IWLWIFI(4) FreeBSD Kernel Interfaces Manual IWLWIFI(4)
NAME
iwlwifi - Intel IEEE 802.11a/b/g/n/ac/ax/be wireless network driver
SYNOPSIS
The driver will auto-load without any user interaction using devmatch(8)
if enabled in rc.conf(5).
Only if auto-loading is explicitly disabled, 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. See section FILES below for how to install the
firmware.
It is not possible to load the driver from loader(8).
DESCRIPTION
The iwlwifi driver provides support for Intel Wireless network devices.
iwlwifi is derived from Intel's Linux iwlwifi driver based on Linux
version 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.
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.
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.
HARDWARE
The iwlwifi driver supports PCIe devices from the mvm sub-driver with the
following chipset generations:
o 7000
o 8000
o 9000
o 22000
o AX210
The iwlwifi driver supports PCIe devices from the mld sub-driver with the
following chipset generations:
o BZ
o SC
These chipset generations match the following common device names:
o Intel(R) Dual Band Wireless AC 7260
o Intel(R) Dual Band Wireless N 7260
o Intel(R) Wireless N 7260
o Intel(R) Dual Band Wireless AC 3160
o Intel(R) Wireless N 3160
o Intel(R) Dual Band Wireless N 3160
o Intel(R) Dual Band Wireless-AC 3165
o Intel(R) Dual Band Wireless-AC 3168
o Intel(R) Dual Band Wireless-AC 7265
o Intel(R) Dual Band Wireless-N 7265
o Intel(R) Wireless-N 7265
o Intel(R) Dual Band Wireless-AC 8260
o Intel(R) Dual Band Wireless-N 8260
o Intel(R) Dual Band Wireless-AC 4165
o Intel(R) Dual Band Wireless-AC 8265
o Intel(R) Dual Band Wireless-AC 8275
o Killer(R) Wireless-AC 1435i Wireless Network Adapter (8265D2W)
o Killer(R) Wireless-AC 1435-KIX Wireless Network Adapter (8265NGW)
o Intel(R) Wireless-AC 9461 160MHz
o Intel(R) Wireless-AC 9461
o Intel(R) Wireless-AC 9462 160MHz
o Intel(R) Wireless-AC 9462
o Intel(R) Wireless-AC 9260 160MHz
o Intel(R) Wireless-AC 9260
o Intel(R) Wireless-AC 9560 160MHz
o Intel(R) Wireless-AC 9560
o Intel(R) Wi-Fi 6 AX201 160MHz
o Intel(R) Wi-Fi 6 AX101
o Intel(R) Wi-Fi 6 AX203
o Intel(R) Wi-Fi 6 AX200 160MHz
o Intel(R) Wi-Fi 6E AX211 160MHz
o Intel(R) Wi-Fi 6E AX411 160MHz
o Intel(R) Wi-Fi 6E AX210 160MHz
o Killer(R) Wireless-AC 1550 Wireless Network Adapter (9260NGW) 160MHz
o Killer(R) Wireless-AC 1550s Wireless Network Adapter (9560D2W) 160MHz
o Killer(R) Wireless-AC 1550i Wireless Network Adapter (9560NGW) 160MHz
o Killer(R) Wi-Fi 6 AX1650s 160MHz Wireless Network Adapter (201D2W)
o Killer(R) Wi-Fi 6 AX1650i 160MHz Wireless Network Adapter (201NGW)
o Killer(R) Wi-Fi 6E AX1675s 160MHz Wireless Network Adapter (211D2W)
o Killer(R) Wi-Fi 6E AX1675i 160MHz Wireless Network Adapter (211NGW)
o Killer(R) Wi-Fi 6E AX1675w 160MHz Wireless Network Adapter (210D2W)
o Killer(R) Wi-Fi 6E AX1675x 160MHz Wireless Network Adapter (210NGW)
o Killer(R) Wi-Fi 6E AX1690s 160MHz Wireless Network Adapter (411D2W)
o Killer(R) Wi-Fi 6E AX1690i 160MHz Wireless Network Adapter (411NGW)
o Killer(R) Wi-Fi 6 AX1650w 160MHz Wireless Network Adapter (200D2W)
o Killer(R) Wi-Fi 6 AX1650x 160MHz Wireless Network Adapter (200NGW)
o Intel(R) Wi-Fi 7 BE201 320MHz
o Intel(R) Wi-Fi 7 BE401 320MHz
o Intel(R) Wi-Fi 7 BE200 320MHz
o Intel(R) Wi-Fi 7 BE202 160MHz
o Killer(R) Wi-Fi 7 BE1750s 320MHz Wireless Network Adapter (BE201D2W)
o Killer(R) Wi-Fi 7 BE1750i 320MHz Wireless Network Adapter (BE201NGW)
o Killer(R) Wi-Fi 7 BE1790s 320MHz Wireless Network Adapter (BE401D2W)
o Killer(R) Wi-Fi 7 BE1790i 320MHz Wireless Network Adapter (BE401NGW)
o Killer(TM) Wi-Fi 7 BE1750w 320MHz Wireless Network Adapter (BE200D2W)
o Killer(TM) Wi-Fi 7 BE1750x 320MHz Wireless Network Adapter (BE200NGW)
o Intel(R) Wi-Fi 7 BE211 320MHz
o Intel(R) Wi-Fi 6E AX221 160MHz
o Intel(R) Wi-Fi 7 BE213 160MHz
o Intel(R) Wi-Fi 8 BN201
o Intel(R) Wi-Fi 7 BE223
o Intel(R) Wi-Fi 8 BN203
o Killer(R) Wi-Fi 7 BE1775s 320MHz Wireless Network Adapter (BE211D2W)
o Killer(R) Wi-Fi 7 BE1775i 320MHz Wireless Network Adapter (BE211NGW)
o Killer(R) Wi-Fi 8 BN1850w2 320MHz Wireless Network Adapter
(BN201.D2W)
o Killer(R) Wi-Fi 8 BN1850i 320MHz Wireless Network Adapter (BN201.NGW)
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 `1'.
compat.linuxkpi.iwlwifi_disable_11ac Turn off 802.11ac support in the
driver. Default `1'.
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. This left their
names inconsistent between themselves and inconsistent to FreeBSD style.
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.
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.
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.
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)
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.
BUGS
iwlwifi known bugs:
https://bugs.freebsd.org/bugzilla/showdependencytree.cgi?id=iwlwifi
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.
FreeBSD 15.1-STABLE-HBSD May 15, 2026 IWLWIFI(4)