NAME
rtwn —
Realtek RTL8188CE/RTL8192CE PCIe
IEEE 802.11b/g/n wireless network device
SYNOPSIS
rtwn* at pci? dev ? function ?
DESCRIPTION
The
rtwn driver supports PCIe wireless network devices based
on the Realtek RTL8188CE and RTL8192CE chipset.
The RTL8188CE is a highly integrated 802.11n adapter that combines a MAC, a 1T1R
capable baseband and an RF in a single chip. It operates in the 2GHz spectrum
only.
The RTL8192CE is a highly integrated multiple-in, multiple-out (MIMO) 802.11n
adapter that combines a MAC, a 2T2R capable baseband and an RF in a single
chip. It operates in the 2GHz spectrum only.
These are the modes the
rtwn 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.
-
-
- 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
rtwn driver can be configured to use Wired Equivalent
Privacy (WEP) or Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA-PSK and WPA2-PSK). WPA is the
current 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
rtwn driver can be configured at runtime with
ifconfig(8) or on boot with
ifconfig.if(5).
FILES
The driver needs the following firmware files, which are loaded when an
interface is brought up:
- /libdata/firmware/if_rtwn/rtl8192cfw.bin
-
- /libdata/firmware/if_rtwn/rtl8192cfwU.bin
-
- /libdata/firmware/if_rtwn/rtl8192cfwU_B.bin
-
EXAMPLES
The following
ifconfig.if(5)
example configures rtwn0 to join whatever network is available on boot, using
WEP key “0x1deadbeef1”, channel 11, obtaining an IP address using
DHCP:
nwkey 0x1deadbeef1 chan 11
dhcp
Join an existing BSS network, “my_net”:
# ifconfig rtwn0 192.168.1.1 netmask 0xffffff00 nwid my_net
DIAGNOSTICS
- rtwn%d: could not read firmware
...
- For some reason, the driver was unable to read the
microcode file from the filesystem. The file might be missing or
corrupted.
- rtwn%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.
SEE ALSO
arp(4),
netintro(4),
pci(4),
ifconfig.if(5),
wpa_supplicant.conf(5),
ifconfig(8),
wpa_supplicant(8)
HISTORY
The
rtwn driver first appeared in
OpenBSD
5.8 and in
NetBSD 8.0.
AUTHORS
The
rtwn driver was written by
Stefan
Sperling ⟨stsp@openbsd.org⟩ for
OpenBSD and ported to
NetBSD
by
NONAKA Kimihiro ⟨nonaka@NetBSD.org⟩.
It was based on the
urtwn(4)
driver written by
Damien Bergamini
⟨damien.bergamini@free.fr⟩.
CAVEATS
The
rtwn 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.