NAME

bwn — Broadcom BCM43xx SoftMAC IEEE 802.11 wireless network driver

SYNOPSIS

To compile this driver into the kernel, add the following lines to the kernel configuration file:
device bwn
device bhnd
device bhndb
device bhndb_pci
device bcma
device siba
device gpio
device wlan
device wlan_amrr
device firmware
To load the driver as a module at boot, add the following lines to loader.conf(5): 
if_bwn_load="YES"

DESCRIPTION

The bwn driver provides support for Broadcom BCM43xx based PCI/CardBus network adapters.
It supports station and monitor mode operation. Only one virtual interface may be configured at any time. For more information on configuring this device, see ifconfig(8).
This driver requires firmware to be loaded before it will work. The ports/net/bwn-firmware-kmod port needs to be installed before ifconfig(8) will work. In most cases the bwn_v4_ucode kernel module from the port should be used. However, if an LP (low power) PHY is being used, the bwn_v4_lp_ucode module should be used.

HARDWARE

The bwn driver supports Broadcom BCM43xx based wireless devices, including:
Card Chip Bus Standard
Apple Airport Extreme BCM4318 PCI b/g
ASUS WL-138g BCM4318 PCI b/g
Buffalo WLI-CB-G54S BCM4318 CardBus b/g
Dell Wireless 1390 BCM4311 Mini PCI b/g
Dell Wireless 1470 BCM4318 Mini PCI b/g
Dell Truemobile 1400 BCM4309 Mini PCI b/g
HP Compaq 6715b BCM4312 PCI b/g
HP nx6125 BCM4319 PCI b/g
Linksys WPC54G Ver 3 BCM4318 CardBus b/g
Linksys WPC54GS Ver 2 BCM4318 CardBus b/g
US Robotics 5411 BCM4318 CardBus b/g
Users of older Broadcom chipsets (BCM4301, BCM4303 and BCM4306 rev 2) must use bwi(4) because the v4 version of the firmware does not support these chips. The newer firmware is too big to fit into these old chips.

EXAMPLES

Join an existing BSS network (i.e., connect to an access point): 
ifconfig wlan create wlandev bwn0 inet 192.168.0.20 \ 
    netmask 0xffffff00
Join a specific BSS network with network name “my_net”:
ifconfig wlan create wlandev bwn0 ssid my_net up
Join a specific BSS network with 64-bit WEP encryption: 
ifconfig wlan create wlandev bwn0 ssid my_net \ 
        wepmode on wepkey 0x1234567890 weptxkey 1 up

LOADER TUNABLES

Tunables can be set at the loader(8) prompt before booting the kernel or stored in loader.conf(5).
hw.bwn.usedma
This tunable enables DMA operations on the hardware. If the value is 0, PIO mode would be used. The default value is 1.

SEE ALSO

arp(4), bcma(4), bhnd(4), bhndb(4), bwi(4), cardbus(4), intro(4), pci(4), siba(4), wlan(4), wlan_amrr(4), ifconfig(8), wpa_supplicant(8)

HISTORY

The bwn driver first appeared in FreeBSD 8.1. The driver was updated to support the common Broadcom bhnd(4) bus interface in FreeBSD 12.0.

AUTHORS

The bwn driver was written by Weongyo Jeong <[email protected]>. Support for bhnd(4) was added by Landon Fuller <[email protected]>.

CAVEATS

Some LP PHY devices have DMA operation problems that in that case try to use PIO mode.