Welcome to the FreeBSD 802.11 wireless protocol and driver overview.

If you need help setting up a wireless connection, check out the Wireless FAQ.

Other pages in this section

* 80211ac * 80211n * AdHoc * AggressiveMode * Ath10k * Ath11k * Ath12k * BringUp * DFS * DWDS * Debugging * FAQ * FastFrames * FixUpThings * IdeasPage * Iwlwifi * LockIssues * Mesh * Mt76 * PowerSave * QoS * Radiotap * RateControl * RegulatoryDomainSupport * Rtw88 * Rtw89 * TDMA * TodoStuff * TxNotes

This section outlines Wireless (IEEE 802.11) Standards and Protocol support in FreeBSD. Whether specific features are supported on particular hardware is chipset and driver specific.

Note: Feature support is dependent on chipset, and on each individual wireless driver implementation.

• 11a, 11b, 11g, 11n operating modes
• Half (10MHz) and Quarter (5MHz) Rate Support
  • See also: Atheros Half & Quarter Rate Support
• Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA)
• Wireless Multi-Media Extensions (WMM/WME)
• Dynamic Frequency Selection & Radar Interoperability
• Operating Modes: HostAP, Station, Ad-Hoc, Monitor
• Multi-SSID HostAP Mode
• Security
  • WEP, WPA, AES-CCMP, TKIP
  • Hardware Encryption Offload
• 802.11n: Station (STA), HostAP modes
• Aggressive Mode: Best-effort traffic performance improvement in QoS BSSes
• Client-side Power Saving
• Wireless Distribution System (WDS) and Dynamic Wireless Distribution System (DWDS)
• A-MSDU Transmit Support
• Atheros 802.11a Turbo Mode
• Atheros 802.11g TurboG Mode
• Atheros Fast-Frames Support

Additional Features:

• Rate Control API
• Extensive debugging, logging and statistics

• 802.11s Mesh - initial support, under development
• ath/ath_hal 802.11n TX aggregation/blockack support
• Radar detection / TPC support
• Ralink 802.11n chipset support
• LockIssues - stack and driver locking and locking issues

Please see dev for further information. Please note, this isn't (yet) an exhaustive list.

• RegulatoryDomainSupport - net80211 regulatory domain support
  • Regulatory Requirements
• Per-driver support (TODO)
  • if_ath regulatory support (TODO)

These may have some funding available to implement. Please contact freebsd-wireless@freebsd.org if you think you're able to code up one of these!

Main ideas page: IdeasPage. Unsorted ideas page: TodoStuff.

• 80211ac - initial 802.11ac support

• Flesh out more 802.11n extensions to net80211
• Migrate the software A-MPDU management from various drivers (notably iwn(4), ath(4)) into net80211
• Migrate out the atheros sample rate module into net80211
• Teach if_ath and other drivers about the net80211 TX rate control code
• 802.11n DFS support
• 802.11h TPC support (driver support, related IEs)
• 802.11h channel survey support (RX signal strength histogram, related IEs)
• Channel steering support - ie, steering 2/5ghz capable clients to 5ghz SSIDs
• 802.11n IBSS support
• 802.11n mesh (11s) support
• 802.11 wireless access in vehicular environments support (802.11p)
• FixUpThings Fix up known things that we need for 802.11-2012 / 802.11ac-2013

Here's a variety of random developer notes!

• BringUp - Bringing up an 802.11 driver (currently only covers bringing up 11n support)
• TxNotes - net80211 transmit and receive path related notes, mostly to look at concurrency issues
• WifiNotes - Collection of notes from discussions with AdrianChadd on the FreeBSD wireless networking stack and how to work effectively with the stack

Please contact freebsd-wireless@freebsd.org for any further information.