RAL(4) FreeBSD Kernel Interfaces Manual RAL(4)
NAME
ral - Ralink Technology IEEE 802.11a/g/n wireless network driver
SYNOPSIS
To compile this driver into the kernel, place the following lines in your
kernel configuration file:
device ral
device ralfw
device wlan
device wlan_amrr
device firmware
Alternatively, to load the driver as a module at boot time, place the
following line in loader.conf(5):
if_ral_load="YES"
DESCRIPTION
The ral driver supports PCI/PCIe/CardBus wireless adapters based on the
Ralink RT2500, RT2501, RT2600, RT2700, RT2800, RT3090 and RT3900E
chipsets.
The RT2500 chipset is the first generation of 802.11b/g adapters from
Ralink. It consists of two integrated chips, an RT2560 MAC/BBP and an
RT2525 radio transceiver.
The RT2501 chipset is the second generation of 802.11a/b/g adapters from
Ralink. It consists of two integrated chips, an RT2561 MAC/BBP and an
RT2527 radio transceiver. This chipset provides support for the IEEE
802.11e standard with multiple hardware transmission queues and allows
scatter/gather for efficient DMA operations.
The RT2600 chipset consists of two integrated chips, an RT2661 MAC/BBP
and an RT2529 radio transceiver. This chipset uses the MIMO (multiple-
input multiple-output) technology with multiple radio transceivers to
extend the operating range of the adapter and to achieve higher
throughput. However, the RT2600 chipset does not support any of the
802.11n features.
The RT2700 chipset is a low-cost version of the RT2800 chipset. It
supports a single transmit path and two receiver paths (1T2R). It
consists of two integrated chips, an RT2760 or RT2790 (PCIe) MAC/BBP and
an RT2720 (2.4GHz) or RT2750 (2.4GHz/5GHz) radio transceiver.
The RT2800 chipset is the first generation of 802.11n adapters from
Ralink. It consists of two integrated chips, an RT2860 or RT2890 (PCIe)
MAC/BBP and an RT2820 (2.4GHz) or RT2850 (2.4GHz/5GHz) radio transceiver.
The RT2800 chipset supports two transmit paths and up to three receiver
paths (2T2R/2T3R). It can achieve speeds up to 144Mbps (20MHz bandwidth)
and 300Mbps (40MHz bandwidth.)
The RT3090 chipset is the first generation of single-chip 802.11n
adapters from Ralink. ral supports station, adhoc, hostap, mesh, wds,
and monitor mode operation. Only one hostap or mesh virtual interface
may be configured at a time. Any number of wds virtual interfaces may be
configured together with a hostap interface. Multiple station interfaces
may be operated together with a hostap interface to construct a wireless
repeater device.
The RT3900E chipset is a single-chip 802.11n adapters from Ralink. The
MAC/Baseband Processor can be an RT5390 or RT5392. The RT5390 chip
operates in the 2GHz spectrum and supports 1 transmit path and 1 receiver
path (1T1R). The RT5392 chip operates in the 2GHz spectrum and supports
up to 2 transmit paths and 2 receiver paths (2T2R).
The transmit speed is user-selectable or can be adapted automatically by
the driver depending on the number of hardware transmission retries. For
more information on configuring this device, see ifconfig(8).
HARDWARE
The ral driver supports PCI/PCIe/CardBus wireless adapters based on
Ralink Technology chipsets, including:
Card MAC/BBP Bus
A-Link WL54H RT2560 PCI
A-Link WL54PC RT2560 CardBus
AirLink101 AWLC5025 RT2661 CardBus
AirLink101 AWLH5025 RT2661 PCI
Amigo AWI-914W RT2560 CardBus
Amigo AWI-922W RT2560 mini-PCI
Amigo AWI-926W RT2560 PCI
AMIT WL531C RT2560 CardBus
AMIT WL531P RT2560 PCI
AOpen AOI-831 RT2560 PCI
ASUS WL-107G RT2560 CardBus
ASUS WL-130g RT2560 PCI
Atlantis Land A02-PCI-W54 RT2560 PCI
Atlantis Land A02-PCM-W54 RT2560 CardBus
Belkin F5D7000 v3 RT2560 PCI
Belkin F5D7010 v2 RT2560 CardBus
Billionton MIWLGRL RT2560 mini-PCI
Canyon CN-WF511 RT2560 PCI
Canyon CN-WF513 RT2560 CardBus
CC&C WL-2102 RT2560 CardBus
CNet CWC-854 RT2560 CardBus
CNet CWP-854 RT2560 PCI
Compex WL54G RT2560 CardBus
Compex WLP54G RT2560 PCI
Conceptronic C54RC RT2560 CardBus
Conceptronic C54Ri RT2560 PCI
D-Link DWA-525 rev A2 RT5392 PCI
Digitus DN-7001G-RA RT2560 CardBus
