# Looking for well-documented wifi chipset



## bmildh (Nov 6, 2009)

Hello!

I would like to start tinkering with some network kernel module programming, mostly for my own amusement. I was wondering if there is such a thing as a well-documented API and/or data sheet/specification of some wifi chipset? That is,  can someone recommend some particular chipset where the chip-vendor actually went out of their way to provide some good data on their chipset. Doesn't need to be state-of-the-art. I just want to look at that driver with the data and get a feel for the stuff. My impression is that many vendors don't really provide that much of data, if any?

Also, as a side-note, I was curious, is there some similar tool like linux-uml for FreeBSD. Or some other tool that sort of gives me a sandbox within FreeBSD? It would help when I do some kernel programming and I segfaults and what-not on my system. Nice to just be able to restart the sandbox instead of rebooting the machine. I looked at Jails but from my understanding it's not really intended for this sort of thing. 


Best Regards
/bmildh


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## egorenar (Nov 9, 2009)

I learned much about 802.11 and WLAN device drivers by studing Ralink device drivers rt2870 and rt2860 for Linux. They support 802.11n.
I started to learn these drivers about 2 month ago and now i understand it quiet good and could develop device drivers for these chips on FreeBSD. I do it in my free time and it means fun for me. I bought network adapters with these chips and started
to implement device drivers. First, i implemented monitor mode then frame sending.

I confess it was easy for me to begin learning about 802.11 device drivers  because i understod how Linux network device drivers work but i was a newbie to 802.11 stack and devices.

There are good books about 802.11 which helped me a lot:

* Field Guide to Wireless LANs for Administrators and Power Users
* 802.11 Wireless Networks The Definitive Guide
* Real 802.11 Security: Wi-Fi Protected Access and 802.11i
* IEEE 802.11 specification is also really good


If you have any specific questions then don't hesitate and ask me.

:e :e :e


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## bmildh (Nov 11, 2009)

Hello!

Thank you, those are excellent resources. I think I'll order the "Field Guide to Wireless LANs for Administrators and Power Users"-book. About the RT-devices that you mentioned, I think I'll have a look at them in Linux just because you mentioned them. 

Also, I was recommended to examine the drivers of Bill Paul, of which I will dive into as soon as I can.

Thanks for the feedback.


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