IWN(4)

💖 IWN(4) — Intel IEEE 802.11n wireless network driver 💖

okay bestie, sit down, hydrate, because we're about to talk about iwn — the Intel IEEE 802.11n wireless network driver. it's giving "your laptop can have wifi" energy and honestly? we love to see it. 🦋

---

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

to compile this driver into the kernel, you gotta drop these lines into your kernel configuration file:

device iwn
device pci
device wlan
device firmware

and like... you also need to pick a firmware for your device, bestie. choose one from:

device iwn1000fw
device iwn100fw
device iwn105fw
device iwn135fw
device iwn2000fw
device iwn2030fw
device iwn4965fw
device iwn5000fw
device iwn5150fw
device iwn6000fw
device iwn6000g2afw
device iwn6000g2bfw
device iwn6050fw

or, if you're feeling generous and unbothered, you can just use

device iwnfw

to include them all. main character move tbh. 👑

alternatively — for the module girlies — to load the driver as a module at boot time, put these lines in loader.conf(5):

if_iwn_load="YES"
iwn1000fw_load="YES"
iwn100fw_load="YES"
iwn105fw_load="YES"
iwn135fw_load="YES"
iwn2000fw_load="YES"
iwn2030fw_load="YES"
iwn4965fw_load="YES"
iwn5000fw_load="YES"
iwn5150fw_load="YES"
iwn6000fw_load="YES"
iwn6000g2afw_load="YES"
iwn6000g2bfw_load="YES"
iwn6050fw_load="YES"

---

🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

the iwn driver provides support for... wait for it... a whole roster of icons:

Intel Centrino Advanced-N 6200
Intel Centrino Advanced-N 6205
Intel Centrino Advanced-N 6230
Intel Centrino Advanced-N 6235
Intel Centrino Advanced-N + WiMAX 6250
Intel Centrino Ultimate-N 6300
Intel Centrino Wireless-N 100
Intel Centrino Wireless-N 105
Intel Centrino Wireless-N 130
Intel Centrino Wireless-N 135
Intel Centrino Wireless-N 1000
Intel Centrino Wireless-N 1030
Intel Centrino Wireless-N 2200
Intel Centrino Wireless-N 2230
Intel Centrino Wireless-N 4965
Intel Centrino Wireless-N 5100
Intel Centrino Wireless-N 6150
Intel Centrino Wireless-N 6200
Intel Centrino Wireless-N 6250
Intel Centrino Wireless-N 6250
Intel Centrino Wireless-N + WiMAX 6150
Intel Ultimate N WiFi Link 5300
Intel Wireless WiFi Link 4965
Intel WiFi Link 5100
Intel WiMAX/WiFi Link 5150
Intel WiMAX/WiFi Link 5350

not the list serving "Intel Centrino Wireless-N 6250" twice 💀 anyway, that's exactly what the page says, so that's exactly what you get. no notes.

iwn supports station and monitor mode operation. only one virtual interface may be configured at any time — so no, you cannot have your little multiverse of interfaces. one at a time, bestie, that's the vibe check. for more info on configuring this device, see ifconfig(8).

heads up: this driver requires the firmware built with the iwnfw module to work. no firmware, no wifi. periodt.

---

🎀 EXAMPLES 🎀

join an existing BSS network (i.e., connect to an access point):

ifconfig wlan create wlandev iwn0 inet 192.168.0.20 \
    netmask 0xffffff00

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

ifconfig wlan create wlandev iwn0 ssid my_net up

join a specific BSS network with 64-bit WEP encryption:

ifconfig wlan create wlandev iwn0 ssid my_net \
        wepmode on wepkey 0x1234567890 weptxkey 1 up

join a specific BSS network with 128-bit WEP encryption:

ifconfig wlan create wlandev iwn0 wlanmode adhoc ssid my_net \
    wepmode on wepkey 0x01020304050607080910111213 weptxkey 1

---

🩺 DIAGNOSTICS 🩺

these are the little messages the driver might hit you with. mostly they're "this should not happen" coded, which is the funniest genre of error message fr fr. 🙈

• iwn%d: device timeout — the driver will reset the hardware. this should not happen.
• iwn%d: firmware error — the onboard microcontroller crashed for some reason. the driver will reset the hardware. this should not happen.
• iwn%d: timeout waiting for firmware initialization to complete — the onboard microcontroller failed to initialize in time. this should not happen.
• iwn%d: could not load firmware image '%s' — the driver failed to load the firmware image using the firmware(9) subsystem. verify the iwnfw(4) firmware module is present.
• iwn%d: could not load boot firmware — an attempt to upload the boot firmware image to the onboard microcontroller failed. this should not happen.
• iwn%d: could not load microcode — an attempt to upload the microcode image to the onboard microcontroller failed. this should not happen.
• iwn%d: could not load main firmware — an attempt to upload the main firmware image to the onboard microcontroller failed. this should not happen.

---

👀 SEE ALSO 👀

iwnfw(4), pci(4), wlan(4), wlan_ccmp(4), wlan_tkip(4), wlan_wep(4), ifconfig(8), wpa_supplicant(8)

iykyk. go read them, they're all icons too. 📚

---

💜 AUTHORS 💜

the original iwn driver was written by Damien Bergamini <damien.bergamini@free.fr>. absolute legend behaviour, no cap. 🫶

---

and that's the whole page, bestie!! this one came from Debian, dated August 30, 2014 — so go set up your wifi and slay 💅✨🌸