OpenBSD manual page server

NAME

bwfm — Broadcom and Cypress IEEE 802.11a/ac/ax/b/g/n wireless network device

SYNOPSIS

bwfm* at pci?
bwfm* at sdmmc?
bwfm* at usb?

DESCRIPTION

The bwfm driver provides support for Broadcom and Cypress FullMAC wireless network adapters.

The following table summarizes supported chipsets and their capabilities, as well as the bus attachments recognized by the bwfm driver:

These are the modes the bwfm 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.

The bwfm driver can be configured to use Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP) or Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA1 and WPA2). WPA2 is the current encryption standard for wireless networks. It is strongly recommended that neither WEP nor WPA1 are used as the sole mechanism to secure wireless communication, due to serious weaknesses. WPA1 is disabled by default and may be enabled using the option "wpaprotos wpa1,wpa2". For standard WPA networks which use pre-shared keys (PSK), keys are configured using the "wpakey" option. WPA-Enterprise networks require use of the wpa_supplicant package. The bwfm driver relies on the software 802.11 stack for the WPA handshake. Both encryption and decryption of data frames are handled by the firmware.

The firmware automatically selects the transmit speed and the channel depending on the received signal strength.

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

FILES

The driver needs a firmware file which is loaded when the driver attaches. A prepackaged version of the firmware can be installed using fw_update(8).

EXAMPLES

The following example scans for available networks:

The following hostname.if(5) example configures bwfm0 to join network “mynwid”, using WPA key “mywpakey”, obtaining an IP address using DHCP:

nwid mynwid wpakey mywpakey
inet autoconf

The following hostname.if(5) example creates a host-based access point on boot:

mediaopt hostap
nwid mynwid wpakey mywpakey
inet 192.168.1.1 255.255.255.0

SEE ALSO

arp(4), ifmedia(4), intro(4), netintro(4), pci(4), usb(4), hostname.if(5), ifconfig(8)

HISTORY

The bwfm driver first appeared in OpenBSD 6.3.

AUTHORS

The bwfm driver was written by Patrick Wildt <[email protected]>.

CAVEATS

The firmware is outdated and contains known vulnerabilities.

This driver does not support powersave mode.