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RUN(4) Device Drivers Manual RUN(4)

run — Ralink Technology USB IEEE 802.11a/g/n wireless network driver

To compile this driver into the kernel, place the following lines in your kernel configuration file:

device ehci
device uhci
device ohci
device usb
device run
device wlan
device wlan_amrr

Firmware is also needed, and provided by:

device runfw

Alternatively, to load the driver as a module at boot time, place the following lines in loader.conf(5):

if_run_load="YES"
runfw_load="YES"

The run driver supports USB 2.0 wireless adapters based on the Ralink RT2700U, RT2800U, RT3000U and RT3900E chipsets.

The RT2700U chipset consists of two integrated chips, an RT2770 MAC/BBP and an RT2720 (1T2R) or RT2750 (dual-band 1T2R) radio transceiver.

The RT2800U chipset consists of two integrated chips, an RT2870 MAC/BBP and an RT2820 (2T3R) or RT2850 (dual-band 2T3R) radio transceiver.

The RT3000U is a single-chip solution based on an RT3070 MAC/BBP and an RT3020 (1T1R), RT3021 (1T2R) or RT3022 (2T2R) single-band radio transceiver.

The RT3900E is a single-chip USB 2.0 802.11n solution. The MAC/Baseband Processor can be an RT3593, RT5390, RT5392 or an RT5592. The radio can be an RT3053, RT5370, RT5372 or an RT5572. The RT3053 chip operates in the 2GHz and 5GHz spectra and supports up to 3 transmit paths and 3 receiver paths (3T3R). The RT5370 chip operates in the 2GHz spectrum and supports 1 transmit path and 1 receiver path (1T1R). The RT5372 chip operates in the 2GHz spectrum and supports up to 2 transmit paths and 2 receiver paths (2T2R). The RT5572 chip operates in the 2GHz and 5GHz spectra and supports up to 2 transmit paths and 2 receiver paths (2T2R).

These are the modes the run driver can operate in:

BSS mode
Also known as mode, this is used when associating with an access point, through which all traffic passes. This mode is the default.
Host AP mode
In this mode the driver acts as an access point (base station) for other cards.
monitor mode
In this mode the driver is able to receive packets without associating with an access point. This disables the internal receive filter and enables the card to capture packets from networks which it wouldn't normally have access to, or to scan for access points.

The run driver can be configured to use Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP) or Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA-PSK and WPA2-PSK). WPA is the de facto encryption standard for wireless networks. It is strongly recommended that WEP not be used as the sole mechanism to secure wireless communication, due to serious weaknesses in it. The run driver offloads both encryption and decryption of data frames to the hardware for the WEP40, WEP104, TKIP(+MIC) and CCMP ciphers.

The run driver can be configured at runtime with ifconfig(8).

The run driver supports the following wireless adapters:

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

ifconfig wlan create wlandev run0 inet 192.0.2.20/24

Join a specific BSS network with network name my_net:

ifconfig wlan create wlandev run0 ssid my_net up

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

ifconfig wlan create wlandev run0 ssid my_net \
    wepmode on wepkey 0x1234567890 weptxkey 1 up

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

ifconfig wlan create wlandev run0 wlanmode adhoc ssid my_net \
    wepmode on wepkey 0x01020304050607080910111213 weptxkey 1

run%d: failed load firmware of file runfw
For some reason, the driver was unable to read the microcode file from the filesystem. The file might be missing or corrupted.
run%d: could not load 8051 microcode
An error occurred while attempting to upload the microcode to the onboard 8051 microcontroller unit.
run%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.

intro(4), netintro(4), runfw(4), usb(4), wlan(4), wlan_amrr(4), wlan_ccmp(4), wlan_tkip(4), wlan_wep(4), wlan_xauth(4), networking(7), hostapd(8), ifconfig(8), wpa_supplicant(8)

The run driver first appeared in OpenBSD 4.5.

The run driver was written by Damien Bergamini <damien@openbsd.org>.

The run driver supports some of the 11n capabilities found in the RT2800, RT3000 and RT3900 chipsets.

April 1, 2025 release-26.07