From 6e0f88d9174a5e20ffdbf8a1f16c5a39c5f9bba8 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: msmith Date: Fri, 1 Aug 1997 03:32:39 +0000 Subject: New manpage for the Wavelan (wl) driver. Submitted by: Jim Binkley --- share/man/man4/man4.i386/wl.4 | 215 +++++++++++++++++++++--------------------- 1 file changed, 109 insertions(+), 106 deletions(-) (limited to 'share/man/man4/man4.i386/wl.4') diff --git a/share/man/man4/man4.i386/wl.4 b/share/man/man4/man4.i386/wl.4 index a7c5bad..114ef0f 100644 --- a/share/man/man4/man4.i386/wl.4 +++ b/share/man/man4/man4.i386/wl.4 @@ -1,5 +1,5 @@ .\" -.\" Copyright (c) 1996 Michael Smith +.\" Copyright (c) 1997, Jim Binkley .\" All rights reserved. .\" .\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without @@ -10,6 +10,11 @@ .\" 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright .\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the .\" documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution. +.\" 3. All advertising materials mentioning features or use of this software +.\" must display the following acknowledgement: +.\" This product includes software developed by Jim Binkley +.\" 4. The name of the author may not be used to endorse or promote products +.\" derived from this software without specific prior written permission. .\" .\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE AUTHOR AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND .\" ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE @@ -23,122 +28,120 @@ .\" OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF .\" SUCH DAMAGE. .\" -.\" $Id$ -.\" -.Dd March 4, 1997 -.Dt ED 4 i386 +.\" $Id$ +.Dd July 7, 1997 +.Dt WL 4 i386 .Os FreeBSD .Sh NAME .Nm wl -.Nd -NCR Wavelan device driver +.Nd T1 speed ISA/radio lan card .Sh SYNOPSIS -.Cd "device wl0 at isa? port 0x300 net irq ? vector wlintr" +.Cd "device wl0 at isa? port 0x300 net irq 5 vector wlintr" .Sh DESCRIPTION The -.Nm -driver provides support for the ISA bus AT&T/NCR/Lucent Wavelan -ethernet-like wireless network cards. -.Pp -All card configuration values except for the base address are read from the PSA -(Parameter Storage Area) on the card, which can be configured with the -.Xr wlconfig 8 -program. The base address for the card is set by dipswitches; see the manual -supplied with the card for details. +.Nm wl +driver controls a radio lan card system made originally by +NCR, then ATT, now Lucent. The system is spread-spectrum radio +at around 915 mhz (or 2.4 ghz). With the supplied omni-directional antennae, +about 400 feet (indoors, more outdoors) can be covered in circumference. +This card can talk to the companion (wlp0) pccard. Speeds vary +from 1 megabit to theoretically 2 megabits (roughly T1 in speed). .Pp -The -.Nm -driver does not accept any flags, however its behaviour can be controlled with -a number of sysctl values: -.Bl -hang -offset indent -.It Em machdep.wl_xmit_delay -On some systems, the driver is too fast for the Wavelan card. This value can be -tweaked to slow the output rate of the driver at the expense of CPU performance. -A value of 200 is believed to be acceptable for 486 systems, while 1000 is -considered adequate for a 166MHz Pentium. -.It Em machdep.wl_xmit_watch -Causes extra debugging messages concerning the state of transmitted packets to -be printed. -.It Em machdep.wl_gather_snr -SNR statistics are gathered. This is not completely implemented yet. -.El -.Sh DIAGNOSTICS +The card has 3 fundmental hardware +units, a so-called PSA or programmable storage area, a radio modem, +and a ethernet lan controller. The latter component is the +ancient (and not very honorable) Intel 82586 ethernet chip. +Fundamentally it appears to the operating system as an ethernet system, +and speaks IEEE MAC addresses. The radio modem simply translates +ethernet packets to/from radio packets, that are either at 2.4 Ghz +or 915 mhz depending on the radio modem. It supports a collision +avoidance scheme. The lan controller +supports promiscuous mode, broadcast, and multicasting +(although there is a glitch +in the latter). "It thinks it is ethernet". +.Pp +How it is used +depends on the kind of antennae deployed with it. Point to point +applications are possible as are ethernet-like lan use. The vendor +ships an omni-directional antennae that works in the +vicinity of 400 feet (indoors). +Point to point antennae can be purchased that will go miles. +.Sh SETUP +The card can either be initialized with the vendor supplied DOS setup software. +Typically minimally an IRQ, port, and Network ID must be supplied. +Michael Smith's +.Nm wlconfig(8) +utility can now be used to do this work from +the UNIX side. The card is "not" plug and play. +The network id controls whether one set of cards can hear another. +If different, cards will read physical packets, but they will be discarded +by the radio modem. +.Sh CONTROL +In addition to the config utility, there are several sysctl +switches that can be used to modify runtime parameters. +The +.Nm sysctl(8) +variables are as follows: .Bl -diag -.It "wl%d: PSA corrupt (invalid IRQ value)" -The IRQ value in the PSA is illegal. The card will be configured not to generate -any interrupts, ie. it will not work as a network device, however it will be possible -to use -.Xr wlconfig 8 -to reconfigure the IRQ to a sensible value. -.It "wl%d init(): trouble resetting board." -.It "wl%d bldcu(): iscp_busy timeout." -.It "wl%d bldcu(): not ready after reset." -The board failed to respond correctly during reset and configuration. -.It "wl%d: busy?!" -While attempting to queue a packet for transmission, the card claims to -be busy although