PGT(4)

okay so bestie, welcome to pgt(4) — the Kernel Interfaces Manual page for the Conexant/Intersil Prism GT Full-MAC IEEE 802.11a/b/g wireless network device 💖 this is giving vintage Wi-Fi main character energy, and yes, we’re going to get through every single detail together.

✨ NAME ✨

pgt — Conexant/Intersil Prism GT Full-MAC IEEE 802.11a/b/g wireless network device.

🦋 SYNOPSIS 🦋

pgt* at cardbus?
pgt* at pci?

💖 DESCRIPTION 💖

The pgt driver provides support for Conexant/Intersil GT-series devices which can support the Full-MAC firmware, using the ISL3877, ISL3880, and ISL3890 chips. The pgt driver will not (yet) work on similar devices using the ISL3886 or similar chips which use the Soft-MAC firmware.

These are the modes the pgt 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 pgt driver can be configured to use hardware Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP). It is strongly recommended that WEP not be used as the sole mechanism to secure wireless communication, due to serious weaknesses in it. like, bestie, please listen to this one 😭

In BSS mode, the driver supports powersave mode, which can be enabled via ifconfig(8).

The pgt 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 interface is brought up:

/etc/firmware/pgt-isl3877
/etc/firmware/pgt-isl3890

These firmware files are not free because Conexant refuses to grant distribution rights. In fact they have rebuffed thousands of attempts to start a dialogue on this issue. 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 can be installed using fw_update(8).

🔥 HARDWARE 🔥

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

• 3COM 3CRWE154G72 — chip ISL3880, bus CardBus
• D-Link DWL-g650 A1 — chip ISL3890, bus PCI
• I-O Data WN-G54/CB — chip ISL3890, bus PCI
• I4 Z-Com XG-600 — chip ISL3890, bus PCI
• I4 Z-Com XG-900 — chip ISL3890, bus PCI
• Intersil PRISM Indigo — chip ISL3877, bus PCI
• Intersil PRISM Duette — chip ISL3890, bus PCI
• NETGEAR WG511 (Taiwanese, not Chinese) — chip ISL3890, bus CardBus
• PLANEX GW-DS54G — chip ISL3890, bus PCI
• SMC EZ Connect g 2.4GHz SMC2802W — chip ISL3890, bus PCI
• SMC EZ Connect g 2.4GHz SMC2835W-v2 — chip ISL3890, bus CardBus
• SMC 2802Wv2 — chip ISL3890, bus PCI
• Soyo Aerielink — chip ISL3890, bus CardBus
• ZyXEL ZyAIR G-100 — chip ISL3890, bus CardBus

🌈 EXAMPLES 🌈

The following example scans for available networks:

# ifconfig pgt0 scan

The following hostname.if(5) example configures pgt0 to join network mynwid, using WEP key mywepkey, obtaining an IP address using DHCP:

nwid mynwid nwkey mywepkey
inet autoconf

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

mediaopt hostap
nwid mynwid nwkey mywepkey
inet 192.168.1.1 255.255.255.0

🫶 SEE ALSO 🫶

• arp(4)
• cardbus(4)
• ifmedia(4)
• intro(4)
• netintro(4)
• pci(4)
• hostname.if(5)
• hostapd(8)
• ifconfig(8)

⭐ HISTORY ⭐

The pgt driver first appeared in OpenBSD 4.0. ✨

👑 AUTHORS 👑

The pgt driver was originally written for FreeBSD by Brian Fundakowski, and then rewritten for OpenBSD by Marcus Glocker and Claudio Jeker. 💅

💀 CAVEATS 💀

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). no cap, that one’s important 🫶

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and that’s the whole pgt(4) page, bestie 🎀 the little footer at the very end says Debian, January 5, 2022, PGT(4) — mwah 💋