IWM(4)

NAME
iwm - Intel 7000/8000 IEEE 802.11a/ac/b/g/n wireless network devices

SYNOPSIS
iwm* at pci?

DESCRIPTION
The iwm driver provides support for Intel Wireless 7260, 7265, 3160, 3165, and 8260 PCIe Mini Card network adapters.

These are the modes the iwm 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.

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

FILES
The driver needs one of the following firmware files, which are loaded when an interface is brought up:

/etc/firmware/iwm-3160-16
/etc/firmware/iwm-7260-16
/etc/firmware/iwm-7265-16
/etc/firmware/iwm-8000C-16

These firmware files are not free because Intel refuses to grant distribution rights without contractual obligations. As a result, even though OpenBSD includes the driver, the firmware files cannot be included and users have to download these files on their own.

A prepackaged version of the firmware can be installed using fw_update(1).

EXAMPLES
The following example scans for available networks:

    # ifconfig iwm0 scan

The following hostname.if(5) example configures iwm0 to join network “mynwid”, using WPA key “mywpakey”, obtaining an IP address using DHCP:

    nwid mynwid
    wpakey mywpakey
    dhcp

DIAGNOSTICS

iwm0: 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.

iwm0: fatal firmware error For some reason, the firmware crashed. The driver will reset the hardware. This should not happen.

iwm0: 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.

iwm0: could not read firmware ... (error N) For some reason, the driver was unable to read the firmware image from the filesystem. The file might be missing or corrupted.

iwm0: firmware too short: N bytes The firmware image is corrupted and can't be loaded into the adapter.

iwm0: could not load firmware An attempt to load the firmware into the adapter failed. The driver will reset the hardware.

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

HISTORY
The iwm device driver first appeared in OpenBSD 5.7.

CAVEATS
802.11n operation is currently limited to data rates MCS 0 to MCS 7.

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