we were sure it wasn't. -.It "wl%d read(): board is not running." -An attempt was made to read a packet from the card, but we don't think that -it's running. Should never happen. -.It "wl%d read(): Invalid buffer" -The i82586 on the card has corrupted its buffers. -.It "wl%d read(): hwrst trouble." -Having failed to meet expectations, the i82586 on the card is refusing to reset. -.It "wl%d read(): No mbuf nth" -An error occurred allocating mbufs to copy a received packet to. -.It "wl%d ioctl(): board is not running" -The interface was marked as DOWN but still RUNNING. Harmless. -.It "wlack() int bits disappeared : %04x != int_type %04x" -While acknowledging an interrupt, some of the interrupt sources on the i83586 -went away. -.It "wl%d: xmt intr but not busy, CU %04x" -A transmit interrupt occurred but we are not expecting one. -.It "wl%d: xmt intr but ac_status == 0" -A transmit interrupt occurred but there is no status to indicate that one should -have been generated. -.It "wl%d: xmt aborted" -The transmission of a packet was aborted. -.It "wl%d: no CTS" -A packet was not transmitted because the CTS input to the i82586 went away. -.It "wl%d: DMA underrun" -The DMA hardware on the Wavelan card failed, causing an outgoing packet to be -lost. -.It "wl%d: xmt deferred" -Transmission of a packet was deferred to avoid other traffic. -.It "wl%d: heart beat" -The i82586 thought it heard a heartbeat signal. This usually means that there's -someone else transmitting at the same time. -.It "wl%d: too many collisions" -A packet was aborted because too many collisions occurred trying to send it. -.It "wl%d RCV: !OK %x" -A receive operation did not complete OK. -.It "wl%d: slow accepting xmit" -The i82586 on the card is taking a long time to accept a transmit command. -.It "wl%d: i82586 Self Test failed!" -Diagnostics on the i82586 failed. -.It "wl%d: %s failed; status = %d, inw = %x, outw = %x" -A command to the i82586 failed. -.It "wl%d wlack(): board not accepting command." -The card is not responding to an interrupt acknowledge. +.It "machdep.wl_xmit_delay " +This variable will cause the driver to insert a delay on transmit. +250 is the default. The delay should probably be a bit longer +on faster cpus and less on slower cpus. It exists because the 82586 +was not designed to work with pentium-speed cpu systems and if overdriven +will have copious xmit side errors. +.It machdep.wl_ignore_nwid <0 | 1> +This switch defaults to 0; i.e., the nwid is not ignored. It can +be set to 1 to cause the nwid to not be used. This may be useful +when the device is in promiscuous mode as one can watch for all +packets and ignore nwid differences. +.It machdep.wl_xmit_watch +This switch is not currently useful. +.It machdep.wl_gather_snr +This switch is not currently useful. +.Pp +There is also a signal strength cache in the driver. It may be interrogated +with +.Nm wlconfig(8) . +Incoming packets +are checked for certain hardware radio-modem values including signal +strength, silence, and quality, which range fro 0..63, 0..63, and 0..15 +respectively. Thus one can read out signal strenth values to see +how close/far peer nodes are. The signal strength cache is indexed by +sender MAC address. +There are two sysctls that change how it filters packets. Both are on +by default. +.It machdep.wl_wlcache_mcastonly <0 | 1> +By default this switch is on. It forces the cache to filter out +unicast packets. Only broadcast or multicast packets are accepted. +.It machdep.wl_wlcache_iponly <0 | 1> +By default this switch is on. It forces the driver to discard non-IP +packets and also stores the IP src address. ARP packets are ignored, +as are any other network protocol barring IPv4 packets. .El .Sh CAVEATS -The cards are known to lose transmit interrupts under heavy load. Ajust the -machdep.wl_xmit_delay parameter to avoid this. -.Pp -On one test link, packet loss was significant enough to causes major lagging. -.Sh BUGS -The -.Nm -driver is very old and has been hacked on by many people. The i82586 is an -odd and funky device. The two are not necessarily a good mix. +The 82586 has numerous defects. It may experience transmit-side +errors when modern faster cpus send packets at it faster than it can handle. +The driver (and probably the chip) does not support an all multicast mode. +As a result, it can be used with applications like mrouted(8), but +it must go into promiscuous mode for that to work. The driver +is slow to change modes from "normal" to promiscuous mode, presumably +due to delays in the configuration code. .Sh SEE ALSO .Xr wlconfig 8 , -.Xr netintro 4 , -.Xr ifconfig 8 +.Xr sysctl 8 , +.Xr http://www.wavelan.com .Sh HISTORY The -.Nm -device driver was written/ported for Mach by Anders Klemets, ported to BSD/OS -by Richard Morris, to FreeBSD 2.1 by Jim Binkley and to FreeBSD 2.2 by Michael -Smith. It has not appeared in any FreeBSD releases yet. - +.Nm wl +driver was written by Anders Klemets (thousands of years ago?) and +appears to be based on an even older Intel 82586 driver. The 82586 +controller was one of the first (if not the first?) integrated lan +controller on the block. That does not mean it was the best either. +Anders ported and or created a driver for the ISA wavelan and PCCARD +wavelan system too (wlp). Robert T. Morris, Jr. ported the Mach +drivers to BSDI. Jim Binkley ported them to FreeBSD 2.1. Michael +Smith ported the wl driver only to 2.2.2. Jim and Michael have been +maintaining them. The current state of the driver is NOT ANYONE'S +FAULT. Thanks to Bernie Doehner and Robert Buaas for contributions. +.Sh AUTHOR +Too numerous to mention. See above. -- cgit v1.1