2 Driver for the Intel Wireless Wimax Connection 2400m
4 (C) 2008 Intel Corporation < linux-wimax@intel.com >
6 This provides a driver for the Intel Wireless WiMAX Connection 2400m
7 and a basic Linux kernel WiMAX stack.
11 * Linux installation with Linux kernel 2.6.22 or newer (if building
13 * Intel i2400m Echo Peak or Baxter Peak; this includes the Intel
14 Wireless WiMAX/WiFi Link 5x50 series.
16 + Linux kernel development package for the target kernel; to
17 build against your currently running kernel, you need to have
18 the kernel development package corresponding to the running
19 image installed (usually if your kernel is named
20 linux-VERSION, the development package is called
21 linux-dev-VERSION or linux-headers-VERSION).
22 + GNU C Compiler, make
24 2. Compilation and installation
26 2.1. Compilation of the drivers included in the kernel
28 Configure the kernel; to enable the WiMAX drivers select Drivers >
29 Networking Drivers > WiMAX device support. Enable all of them as
32 If USB or SDIO are not enabled in the kernel configuration, the options
33 to build the i2400m USB or SDIO drivers will not show. Enable said
34 subsystems and go back to the WiMAX menu to enable the drivers.
36 Compile and install your kernel as usual.
38 2.2. Compilation of the drivers distributed as an standalone module
45 Once built you can load and unload using the provided load.sh script;
46 load.sh will load the modules, load.sh u will unload them.
48 To install in the default kernel directories (and enable auto loading
49 when the device is plugged):
54 If your kernel development files are located in a non standard
55 directory or if you want to build for a kernel that is not the
56 currently running one, set KDIR to the right location:
58 $ make KDIR=/path/to/kernel/dev/tree
60 For more information, please contact linux-wimax@intel.com.
66 This package contains two major parts: a WiMAX kernel stack and a
67 driver for the Intel i2400m.
69 The WiMAX stack is designed to provide for common WiMAX control
70 services to current and future WiMAX devices from any vendor; please
71 see README.wimax for details.
73 The i2400m kernel driver is broken up in two main parts: the bus
74 generic driver and the bus-specific drivers. The bus generic driver
75 forms the drivercore and contain no knowledge of the actual method we
76 use to connect to the device. The bus specific drivers are just the
77 glue to connect the bus-generic driver and the device. Currently only
78 USB and SDIO are supported. See drivers/net/wimax/i2400m/i2400m.h for
81 The bus generic driver is logically broken up in two parts: OS-glue and
82 hardware-glue. The OS-glue interfaces with Linux. The hardware-glue
83 interfaces with the device on using an interface provided by the
84 bus-specific driver. The reason for this breakup is to be able to
85 easily reuse the hardware-glue to write drivers for other OSes; note
86 the hardware glue part is written as a native Linux driver; no
87 abstraction layers are used, so to port to another OS, the Linux kernel
88 API calls should be replaced with the target OS's.
92 To load the driver, follow the instructions in the install section;
93 once the driver is loaded, plug in the device (unless it is permanently
94 plugged in). The driver will enumerate the device, upload the firmware
95 and output messages in the kernel log (dmesg, /var/log/messages or
96 /var/log/kern.log) such as:
99 i2400m_usb 5-4:1.0: firmware interface version 8.0.0
100 i2400m_usb 5-4:1.0: WiMAX interface wmx0 (00:1d:e1:01:94:2c) ready
102 At this point the device is ready to work.
104 Current versions require the Intel WiMAX Network Service in userspace
105 to make things work. See the network service's README for instructions
106 on how to scan, connect and disconnect.
108 5.1. Module parameters
110 Module parameters can be set at kernel or module load time or by
113 $ echo VALUE > /sys/module/MODULENAME/parameters/PARAMETERNAME
115 To make changes permanent, for example, for the i2400m module, you can
116 also create a file named /etc/modprobe.d/i2400m containing:
118 options i2400m idle_mode_disabled=1
120 To find which parameters are supported by a module, run:
122 $ modinfo path/to/module.ko
124 During kernel bootup (if the driver is linked in the kernel), specify
125 the following to the kernel command line:
127 i2400m.PARAMETER=VALUE
129 5.1.1. i2400m: idle_mode_disabled
131 The i2400m module supports a parameter to disable idle mode. This
132 parameter, once set, will take effect only when the device is
133 reinitialized by the driver (eg: following a reset or a reconnect).
