IWLWIFI(4)

💅 iwlwifi(4) — the Kernel Interfaces Manual page, but make it make sense

okay so. bestie. you have an Intel Wi-Fi card, you're on FreeBSD, and you want the tea on iwlwifi — the Intel IEEE 802.11a/b/g/n/ac/ax/be wireless network driver. This is the Kernel Interfaces Manual entry for it, and I'm about to walk you through every single line of it like we're on FaceTime at 2am. 🫶

---

✨ NAME ✨

iwlwifi — Intel IEEE 802.11a/b/g/n/ac/ax/be wireless network driver. that's the whole vibe, that's the icon, that's the main character. 👑

---

🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

bestie you literally don't have to do anything. the driver will auto-load without any user interaction using devmatch(8) if it's enabled in rc.conf(5). she shows up on her own. no cap.

Only if auto-loading is explicitly disabled do you need to place the following lines in rc.conf(5) to manually load the driver as a module at boot time:

kld_list="${kld_list} if_iwlwifi"

The driver should automatically load any iwlwififw(4) firmware needed for the particular chipset. Wanna know how to install the firmware? Scroll to the FILES section down below, babe. 💖

⚠️ heads up, and this one matters: it is not possible to load the driver from loader(8). not a thing. don't try it. 💀

---

🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

The iwlwifi driver provides support for Intel Wireless network devices. that's the one-liner, but the lore goes deeper:

• iwlwifi is derived from Intel's Linux iwlwifi driver based on Linux version 7.0. yes, that Linux 7.0. 👀
• The iwm(4) and iwx(4) drivers together are approximately equivalent to Intel's Linux iwlwifi/mvm driver.
• In addition, iwlwifi supports the chipsets based on Intel's Linux iwlwifi/mld driver. extra credit, she's versatile. ✨
• iwlwifi still complements the iwn(4) driver, which supports older chipsets and would be equivalent to Intel's Linux iwlwifi/dvm — which iwlwifi does not support. so don't come for her about the old ones, that's iwn(4)'s job. 🙈
• The driver uses the linuxkpi_wlan(4) and linuxkpi(4) compat framework to bridge between the Linux and native FreeBSD driver code as well as to the native net80211(4) wireless stack. she's a translator, she's bilingual, she's doing the most. 🌈

---

🔥 HARDWARE 🔥

okay this is the part where I list literally every chipset because I'm not about to do you dirty by summarising. buckle up.

🎀 mvm sub-driver (PCIe devices)

The iwlwifi driver supports PCIe devices from the mvm sub-driver with these chipset generations:

• 7000
• 8000
• 9000
• 22000
• AX210

🎀 mld sub-driver (PCIe devices)

The iwlwifi driver supports PCIe devices from the mld sub-driver with these chipset generations:

• BZ
• SC

🎀 the actual device names

These chipset generations match the following common device names — yes, all of them, I would never skip one, that's not the energy here:

• Intel(R) Dual Band Wireless AC 7260
• Intel(R) Dual Band Wireless N 7260
• Intel(R) Wireless N 7260
• Intel(R) Dual Band Wireless AC 3160
• Intel(R) Wireless N 3160
• Intel(R) Dual Band Wireless N 3160
• Intel(R) Dual Band Wireless-AC 3165
• Intel(R) Dual Band Wireless-AC 3168
• Intel(R) Dual Band Wireless-AC 7265
• Intel(R) Dual Band Wireless-N 7265
• Intel(R) Wireless-N 7265
• Intel(R) Dual Band Wireless-AC 8260
• Intel(R) Dual Band Wireless-N 8260
• Intel(R) Dual Band Wireless-AC 4165
• Intel(R) Dual Band Wireless-AC 8265
• Intel(R) Dual Band Wireless-AC 8275
• Killer(R) Wireless-AC 1435i Wireless Network Adapter (8265D2W)
• Killer(R) Wireless-AC 1435-KIX Wireless Network Adapter (8265NGW)
• Intel(R) Wireless-AC 9461 160MHz
• Intel(R) Wireless-AC 9461
• Intel(R) Wireless-AC 9462 160MHz
• Intel(R) Wireless-AC 9462
• Intel(R) Wireless-AC 9260 160MHz
• Intel(R) Wireless-AC 9260
• Intel(R) Wireless-AC 9560 160MHz
• Intel(R) Wireless-AC 9560
• Intel(R) Wi-Fi 6 AX201 160MHz
• Intel(R) Wi-Fi 6 AX101
• Intel(R) Wi-Fi 6 AX203
• Intel(R) Wi-Fi 6 AX200 160MHz
• Intel(R) Wi-Fi 6E AX211 160MHz
• Intel(R) Wi-Fi 6E AX411 160MHz
• Intel(R) Wi-Fi 6E AX210 160MHz
• Killer(R) Wireless-AC 1550 Wireless Network Adapter (9260NGW) 160MHz
• Killer(R) Wireless-AC 1550s Wireless Network Adapter (9560D2W) 160MHz
• Killer(R) Wireless-AC 1550i Wireless Network Adapter (9560NGW) 160MHz
• Killer(R) Wi-Fi 6 AX1650s 160MHz Wireless Network Adapter (201D2W)
• Killer(R) Wi-Fi 6 AX1650i 160MHz Wireless Network Adapter (201NGW)
• Killer(R) Wi-Fi 6E AX1675s 160MHz Wireless Network Adapter (211D2W)
• Killer(R) Wi-Fi 6E AX1675i 160MHz Wireless Network Adapter (211NGW)
• Killer(R) Wi-Fi 6E AX1675w 160MHz Wireless Network Adapter (210D2W)
• Killer(R) Wi-Fi 6E AX1675x 160MHz Wireless Network Adapter (210NGW)
• Killer(R) Wi-Fi 6E AX1690s 160MHz Wireless Network Adapter (411D2W)
• Killer(R) Wi-Fi 6E AX1690i 160MHz Wireless Network Adapter (411NGW)
• Killer(R) Wi-Fi 6 AX1650w 160MHz Wireless Network Adapter (200D2W)
• Killer(R) Wi-Fi 6 AX1650x 160MHz Wireless Network Adapter (200NGW)
• Intel(R) Wi-Fi 7 BE201 320MHz
• Intel(R) Wi-Fi 7 BE401 320MHz
• Intel(R) Wi-Fi 7 BE200 320MHz
• Intel(R) Wi-Fi 7 BE202 160MHz
• Killer(R) Wi-Fi 7 BE1750s 320MHz Wireless Network Adapter (BE201D2W)
• Killer(R) Wi-Fi 7 BE1750i 320MHz Wireless Network Adapter (BE201NGW)
• Killer(R) Wi-Fi 7 BE1790s 320MHz Wireless Network Adapter (BE401D2W)
• Killer(R) Wi-Fi 7 BE1790i 320MHz Wireless Network Adapter (BE401NGW)
• Killer(TM) Wi-Fi 7 BE1750w 320MHz Wireless Network Adapter (BE200D2W)
• Killer(TM) Wi-Fi 7 BE1750x 320MHz Wireless Network Adapter (BE200NGW)
• Intel(R) Wi-Fi 7 BE211 320MHz
• Intel(R) Wi-Fi 6E AX221 160MHz
• Intel(R) Wi-Fi 7 BE213 160MHz
• Intel(R) Wi-Fi 8 BN201
• Intel(R) Wi-Fi 7 BE223
• Intel(R) Wi-Fi 8 BN203
• Killer(R) Wi-Fi 7 BE1775s 320MHz Wireless Network Adapter (BE211D2W)
• Killer(R) Wi-Fi 7 BE1775i 320MHz Wireless Network Adapter (BE211NGW)
• Killer(R) Wi-Fi 8 BN1850w2 320MHz Wireless Network Adapter (BN201.D2W)
• Killer(R) Wi-Fi 8 BN1850i 320MHz Wireless Network Adapter (BN201.NGW)

