Subject: 3com 3CRWE73796B-E1 and lucent cards
To: None <bsd-wireless@lists.bawug.org>
From: Jasper Wallace <jasper@pointless.net>
List: tech-net
Date: 05/04/2002 15:51:34
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Hi,

I've got a pair of 3com 3CRWE73796B-E1's and i've been trying to get them to
talk to my nat/router box which has a Lucent/WaveLan card in it.

The machine with the 3com card is running NetBSD-current, the nat box is
running NetBSD-1.5.3_RC1

(I don't have a real access point, and i'm not trying to use wep anywhere).

The 3com card is:

pcmcia0: CIS version PC Card Standard 5.0
pcmcia0: CIS info: 3Com, 3CRWE737A AirConnect Wireless LAN PC Card, 1.00
pcmcia0: Manufacturer code 0x101, product 0x1
pcmcia0: function 0: network adapter, ccr addr 3e0 mask 7
pcmcia0: function 0, config table entry 1: I/O card; irq mask ffff; iomask 7, io
space 0-47; memspace 0-3ff; mwait_required rdybsy_active io16 irqshare irqlevel
wi0 at pcmcia0 function 0: 3Com, 3CRWE737A AirConnect Wireless LAN PC Card, 1.00
wi0: port 0x380-0x3c7 802.11 address 00:50:da:da:ca:fe
wi0: using RF:PRISM2 MAC:HFA3841
wi0: Symbol Firmware: Primary (2.1.2), Station (2.20.2)
pcmcia0: card irq 9

And the lucent one is using firmware version 7.52 (it's actually a
buffalo/MELCO badged card, but i upgraded it with lucent firmware a while
back).



If i use lucent/demo ad-hoc mode then the cards can see each other, but
throughput is horrible, 20kbit or so according to ttcp.

If the nat box is in IBSS mode (with create IBSS on) the 3com card can sort
of find it when it's in (I)BSS mode - the 'Current Netname' changes to the
netname of the nat box, but only if i expilicitly set the 'Desired netname',
leaving it blank or using ANY dosn't make any difference.

The Current BSSID is always 00:00:00:00:00:00.

I did some digging amongst vairous linux drivers, and some of them sugested
that BSS mode on Prisim2/Symbol cards should use port type 4, rather than 1
(tho some of the linux drivers don't do that).

(e.g.:

http://www.linuxhq.com/kernel/v2.4/patch/patch-2.4.6-pre2/linux_drivers_net_wireless_orinoco.c.html
)

I hacked up the driver to use port type 4 for BSS, but it dosn't seem to
make much difference.

I did try create IBSS mode with the 3com card after the change to port
type 4, and the nat box, when in plain (I)BSS more picks up the netname from
the machine with the 3com card, but the current BSSID stays at
00:00:00:00:00:00, and i can't get ip packet from either machine to the
other.

So the two cards can see eachother at some level, but not enough to do IP.

So has anyone had any luck getting 3com (or other Prism2/Symbol cards)
talking to Lucent/Agere/WaveLan cards is anything other than adhoc demo
mode?

Has anyone got them talking at a decent speed?

Should interface stats, signal strength/noise, and AP scanning work?

Is anyone planning on porting the {Free,Open}BSD HostAPMode stuff to NetBSD?

(The origonal reason i got these cards was to have a go at doing the porting
myself, i'm just trying to get them to work first).

Whatever happens i'll probably upgrad the nat box to -current.

P.S. Whats the difference between IBSS and BSS? is this just confused
terminology for the same thing?
- -- 
Information wants to be a lumberjack.
[http://pointless.net/]                                   [0x2ECA0975]
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