1 MADWIFI: Multimode Atheros Driver for WiFi on Linux
2 ===================================================
4 * Copyright (c) 2002-2005 Sam Leffler. All rights reserved.
6 Read the file COPYRIGHT for the complete copyright.
12 - Configured kernel sources of the target kernel. Most Linux
13 distributions provide a kernel development package - it should
16 - Wireless Extensions support - option CONFIG_NET_RADIO or
17 CONFIG_WIRELESS_EXT in kernel .config file, whichever is available.
19 - Sysctl support - option CONFIG_SYSCTL in kernel .config file.
21 - Crypto API support - option CONFIG_CRYPTO in kernel .config file (AES
22 support is used if present, otherwise the AES-CCMP cipher module falls
23 back to a private implementation).
25 - gcc of the same version that was used to compile the kernel. At least
26 make sure that the first two version numbers or the compiler are the
27 same (e.g. it's OK to use gcc 3.4.6 to compile MadWifi if the kernel
28 was compiled by gcc 3.4.2). Ignoring this rule will cause "Invalid
29 module format" errors during module load.
31 Linux 2.4.x kernels starting with 2.4.22 and 2.6 kernels should work
32 without problems. Due to quick pace of Linux development, there is no
33 way compatibility with the future 2.6 kernels can be ensured. However,
34 the latest 2.6 kernel at the time of the release should be expected to
35 work. For AHB support, Linux 2.6.19 or newer is required.
37 Automatic module loading support (CONFIG_KMOD) is highly recommended;
38 otherwise, you'll need to load all required modules manually.
44 The driver is built using the Linux kernel build mechanism. This means
45 you must have some part of the kernel source distribution installed on
46 the machine where you want to build the driver. In particular, the
47 kernel include files, makefiles, build scripts and configuration must be
50 This will be present if you built your kernel from source. Otherwise
51 you may need to install an additional kernel development package from
52 your distribution that would match your kernel. For example, the
53 development package for the default kernel is called linux-headers on
54 Debian and kernel-devel on Fedora Core. Installing a package with full
55 kernel sources should not be generally necessary.
57 Note: in the following examples "$" stands for your system prompt;
58 you're not expected to type that as part of the actual command. "#"
59 stands for the command prompt when the commands must be executed by
62 Most people can just type:
66 in the top-level MadWifi source directory to build all the modules for
67 the currently running system.
69 You MUST do a "make clean" before compiling for a different version of
70 Linux, e.g. building for 2.6 after building for 2.4.
72 If you want to compile MadWifi for a different kernel, you need to
73 specify the location of the kernel build tree, e.g.:
75 $ make KERNELPATH=/usr/src/linux-2.6.3
77 Note that you can also specify this path by setting an environment
80 $ export KERNELPATH=/usr/src/linux-2.6.3
83 If the kernel was built outside the source directory, KERNELPATH should
84 point to the output directory where .config is located, not to the
91 The build system is designed to support cross-compiling without any
92 modification to the distribution files. It should be sufficient to
93 specify any parameters on the make command line.
95 In most cases, only KERNELPATH, ARCH and CROSS_COMPILE need to be
96 defined. ARCH is the architecture of the kernel. CROSS_COMPILE is the
97 prefix for cross-compiling tools. For instance, if compiling for ARM
98 and the cross compiler is called arm-linux-gcc, set ARCH to "arm" and
99 CROSS_COMPILE to "arm-linux-":
101 $ make KERNELPATH=/usr/src/linux-arm ARCH=arm CROSS_COMPILE=arm-linux-
103 If the compiler needs additional flags to compile userspace binaries,
104 you can redefine CC to include those flags.
106 When installing MadWifi, set DESTDIR to the root of the target
107 filesystem, so that the cross-compiled binaries don't overwrite the
114 Building the software will generate numerous loadable modules:
116 ath_pci Atheros driver for PCI/Cardbus devices
118 wlan 802.11 support layer
119 wlan_wep WEP cipher support
120 wlan_tkip TKIP cipher support
121 wlan_ccmp AES-CCMP cipher support
122 wlan_xauth external authenticator
123 wlan_acl MAC ACL support for AP operation
124 wlan_scan_ap AP scanning support
125 wlan_scan_sta station scanning support
126 ath_rate_onoe ONOE rate control
127 ath_rate_amrr AMRR rate control
128 ath_rate_sample SAMPLE rate control
130 The ath_pci module must be loaded either manually or by the system, e.g.
131 through the hotplug or card manager support. The remaining modules are
132 loaded automatically as needed, so after doing a "make install" you only
133 need to run following:
137 For automatic module loading you may need to modify your system's
138 configuration files so the necessary modules are loaded when an Atheros
139 device is recognized. The exact procedure varies from system to system.
141 There are module parameters available to fit your needs, e.g. you can
142 set the countrycode manually if your card's EEPROM does not contain the
143 correct one for your location. See
144 http://www.unicode.org/onlinedat/countries.html to find your code.
146 To activate German frequencies you would specify:
148 # modprobe ath_pci countrycode=276
150 MadWifi currently provides four different rate control algorithms,
151 ONOE, AMRR, SAMPLE and MINSTREL. SAMPLE and MINSTREL are both very
152 advanced, but MINSTREL is quite new. Consequently, SAMPLE is used by
153 default. In order to make MadWifi use e.g. AMRR instead, you have to
154 specify that as the module parameter e.g.
156 # modprobe ath_pci ratectl=amrr
158 NOTE: Changing the rate control is only required (and recommended) for
159 users who want to setup an access point using MadWifi in difficult
160 (e.g. lossy) environments and who know what they are doing.
162 To see all available module parameters type:
167 Integrating into the kernel sources
168 -----------------------------------
170 It is also possible to patch Linux kernel sources to integrate MadWifi
171 directly into the kernel tree. This allows building MadWifi as part of
172 the kernel. This could be useful for embedded systems that don't
173 support loadable modules. Please refer to patch-kernel/README for
180 Further information on how to work with the driver can be found in the
181 file README. In addition, the project's wiki has a lot of valuable
184 http://madwifi-project.org/