if your card is in there, congrats, you ate. 💅

---

⭐ LOADER TUNABLES ⭐

The iwlwifi driver supports the following loader(8) tunable and read-only sysctl(8) variables:

• compat.linuxkpi.iwlwifi_11n_disable — turn off 802.11n support in the driver. default is 1.
• compat.linuxkpi.iwlwifi_disable_11ac — turn off 802.11ac support in the driver. default is 1.

🧚 so why do these names look like that

The names of the tunables are derived from the Linux iwlwifi driver module parameters and are mapped automatically by linuxkpi. They were not adjusted so that they stay consistent with upstream Linux — e.g. for documentation available and problem investigations. Which left their names inconsistent between themselves and inconsistent to FreeBSD style. it's giving "we left it like that on purpose" and honestly? valid. 😭

The tunables are automatically adjusted by the firmware package for chipsets which can enable 11n and 11ac. In case of problems a user may want to override the provided values in /boot/loader.conf.local with the above defaults. iykyk. 💜

---

🍓 FILES 🍓

The iwlwifi driver requires firmware from ports/net/wifi-firmware-iwlwifi-kmod. This firmware package will be installed automatically with fwget(8) if the appropriate hardware is detected at installation or runtime. she handles herself. ✨

As a last resort for bootstrapping, individual firmware files can be manually downloaded — e.g., on a different computer — and transferred using a umass(4) device. The firmware files can be found at:

git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/firmware/linux-firmware.git

with names as requested by the driver. Copies should be placed into the /boot/firmware directory. don't skip that part, that's the whole point. 📁

---

🌈 SEE ALSO 🌈

iwlwififw(4), iwm(4), iwn(4), iwx(4), linuxkpi(4,) linuxkpi_wlan(4,) wlan(4), networking(7), fwget(8), ifconfig(8), wpa_supplicant(8)

(the whole squad. go read them, they're all bangers.)

---

🎀 HISTORY 🎀

The iwlwifi driver first appeared in FreeBSD 13.1. 802.11n and 802.11ac support for the 22000 and later chipsets first appeared in FreeBSD 14.3. glow-up timeline, honestly. ⭐

---

💀 BUGS 💀

iwlwifi known bugs live right here:

https://bugs.freebsd.org/bugzilla/showdependencytree.cgi?id=iwlwifi

and now the part where I hold your hand gently: while iwlwifi supports 802.11a/b/g/n/ac/ax/be modes, the compatibility code currently only supports 802.11a/b/g/n/ac modes. 802.11n/ac is only available on the 22000 and later chipset generations. 802.11ax/be and 6Ghz support are planned. so if you're out here expecting ax/be to just work, bestie, not yet. planned. we wait. 🫶

---

and that's the page!! this was the Debian build of the page, dated May 15, 2026, filed under IWLWIFI(4) — thank you for coming to my TED talk, go connect to some Wi-Fi, ily, mwah 💖✨