ural

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

NAME

     ural - Ralink Technology USB IEEE 802.11b/g wireless network device

SYNOPSIS

     ural* at uhub? port ?

DESCRIPTION

     The ural driver supports USB 2.0 wireless adapters based on the Ralink
     RT2500USB chipset.

     The RT2500USB chipset is the first generation of 802.11b/g adapters from
     Ralink.  It consists of two integrated chips, an RT2570 MAC/BBP and an
     RT2526 radio transceiver.

     These are the modes the ural 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.  This mode is the default.

     IBSS mode      Also known as IEEE ad-hoc mode or peer-to-peer mode.  This
                    is the standardized method of operating without an access
                    point.  Stations associate with a service set.  However,
                    actual connections between stations are peer-to-peer.

     Host AP        In this mode the driver acts as an access point (base
                    station) for other cards.

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

     The ural driver can be configured to use Wired 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 recommended
     that WEP not be used as the sole mechanism to secure wireless
     communication, due to serious weaknesses in it.  The ural driver relies
     on the software 802.11 stack for both encryption and decryption of data
     frames.

     The transmit speed is user-selectable or can be adapted automatically by
     the driver depending on the number of hardware transmission retries.

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

HARDWARE

     The following adapters should work:

           AMIT WL532U
           ASUS WL-167g v1
           Belkin F5D7050 v2000
           Buffalo WLI-U2-KG54
           Buffalo WLI-U2-KG54-AI
           Buffalo WLI-U2-KG54-YB
           CNet CWD-854
           Compex WLU54G 2A1100
           Conceptronic C54RU
           D-Link DWL-G122 (b1)
           Dynalink WLG25USB
           E-Tech WGUS02
           Eminent EM3035
           Gigabyte GN-WBKG
           Hercules HWGUSB2-54
           KCORP LifeStyle KLS-685
           Linksys HU200-TS
           Linksys WUSB54G v4
           Linksys WUSB54GP v4
           MSI MS-6861
           MSI MS-6865
           MSI MS-6869
           Nintendo Wi-Fi USB Connector
           Nova Tech NV-902W
           OvisLink Evo-W54USB
           SerComm UB801R
           SparkLAN WL-685R
           Sphairon UB801R
           Surecom EP-9001-g rev 3A
           Sweex LC100060
           Tonze UW-6200C
           Zaapa ZNWUSB-54
           Zinwell ZPlus-G250
           Zinwell ZWX-G261
           Zonet ZEW2500P

EXAMPLES

     The following hostname.if(5) example configures ural0 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

     The following hostname.if(5) example creates a host-based access point on
     boot:

           inet 192.168.1.1 255.255.255.0 NONE media autoselect \
                   mediaopt hostap nwid my_net chan 11

     Configure ural0 to join network ``my_net'' using WPA with passphrase
     ``my_passphrase'':

           # ifconfig ural0 nwid my_net wpakey my_passphrase

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

           # ifconfig ural0 192.168.1.1 netmask 0xffffff00 nwid my_net

DIAGNOSTICS

     ural%d: 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.

SEE ALSO

     arp(4), ifmedia(4), intro(4), netintro(4), usb(4), hostname.if(5),
     hostapd(8), ifconfig(8)

     Ralink Technology: http://www.ralinktech.com/

HISTORY

     The ural driver first appeared in OpenBSD 3.7.

AUTHORS

     The ural driver was written by Damien Bergamini <damien@openbsd.org>.

CAVEATS

     The ural driver supports automatic control of the transmit speed in BSS
     mode only.  Therefore the use of an ural adapter in Host AP mode is
     discouraged.

     Host AP mode doesn't support power saving.  Clients attempting to use
     power saving mode may experience significant packet loss (disabling power
     saving on the client will fix this).

OpenBSD 5.1                    November 1, 2010                    OpenBSD 5.1