WICONTROL(8) System Manager's Manual WICONTROL(8) NAME wicontrol -- configure WaveLAN/IEEE devices SYNOPSIS wicontrol [-i] iface [-o] wicontrol [-i] iface -t tx_rate wicontrol [-i] iface -n network_name wicontrol [-i] iface -s station_name wicontrol [-i] iface -c 0 | 1 wicontrol [-i] iface -q SSID wicontrol [-i] iface -p port_type wicontrol [-i] iface -a access_point_density wicontrol [-i] iface -m mac_address wicontrol [-i] iface -d max_data_length wicontrol [-i] iface -e 0 | 1 wicontrol [-i] iface -k key [-v 1 | 2 | 3 | 4] wicontrol [-i] iface -T 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 wicontrol [-i] iface -r RTS_threshold wicontrol [-i] iface -f frequency wicontrol [-i] iface -P 0 | 1 wicontrol [-i] iface -S max_sleep_duration wicontrol [-i] iface -Z (zero signal cache) wicontrol [-i] iface -C (display signal cache) wicontrol [-i] iface -L (list avail access points) wicontrol [-i] iface -l (dump associated stations) DESCRIPTION The wicontrol utility controls the operation of WaveLAN/IEEE wireless net- working devices via the wi(4) driver. Most of the parameters that can be changed relate to the IEEE 802.11 protocol which the WaveLAN implements. This includes the station name, whether the station is operating in ad-hoc (point to point) or BSS (service set) mode, and the network name of a ser- vice set to join (IBSS) if BSS mode is enabled. The wicontrol utility can also be used to view the current settings of these parameters and to dump out the values of the card's statistics counters. The iface argument given to wicontrol should be the logical interface name associated with the WaveLAN/IEEE device (wi0, wi1, etc.). If none is spec- ified then "wi0" is used as default. OPTIONS The options are as follows: [-i] iface [-o] Display the current settings of the specified WaveLAN/IEEE inter- face. This retrieves the current card settings from the driver and prints them out. Using the additional -o flag will cause wicontrol to print out the statistics counters instead of the card settings. Encryption keys are only displayed if wicontrol is run as root. [-i] iface -t tx_rate Set the transmit rate of the specified interface. The legal values for the transmit rate vary depending on whether the interface is a standard WaveLAN/IEEE or a WaveLAN/IEEE Turbo adapter. The stan- dard NICs support a maximum transmit rate of 2Mbps while the turbo NICs support a maximum speed of 6Mbps. The following table shows the legal transmit rate settings and the corresponding transmit speeds: TX rate NIC speed 1 Fixed Low (1Mbps) 2 Fixed Standard (2Mbps) 3 Auto Rate Select (High) 4 Fixed Medium (4Mbps) 5 Fixed High (6Mbps) 6 Auto Rate Select (Standard) 7 Auto Rate Select (Medium) The standard NICs support only settings 1 through 3. Turbo NICs support all the above listed speed settings. The default driver setting is 3 (auto rate select). [-i] iface -n network_name Set the name of the service set (IBSS) that this station wishes to join. The network_name can be any text string up to 30 characters in length. The default name is the string "ANY" which should allow the station to connect to the first available access point. The interface should be set for BSS mode using the -p flag in order for this to work. Note: the WaveLAN manual indicates that an empty string will allow the host to connect to any access point, however I have also seen a reference in another driver which indicates that the "ANY" string works as well. [-i] iface -s station_name Sets the station name for the specified interface. The station_name is used for diagnostic purposes. The Lucent WaveMAN- AGER software can poll the names of remote hosts. [-i] iface -c 0 | 1 Allow the station to create a service set (IBSS). Permitted values are 0 (don't create IBSS) and 1 (enable creation of IBSS). The de- fault is 0. Note: this option is provided for experimental purposes only: en- abling the creation of an IBSS on a host system doesn't appear to actually work. [-i] iface -q SSID Specify the name of an IBSS (SSID) to create on a given interface. The SSID can be any text string up to 30 characters long. Note: this option is provided for experimental purposes only: en- abling the creation of an IBSS on a host system doesn't appear to actually work. [-i] iface -p port_type Set the port type for a specified interface. The legal values for port_type are 1 (BSS mode) and 3 (ad-hoc) mode. In ad-hoc mode, the station can communicate directly with any other stations within direct radio range (provided that they are also operating in ad-hoc mode). In BSS mode, hosts must associate with a service set con- trolled by an access point, which relays traffic between end sta- tions. The default setting is 3 (ad-hoc mode). [-i] iface -a access_point_density Specify the access point density for a given interface. Legal val- ues are 1 (low), 2 (medium) and 3 (high). This setting influences some of the radio modem threshold settings. [-i] iface -m mac_address Set the station address for the specified interface. The mac_address is specified as a series of six hexadecimal values sep- arated by colons, e.g., "00:60:1d:12:34:56". This programs the new address into the card and updates the interface as well. [-i] iface -d max_data_length Set the maximum receive and transmit frame size for a specified in- terface. The max_data_length can be any number from 350 to 2304. The default is 2304. [-i] iface -e 0 | 1 Enable or disable WEP encryption. Permitted values are 0 (encryp- tion disabled) or 1 (encryption enabled). Encryption is off by de- fault. Both 128-bit and 64-bit WEP have been broken. See the "BUGS" sec- tion for