Contents

OSWave Technical Information Page

What is OSWave

OSWave is a feature rich, portable network operating system running on Atheros based SOC (System On Chip) devices: AR2312, AR2313, AR2316 and AR5312. Complete, up to date, list of devices capable of running OSWave is provided below.

What value does it offer?

OSWave offers many added value features targeting performance and flexibility, which are not available in the stock firmware for Atheros SOC devices. These features allow compatible Atheros SOC based devices to be turned into enterprise access points, high performance and feature rich CPE (Customer Premise Equipment) devices and secure, very powerful Point to Point or Point to Multipoint Wireless Bridges.

Major Features:

  • Available frequency range from 2312 MHz to 2732 MHz when operating in 802.11b/g mode (84 selectable channels).
  • Available frequency range from 4920 MHz to 6100 MHz when operating in 802.11a mode (236 selectable channels).
  • User selectable channel width - 40 MHz, 20 MHz, 10 MHz or 5 MHz for the whole supported frequency range.
  • Greatly Improved Wireless Performance compared to the original stock firmware.
  • 5 GHz spectrum, Dynamic Frequency Selection (DFS) and Transmit Power Control (TPC) for European Union compatibility.
  • Ability to disable default CSMA Backoff Mechanism to improve performance in areas experiencing noise from other wireless devices.
  • Easy yet powerful device WEB management.
  • Built in very fast PPPoE Client.
  • Built in DHCP Client and Server.
  • Powerful QoS and Firewall control.
  • Remote and secure access to the Linux shell through SSH.
  • Ability to run own startup Bash shell scripts.
  • User accesible flash memory partition with content that is preserved between device reboots and powercycles.
  • Shell Access to all useful Linux commands, ie. iptables, ebtables, wlanconfig, ifconfig, iwconfig, ping etc.
  • High Performance wireless polling protocol running on top of the 802.11 MAC layer which overrides all the shortages of the CSMA/CDMA protocol in outdoor network deployments (client mode to OSBRiDGE 5G when operating on 5 GHz, Polling Access Point/Client modes when operating on 2.4GHz).
  • Point to Point bridge mode with Packet Aggregation capable of moving more than 20.000 packets per second.
  • Adaptive Radio (AR/ANI) support which enables stable operation with signal levels as low as -90dBm.
  • Highest Grade security with WPA1/WPA2 and WEP 40/128 support.
  • Advanced Wireless Options - TX Power, Supported Rates, Antenna Selection and ACK Timeout.

Supported Device List

OSWave has been succesfuly ported to run on following devices:

Dual Radio Devices (AR5312):

Where to purchase supported Hardware?

Single Radio Devices (AR2312/AR2313/AR2315/AR2316/AR2317):

Where to purchase supported Hardware?

While the list above contains devices that have been tested by us it is very likely that OSWave will run just on any other supported Atheros based SOC system. If you have one that is not listed here then please contact us and we'll be more than happy to verify if OSWave supports your system.

Getting Started and Upgrade Guides

To get started here is a few guides how to upgrade your stock firmware to OSWave.

  • Step by Step Guide on how to upgrade Ubiquiti PowerStation2 stock firmware to OSWave (and back if necessary).
  • Step by Step Guide on how to upgrade Ubiquiti LiteStation2 stock firmware to OSWave (and back if necessary).
  • Step by Step Guide on how to upgrade Trendnet TEW-510APB stock firmware to OSWave (and back if necessary).
  • Step by Step Guide on how to upgrade Sparklan WX-7800a stock firmware to OSWave (and back if necessary).
  • Step by Step Guide on how to upgrade Tonze AW-6660 stock firmware to OSWave (and back if necessary).
  • Step by Step Guide on how to upgrade Alfa Network AWAP803 stock firmware to OSWave (and back if necessary).
  • Step by Step Guide on how to upgrade Ubiquiti LiteStation5 stock firmware to OSWave (and back if necessary).
  • Step by Step Guide on how to upgrade Wistron CA-8 or Wistron RDAA-81 (CA-8 Pro) stock firmware to OSWave (and back if necessary).
  • Step by Step Guide on how to upgrade OVISLINK WLA-5000AP/WLA-5000AP v2 stock firmware to OSWave (and back if necessary).


Configuration, Licensing and other interesting stuff


Further Reading

  • We have performed tests using two RDAA-81 devices running Point to Point Bridge mode with packet aggregation enabled to see what kind of real data transfers these devices can do using 5 MHz channel width, 10 MHz channel width, 20 MHz channel width and finaly 40 MHz channel width. The test results are available here.
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Last modified August 28, 2008 7:29 pm