malo

MALO(4)                   OpenBSD Programmer's Manual                  MALO(4)

NAME

     malo - Marvell Libertas IEEE 802.11b/g wireless network device

SYNOPSIS

     malo* at cardbus?
     malo* at pci?
     malo* at pcmcia?

DESCRIPTION

     The malo driver provides support for Marvell Libertas
     88W8335/88W8310/88W8385 based PCI/CardBus/PCMCIA network adapters.  The
     second generation 88W8335/88W8310 chipsets support 802.11b/g.

     These are the modes the malo driver can operate in:

     BSS mode       Also known as infrastructure mode, this is used when asso-
                    ciating with an access point, through which all traffic
                    passes.  This mode is the default.

     monitor mode   In this mode the driver is able to receive packets without
                    associating with an access point.  This disables the in-
                    ternal receive filter and enables the card to capture
                    packets from networks which it wouldn't normally have ac-
                    cess to, or to scan for access points.

     The malo driver can be configured to use Wireless Equivalent Privacy
     (WEP) or Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA-PSK and WPA2-PSK).  WPA is the de
     facto encryption standard for wireless networks.  It is strongly recom-
     mended that WEP not be used as the sole mechanism to secure wireless com-
     munication, due to serious weaknesses in it.  The malo driver relies on
     the software 802.11 stack for both encryption and decryption of data
     frames.

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

FILES

     The driver needs a set of firmware files which are loaded when an inter-
     face is brought up:

           /etc/firmware/malo8335-h
           /etc/firmware/malo8335-m
           /etc/firmware/malo8338
           /etc/firmware/malo8385-h
           /etc/firmware/malo8385-m

     These firmware files are not free because Marvell refuses to grant dis-
     tribution rights.  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, designed to be used with
     pkg_add(1), can be found at:

           http://www.nazgul.ch/malo/malo-firmware-1.4.tgz

HARDWARE

     The following cards are among those supported by the malo driver:

           Card                   Chip       Bus        Standard
           Ambicom WL54CF         88W8385    PCMCIA     b/g
           I-O DATA WN-G54/CF     88W8385    PCMCIA     b/g
           Netgear WG511v2        88W8310    CardBus    b/g
           Netgear WG311v3        88W8335    PCI        b/g
           SparkLAN WCFM-100      88W8385    PCMCIA     b/g
           Tenda TWL541C          88W8310    CardBus    b/g
           Tenda TWL542P          88W8335    PCI        b/g

EXAMPLES

     The following hostname.if(5) example configures malo0 to join whatever
     network is available on boot, using WEP key ``0x1deadbeef1'', channel 11,
     obtaining an IP address using DHCP:

           dhcp NONE NONE NONE nwkey 0x1deadbeef1 chan 11

     Configure malo0 to join network ``my_net'' using WPA-PSK with passphrase
     ``my_passphrase'':

           # ifconfig malo0 nwid my_net wpa wpapsk \
                   `wpa-psk my_net my_passphrase`

     Return malo0 to its default settings:

           # ifconfig malo0 -bssid -chan media autoselect \
                   nwid "" -nwkey -wpa -wpapsk

     Join an existing BSS network, ``my_net'':

           # ifconfig malo0 192.168.1.1 netmask 0xffffff00 nwid my_net

SEE ALSO

     arp(4), cardbus(4), ifmedia(4), intro(4), netintro(4), pci(4),
     hostname.if(5), hostapd(8), ifconfig(8), wpa-psk(8)

HISTORY

     The malo driver first appeared in OpenBSD 4.1.

AUTHORS

     The malo driver was written by Claudio Jeker and Marcus Glocker.

OpenBSD 4.5                    February 16, 2009                             2