135 5.2. Debug operations: debugfs entries
137 The driver will register debugfs entries that allow the user to tweak
138 debug settings. There are three main container directories where
139 entries are placed, which correspond to the three blocks a i2400m WiMAX
141 * /sys/kernel/debug/wimax:DEVNAME/ for the generic WiMAX stack
143 * /sys/kernel/debug/wimax:DEVNAME/i2400m for the i2400m generic
145 * /sys/kernel/debug/wimax:DEVNAME/i2400m-usb (or -sdio) for the
146 bus-specific i2400m-usb or i2400m-sdio controls).
148 Of course, if debugfs is mounted in a directory other than
149 /sys/kernel/debug, those paths will change.
151 5.2.1. Increasing debug output
153 The files named *dl_* indicate knobs for controlling the debug output
154 of different submodules:
156 # find /sys/kernel/debug/wimax\:wmx0 -name \*dl_\*
157 /sys/kernel/debug/wimax:wmx0/i2400m-usb/dl_tx
158 /sys/kernel/debug/wimax:wmx0/i2400m-usb/dl_rx
159 /sys/kernel/debug/wimax:wmx0/i2400m-usb/dl_notif
160 /sys/kernel/debug/wimax:wmx0/i2400m-usb/dl_fw
161 /sys/kernel/debug/wimax:wmx0/i2400m-usb/dl_usb
162 /sys/kernel/debug/wimax:wmx0/i2400m/dl_tx
163 /sys/kernel/debug/wimax:wmx0/i2400m/dl_rx
164 /sys/kernel/debug/wimax:wmx0/i2400m/dl_rfkill
165 /sys/kernel/debug/wimax:wmx0/i2400m/dl_netdev
166 /sys/kernel/debug/wimax:wmx0/i2400m/dl_fw
167 /sys/kernel/debug/wimax:wmx0/i2400m/dl_debugfs
168 /sys/kernel/debug/wimax:wmx0/i2400m/dl_driver
169 /sys/kernel/debug/wimax:wmx0/i2400m/dl_control
170 /sys/kernel/debug/wimax:wmx0/wimax_dl_stack
171 /sys/kernel/debug/wimax:wmx0/wimax_dl_op_rfkill
172 /sys/kernel/debug/wimax:wmx0/wimax_dl_op_reset
173 /sys/kernel/debug/wimax:wmx0/wimax_dl_op_msg
174 /sys/kernel/debug/wimax:wmx0/wimax_dl_id_table
175 /sys/kernel/debug/wimax:wmx0/wimax_dl_debugfs
177 By reading the file you can obtain the current value of said debug
178 level; by writing to it, you can set it.
180 To increase the debug level of, for example, the i2400m's generic TX
183 $ echo 3 > /sys/kernel/debug/wimax:wmx0/i2400m/dl_tx
185 Increasing numbers yield increasing debug information; for details of
186 what is printed and the available levels, check the source. The code
187 uses 0 for disabled and increasing values until 8.
189 5.2.2. RX and TX statistics
191 The i2400m/rx_stats and i2400m/tx_stats provide statistics about the
192 data reception/delivery from the device:
194 $ cat /sys/kernel/debug/wimax:wmx0/i2400m/rx_stats
195 45 1 3 34 3104 48 480
197 The numbers reported are
198 * packets/RX-buffer: total, min, max
199 * RX-buffers: total RX buffers received, accumulated RX buffer size
200 in bytes, min size received, max size received
202 Thus, to find the average buffer size received, divide accumulated
203 RX-buffer / total RX-buffers.
205 To clear the statistics back to 0, write anything to the rx_stats file:
207 $ echo 1 > /sys/kernel/debug/wimax:wmx0/i2400m_rx_stats
211 Note the packets this debug file refers to are not network packet, but
212 packets in the sense of the device-specific protocol for communication
213 to the host. See drivers/net/wimax/i2400m/tx.c.
215 5.2.3. Tracing messages received from user space
217 To echo messages received from user space into the trace pipe that the
218 i2400m driver creates, set the debug file i2400m/trace_msg_from_user to
221 $ echo 1 > /sys/kernel/debug/wimax:wmx0/i2400m/trace_msg_from_user
223 5.2.4. Performing a device reset
225 By writing a 0, a 1 or a 2 to the file
226 /sys/kernel/debug/wimax:wmx0/reset, the driver performs a warm (without
227 disconnecting from the bus), cold (disconnecting from the bus) or bus
228 (bus specific) reset on the device.
230 5.2.5. Asking the device to enter power saving mode
232 By writing any value to the /sys/kernel/debug/wimax:wmx0 file, the
233 device will attempt to enter power saving mode.