consists
     of two chips, an AR9160 MAC/Baseband Processor and an AR9103 or AR9106
     Radio-on-a-Chip.  The AR9103 chip operates in the 2GHz spectrum and
     supports up to 3 transmit paths and 3 receiver paths (3T3R).  The AR9106
     chip operates in the 2GHz and 5GHz spectra and supports up to 3 transmit
     paths and 3 receiver paths (3T3R).

     The AR9220, AR9223 and AR9280 (codenamed Merlin) are the first generation
     of Atheros single-chip 802.11n solutions.  The AR9220 and AR9223 exist in
     PCI and Mini-PCI form factors.  The AR9280 exists in PCIe Mini Card
     (XB92), half Mini Card (HB92) and USB 2.0 (AR9280+AR7010) form factors.
     The AR9220 and AR9280 operate in the 2GHz and 5GHz spectra and support 2
     transmit paths and 2 receiver paths (2T2R).  The AR9223 operates in the
     2GHz spectrum and supports 2 transmit paths and 2 receiver paths (2T2R).

     The AR9281 is a single-chip PCIe 802.11n solution.  It exists in PCIe
     Mini Card (XB91) and half Mini Card (HB91) form factors.  It operates in
     the 2GHz spectrum and supports 1 transmit path and 2 receiver paths
     (1T2R).

     The AR9285 (codenamed Kite) is a single-chip PCIe 802.11n solution that
     targets the value PC market.  It exists in PCIe half Mini Card (HB95)
     form factor only.  It operates in the 2GHz spectrum and supports a single
     stream (1T1R).  It can be combined with the AR3011 chip to form a combo
     WiFi/Bluetooth device (WB195).

     The AR9271 is a single-chip USB 2.0 802.11n solution.  It operates in the
     2GHz spectrum and supports a single stream (1T1R).

     The AR2427 is a single-chip PCIe 802.11b/g solution similar to the other
     AR9280 solutions but with 802.11n capabilities removed.  It exists in
     PCIe Mini Card form factor only.  It operates in the 2GHz spectrum.

     The AR9227 and AR9287 are single-chip 802.11n solutions that target mid-
     tier PCs.  The AR9227 exists in PCI and Mini-PCI form factors.  The
     AR9287 exists in PCIe half Mini Card (HB97) and USB 2.0 (AR9287+AR7010)
     form factors.  They operate in the 2GHz spectrum and support 2 transmit
     paths and 2 receiver paths (2T2R).

     The following table summarizes the supported chips and their
     capabilities.

           Chipset                        Spectrum     TxR:S    Bus
           AR5008-2NG (AR5416+AR2122)     2GHz         2x2:2    PCI/CardBus
           AR5008-3NG (AR5416+AR2133)     2GHz         3x3:2    PCI/CardBus
           AR5008-2NX (AR5416+AR5122)     2GHz/5GHz    2x2:2    PCI/CardBus
           AR5008-3NX (AR5416+AR5133)     2GHz/5GHz    3x3:2    PCI/CardBus
           AR5008E-2NG (AR5418+AR2122)    2GHz         2x2:2    PCIe
           AR5008E-3NG (AR5418+AR2133)    2GHz         3x3:2    PCIe
           AR5008E-2NX (AR5418+AR5122)    2GHz/5GHz    2x2:2    PCIe
           AR5008E-3NX (AR5418+AR5133)    2GHz/5GHz    3x3:2    PCIe
           AR9001-2NG (AR9160+AR9103)     2GHz         2x2:2    PCI
           AR9001-3NG (AR9160+AR9103)     2GHz         3x3:2    PCI
           AR9001-3NX2 (AR9160+AR9106)    2GHz/5GHz    3x3:2    PCI
           AR9220                         2GHz/5GHz    2x2:2    PCI
           AR9223                         2GHz         2x2:2    PCI
           AR9280                         2GHz/5GHz    2x2:2    PCIe
           AR9280+AR7010                  2GHz/5GHz    2x2:2    USB 2.0
           AR9281                         2GHz         1x2:2    PCIe
           AR9285                         2GHz         1x1:1    PCIe
           AR9271                         2GHz         1x1:1    USB 2.0
           AR2427                         2GHz         1x1:1    PCIe
           AR9227                         2GHz         2x2:2    PCI
           AR9287                         2GHz         2x2:2    PCIe
           AR9287+AR7010                  2GHz         2x2:2    USB 2.0

     These are the modes the athn driver can operate in:

     BSS mode       Also known as infrastructure mode, this is used when
                    associating with an access point, through which all
                    traffic passes.  This mode is the default.

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

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

     The athn driver can be configured to use Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP)
     or Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA-PSK and WPA2-PSK).  WPA is the de facto
     encryption standard for wireless networks.  It is strongly recommended
     that WEP not be used as the sole mechanism to secure wireless
     communication, due to serious weaknesses in it.  The athn driver relies
     on the software 802.11 stack for both encryption and decryption of data
     frames.

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

FILES
     For USB devices, the driver needs at least version 1.1 of the following
     firmware files, which are loaded when an interface is attached:

           /libdata/firmware/athn-ar7010
           /libdata/firmware/athn-ar7010-11
           /libdata/firmware/athn-ar9271

EXAMPLES
     The following ifconfig.if(5) example configures athn0 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 ifconfig.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

     Join an existing BSS network, "my_net":

           # ifconfig athn0 192.168.1.1 netmask 0xffffff00 nwid my_net

DIAGNOSTICS
     athn%d: device timeout  A frame dispatched to the hardware for
     transmission did not complete in time.  The driver will reset the
     hardware.  This should not happen.

     athn%d: radio is disabled by hardware switch  The radio transmitter is
     off and thus no packet can go out.  The driver will reset the hardware.
     Make sure the laptop radio switch is on.

     athn%d: radio switch turned off  The radio switch has been turned off
     while the interface was up and running.  The driver will turn the
     interface down.

     athn%d: error %d, could not read firmware %s  For some reason, the driver
     was unable to read the firmware file from the filesystem.  The file might
     be missing or corrupted.

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

HISTORY
     The athn driver first appeared in OpenBSD 4.7.  Support for USB 2.0
     devices first appeared in OpenBSD 4.9.  It was later ported to
     NetBSD 7.0.

AUTHORS
     The athn driver was written by Damien Bergamini <damien@openbsd.org>
     based on source code licensed under the ISC released in 2008 by Atheros
     Communications for Linux.

CAVEATS
     The athn driver does not support any of the 802.11n capabilities offered
     by the adapters.  Additional work is required in ieee80211(9) before
     those features can be supported.

NetBSD 10.99                     July 31, 2013                    NetBSD 10.99