details. [-i] iface -k key [-v 1 | 2 | 3 | 4] Set WEP encryption keys. There are four default encryption keys that can be programmed. A specific key can be set using the -v flag. If the -v flag is not specified, the first key will be set. Encryption keys can either be normal text (i.e. "hello") or a se- ries of hexadecimal digits (i.e. "0x1234512345"). For WaveLAN Turbo Silver cards, the key is restricted to 40 bits, hence the key can be either a 5 character text string or 10 hex digits. For WaveLAN Turbo Gold cards, the key can also be 104 bits, which means the key can be specified as either a 13 character text string or 26 hex digits in addition to the formats supported by the Silver cards. For maximum portability, hex keys are recommended; the mapping of text keys to WEP encryption is usually driver-specific. In partic- ular, the Windows drivers do this mapping differently to FreeBSD. Note: Both 128-bit and 64-bit WEP encryption have been broken. See the "BUGS" section for details. [-i] iface -T 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 Specify which of the four WEP encryption keys will be used to en- crypt transmitted packets. Note: Both 128-bit and 64-bit WEP have been broken. See the "BUGS" section for details. [-i] iface -r RTS_threshold Set the RTS/CTS threshold for a given interface. This controls the number of bytes used for the RTS/CTS handshake boundary. The RTS_threshold can be any value between 0 and 2347. The default is 2347. [-i] iface -f frequency Set the radio frequency of a given interface. The frequency should be specified as a channel ID as shown in the table below. The list of available frequencies is dependent on radio regulations speci- fied by regional authorities. Recognized regulatory authorities include the FCC (United States), ETSI (Europe), France and Japan. Frequencies in the table are specified in MHz. Channel ID FCC ETSI France Japan 1 2412 2412 - 2412 2 2417 2417 - 2417 3 2422 2422 - 2422 4 2427 2427 - 2427 5 2432 2432 - 2432 6 2437 2437 - 2437 7 2442 2442 - 2442 8 2447 2447 - 2447 9 2452 2452 - 2452 10 2457 2457 2457 2457 11 2462 2462 2462 2462 12 - 2467 2467 2467 13 - 2472 2472 2472 14 - - - 2484 If an illegal channel is specified, the NIC will revert to its de- fault channel. For NICs sold in the United States and Europe, the default channel is 3. For NICs sold in France, the default channel is 11. For NICs sold in Japan, the default channel is 14, and it is the only available channel for pre-11Mbps NICs. Note that two stations must be set to the same channel in order to communicate. [-i] iface -P 0 | 1 Enable or disable power management on a given interface. Enabling power management uses an alternating sleep/wake protocol to help conserve power on mobile stations, at the cost of some increased receive latency. Power management is off by default. Note that power management requires the cooperation of an access point in or- der to function; it is not functional in ad-hoc mode. Also, power management is only implemented in Lucent WavePOINT firmware version 2.03 or later, and in WaveLAN PCMCIA adapter firmware 2.00 or later. Older revisions will silently ignore the power management setting. Legal values for this parameter are 0 (off) and 1 (on). [-i] iface -S max_sleep_interval Specify the sleep interval to use when power management is enabled. The max_sleep_interval is specified in milliseconds. The default is 100. [-i] iface -Z Clear the signal strength cache maintained internally by the wi(4) driver. [-i] iface -C Display the cached signal strength information maintained by the wi(4) driver. The driver retains information about signal strength and noise level for packets received from different hosts. The signal strength and noise level values are displayed in units of dBms. The signal quality values is produced by subtracting the noise level from the signal strength (i.e. less noise and better signal yields better signal quality). SEE ALSO ipsec(4), wi(4), ifconfig(8) BUGS The WEP encryption method has been broken so that third parties can recover the keys in use relatively quickly at distances that are surprising to most people. Do not rely on WEP for anything but the most basic, remedial secu- rity. IPSEC will give you a higher level of security and should be used whenever possible. Do not trust access points or wireless machines that connect through them as they can provide no assurance that the traffic is legitimate. MAC addresses can easily be forged and should therefore not be used as the only access control. The attack on WEP is a passive attack, requiring only the ability to sniff packets on the network. The passive attack can be launched at a distance larger, up to many miles, than one might otherwise expect given a special- ized antenna used in point to point applications. The attacker can recover the keys from a 128-bit WEP network with only 5,000,000 to 6,000,000 pack- ets. While this may sound like a large number of packets, emperical evi- dence suggests that this amount of traffic is generated in a few hours on a partially loaded network. Once a key has been compromised, the only reme- dial action is to discontinue it and use a new key. See http://www.cs.rice.edu/~astubble/wep/wep_attack.html for details of the attack. If you must use WEP, you are strongly encouraged to pick keys whose bytes are random and not confined to ASCII characters. HISTORY The wicontrol utility first appeared in FreeBSD 3.0. AUTHORS The wicontrol utility was written by Bill Paul <wpaul@ctr.columbia.edu>. FreeBSD 5.0 April 21, 1999 WICONTROL(8)
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