Digitus DN-7006G-RA RT2560 PCI
E-Tech WGPC02 RT2560 CardBus
E-Tech WGPI02 RT2560 PCI
Edimax EW-7108PCg RT2560 CardBus
Edimax EW-7128g RT2560 PCI
Eminent EM3036 RT2560 CardBus
Eminent EM3037 RT2560 PCI
Encore ENLWI-G-RLAM RT2560 PCI
Encore ENPWI-G-RLAM RT2560 CardBus
Fiberline WL-400P RT2560 PCI
Fibreline WL-400X RT2560 CardBus
Gigabyte GN-WI01GS RT2561S mini-PCI
Gigabyte GN-WIKG RT2560 mini-PCI
Gigabyte GN-WMKG RT2560 CardBus
Gigabyte GN-WP01GS RT2561S PCI
Gigabyte GN-WPKG RT2560 PCI
Hawking HWC54GR RT2560 CardBus
Hawking HWP54GR RT2560 PCI
iNexQ CR054g-009 (R03) RT2560 PCI
JAHT WN-4054P RT2560 CardBus
JAHT WN-4054PCI RT2560 PCI
LevelOne WNC-0301 v2 RT2560 PCI
LevelOne WPC-0301 v2 RT2560 CardBus
Linksys WMP54G v4 RT2560 PCI
Micronet SP906GK RT2560 PCI
Micronet SP908GK V3 RT2560 CardBus
Minitar MN54GCB-R RT2560 CardBus
Minitar MN54GPC-R RT2560 PCI
MSI CB54G2 RT2560 CardBus
MSI MP54G2 RT2560 mini-PCI
MSI PC54G2 RT2560 PCI
OvisLink EVO-W54PCI RT2560 PCI
PheeNet HWL-PCIG/RA RT2560 PCI
Planex GW-NS300N RT2860 CardBus
Pro-Nets CB80211G RT2560 CardBus
Pro-Nets PC80211G RT2560 PCI
Repotec RP-WB7108 RT2560 CardBus
Repotec RP-WP0854 RT2560 PCI
SATech SN-54C RT2560 CardBus
SATech SN-54P RT2560 PCI
Sitecom WL-112 RT2560 CardBus
Sitecom WL-115 RT2560 PCI
SMC SMCWCB-GM RT2661 CardBus
SMC SMCWPCI-GM RT2661 PCI
SparkLAN WL-685R RT2560 CardBus
Surecom EP-9321-g RT2560 PCI
Surecom EP-9321-g1 RT2560 PCI
Surecom EP-9428-g RT2560 CardBus
Sweex LC500050 RT2560 CardBus
Sweex LC700030 RT2560 PCI
TekComm NE-9321-g RT2560 PCI
TekComm NE-9428-g RT2560 CardBus
Unex CR054g-R02 RT2560 PCI
Unex MR054g-R02 RT2560 CardBus
Zinwell ZWX-G160 RT2560 CardBus
Zinwell ZWX-G360 RT2560 mini-PCI
Zinwell ZWX-G361 RT2560 PCI
Zonet ZEW1500 RT2560 CardBus
Zonet ZEW1600 RT2560 PCI
EXAMPLES
Join an existing BSS network (i.e., connect to an access point):
ifconfig wlan create wlandev ral0 inet 192.0.2.20/24
Join a specific BSS network with network name my_net:
ifconfig wlan create wlandev ral0 inet 192.0.2.20/24 \
ssid my_net
Join a specific BSS network with 40-bit WEP encryption:
ifconfig wlan create wlandev ral0 inet 192.0.2.20/24 \
ssid my_net wepmode on wepkey 0x1234567890 weptxkey 1
Join a specific BSS network with 104-bit WEP encryption:
ifconfig wlan create wlandev ral0 inet 192.0.2.20/24 \
ssid my_net \
wepmode on wepkey 0x01020304050607080910111213 weptxkey 1
DIAGNOSTICS
ral%d: could not load 8051 microcode An error occurred while attempting
to upload the microcode to the onboard 8051 microcontroller unit.
ral%d: timeout waiting for MCU to initialize The onboard 8051
microcontroller unit failed to initialize in time.
ral%d: device timeout A frame dispatched to the hardware for
transmission did not complete in time. The driver will reset the
hardware. This should not happen.
SEE ALSO
cardbus(4), intro(4), wlan(4), wlan_ccmp(4), wlan_tkip(4), wlan_wep(4),
wlan_xauth(4), networking(7), hostapd(8), ifconfig(8), wpa_supplicant(8)
HISTORY
The ral driver first appeared in OpenBSD 3.7. Support for the RT2501 and
RT2600 chipsets was added in OpenBSD 3.9. Support for the RT2800 chipset
was added in OpenBSD 4.3. Support for the RT2700 chipset was added in
OpenBSD 4.4. Support for the RT3090 chipset was added in OpenBSD 4.9.
AUTHORS
The original ral driver was written by Damien Bergamini
<damien@openbsd.org>.
CAVEATS
The ral driver does not make use of the hardware cryptographic engine.
The ral driver does not support any of the 802.11n capabilities offered
by the RT2700 and RT2800 chipsets. Additional work is required in before
those features can be supported.
Host AP mode does not support power saving. Clients attempting to use
power saving mode may experience significant packet loss (disabling power
saving on the client will fix this).
Some PCI ral adapters strictly require a system supporting PCI 2.2 or
greater. Check the board's PCI version before purchasing the card as it
is likely these adapters will not work in systems based on older
revisions of the PCI specification.
FreeBSD 15.1-STABLE-HBSD November 10, 2024 RAL(4)