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 discouraged 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. The iwm(4) and iwx(4) drivers together are approximately equivalent to Intel's Linux iwlwifi/mvm driver.

In addition iwlwifi already supports Intel's Linux iwlwifi/mld chipsets.

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 and linuxkpi 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:

•   7000
•   8000
•   9000
•   22000
•   AX210

The iwlwifi driver supports PCIe devices from the mld sub-driver with the following chipset generations:

•   BZ
•   SC

These chipset generations match the following common device names:

•   Intel(R) Dual Band Wireless AC 7260
•   Intel(R) Dual Band Wireless N 7260
•   Intel(R) Wireless N 7260
•   Intel(R) Dual Band Wireless AC 3160
•   Intel(R) Dual Band Wireless N 3160
•   Intel(R) Wireless N 3160
•   Intel(R) Dual Band Wireless AC 3165
•   Intel(R) Dual Band Wireless AC 3168
•   Intel(R) Dual Band Wireless AC 7265
•   Intel(R) Wireless N 7265
•   Intel(R) Dual Band Wireless N 7265
•   Intel(R) Dual Band Wireless AC 8260
•   Intel(R) Dual Band Wireless N 8260
•   Intel(R) Dual Band Wireless AC 4165
•   Intel(R) Dual Band Wireless AC 8265
•   Intel(R) Dual Band Wireless AC 8275
•   Killer (R) Wireless-AC 1550 Wireless Network Adapter (9260NGW) 160MHz
•   Killer (R) Wireless-AC 1550s Wireless Network Adapter (9560NGW)
•   Killer (R) Wireless-AC 1550i Wireless Network Adapter (9560NGW)
•   Killer(R) Wireless-AC 1550s Wireless Network Adapter (9560D2W) 160MHz
•   Killer(R) Wireless-AC 1550i Wireless Network Adapter (9560NGW) 160MHz
•   Killer(R) Wi-Fi 6E AX1690s 160MHz Wireless Network Adapter (411D2W)
•   Killer(R) Wi-Fi 6E AX1690i 160MHz Wireless Network Adapter (411NGW)
•   Intel(R) Wireless-AC 9260-1
•   Intel(R) Wi-Fi 6 AX200 160MHz
•   Killer(R) Wi-Fi 6 AX1650w 160MHz Wireless Network Adapter (200D2W)
•   Killer(R) Wi-Fi 6 AX1650x 160MHz Wireless Network Adapter (200NGW)
•   Intel(R) Wi-Fi 6 AX201 160MHz
•   Killer(R) Wi-Fi 6 AX1650s 160MHz Wireless Network Adapter (201D2W)
•   Killer(R) Wi-Fi 6 AX1650i 160MHz Wireless Network Adapter (201NGW)
•   Killer(R) Wi-Fi 6 AX1650s 160MHz Wireless Network Adapter (201NGW)
•   Killer(R) Wi-Fi 6 AX1650i 160MHz Wireless Network Adapter (201D2W)
•   Intel(R) Wi-Fi 6E AX211 160MHz
•   Intel(R) Wi-Fi 6 AX210 160MHz
•   Killer(R) Wi-Fi 6E AX1675w 160MHz Wireless Network Adapter (210D2W)
•   Killer(R) Wi-Fi 6E AX1675x 160MHz Wireless Network Adapter (210NGW)
•   Intel(R) Wi-Fi 6E AX411 160MHz
•   Killer(R) Wi-Fi 6E AX1675s 160MHz Wireless Network Adapter (211NGW)
•   Killer(R) Wi-Fi 6E AX1675i 160MHz Wireless Network Adapter (211NGW)
•   Intel(R) Wireless-AC 9461 160MHz
•   Intel(R) Wireless-AC 9461
•   Intel(R) Wireless-AC 9462 160MHz
•   Intel(R) Wireless-AC 9462
•   Intel(R) Wireless-AC 9560 160MHz
•   Intel(R) Wireless-AC 9560
•   Intel(R) Wireless-AC 9270 160MHz
•   Intel(R) Wireless-AC 9270
•   Intel(R) Wireless-AC 9162 160MHz
•   Intel(R) Wireless-AC 9162
•   Intel(R) Wireless-AC 9260 160MHz
•   Intel(R) Wireless-AC 9260
•   Intel(R) Wi-Fi 6 AX101
•   Intel(R) Wi-Fi 6 AX203
•   Intel(R) Wi-Fi 6E AX231 160MHz
•   Intel(R) Wi-Fi 7 BE201 320MHz
•   Intel(R) Wi-Fi 7 BE200 320MHz
•   Intel(R) Wi-Fi 7 BE202 160MHz
•   Intel(R) TBD Sc device
•   Intel(R) TBD Sc2 device
•   Intel(R) TBD Sc2f device

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 incosistent 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.

SEE ALSO
iwlwififw(4), iwm(4), iwn(4), iwx(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
Certainly.

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.