UPGT(4)

✨ UPGT(4) ✨

okay so bestie, welcome to the UPGT(4) page from the Kernel Interfaces Manual 💅 this is the whole tea on the Conexant/Intersil PrismGT SoftMAC USB IEEE 802.11b/g wireless network driver — pull up a chair, we're getting into it 🫶

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🌸 NAME 🌸

upgt — the Conexant/Intersil PrismGT SoftMAC USB IEEE 802.11b/g wireless network driver. yes that's a whole mouthful, no I will not be shortening it 💀

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🎀 SYNOPSIS 🎀

so if you wanna compile this driver into the kernel (main character energy, no modules), you drop these lines into your kernel configuration file, mwah:

device ehci
device uhci
device ohci
device usb
device upgt
device wlan

or alternatively 💫 — if you'd rather load the driver as a module at boot time, put this single line in loader.conf(5):

if_upgt_load="YES"

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💀 DEPRECATION NOTICE 💀

not me having to be the one to tell you this 😭 but the upgt driver is slated to be removed in FreeBSD 16.0. it's giving end of an era fr fr. still iconic, still works, but plan accordingly bestie 🙈

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🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

okay so the upgt driver supports the USB 2.0 Conexant/Intersil PrismGT series wireless adapters — the ones based on the GW3887 chipset ✨

these are the modes the upgt driver can operate in, and honestly? both slay:

• BSS mode — also known as infrastructure mode. this is what you use when associating with an access point, and all your traffic passes through it. this mode is the default, so it's the one you get automatically, periodt 💅
• monitor mode — in this mode the driver can receive packets without associating with an access point. it 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. lil sneaky peeky energy, we love her 👑

upgt supports software WEP. Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP) is the de facto encryption standard for wireless networks. it can typically be configured in one of three modes: no encryption; 40-bit encryption; or 104-bit encryption 🌈

⚠️ but listen — unfortunately, due to serious weaknesses in the WEP protocol it is strongly recommended that it not be used as the sole mechanism to secure wireless communication. like genuinely, do not. it's giving wet paper bag security 😭

also WEP is not enabled by default, so you'd have to go out of your way to turn it on.

the upgt driver can be configured at runtime with ifconfig(8) ⭐

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🍓 FILES 🍓

heads up: this driver requires the upgtfw firmware to be installed before it will work. and here's the kicker — the firmware files are not publicly available 🙈

but!! a package of the firmware that can be installed via pkg_add(1) is available, at this exact URL, copy it carefully bestie:

http://weongyo.org/project/upgt/upgt-firmware-2.13.1.0.tar.gz

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👑 HARDWARE 👑

the upgt driver supports USB 2.0 Conexant/Intersil PrismGT series wireless adapters based on the GW3887 chipset — among them, this absolutely stacked lineup:

• Belkin F5D7050 (version 1000)
• Cohiba Proto Board
• D-Link DWL-G120 Cohiba
• FSC Connect2Air E-5400 USB D1700
• Gigaset USB Adapter 54
• Inventel UR045G
• Netgear WG111v1 (rev2)
• SMC EZ ConnectG SMC2862W-G
• Sagem XG703A
• Spinnaker DUT
• Spinnaker Proto Board

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💖 EXAMPLES 💖

join an existing BSS network (i.e., connect to an access point) — here's the code, verbatim, don't @ me:

ifconfig wlan create wlandev upgt0 inet 192.168.0.20 \
    netmask 0xffffff00

join a specific BSS network with network name “my_net” 🌸:

ifconfig wlan create wlandev upgt0 ssid my_net up

join a specific BSS network with 64-bit WEP encryption (yes, even though we just dragged WEP, here's how 😭):

ifconfig wlan create wlandev upgt0 ssid my_net \
        wepmode on wepkey 0x1234567890 weptxkey 1 up

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🔥 SEE ALSO 🔥

arp(4), netintro(4), usb(4), wlan(4), ifconfig(8) — go read them, iykyk 🧚

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⭐ HISTORY ⭐

the upgt driver first appeared in OpenBSD 4.3. vintage. we stan a legend 💜

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🎀 AUTHORS 🎀

the upgt driver was written by Marcus Glocker <mglocker@openbsd.org> 🫶

and the hardware specification was reverse engineered by the people at:

http://www.prism54.org

absolute icons, all of them 👑

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🌈 CAVEATS 🌈

okay so the upgt driver just supports the USB 2.0 devices (GW3887 chipset) but not the USB 1.0 devices containing the NET2280, ISL3880, and ISL3886 chipsets. some further efforts would be necessary to add USB 1.0 support to the driver — so like, don't come for her about it 💀 it's not a bug, it's a scope choice bestie.

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<div align="center">💌</div>

that's the whole page, bestie! this one's from the Debian edition, dated October 24, 2025 — go forth and be wireless 🦋💅✨