wireless-regdb for Debian
-------------------------

wireless-regdb provides a machine-readable database of legal
regulations on radio emissions that affect use of wireless networking.
The Linux kernel and drivers use this to maintain compliance with
those regulations.

When connected to a Wi-Fi access point, the kernel follows the
regulations for the country specified by the AP.  In case you use
other Wi-Fi modes, you can tell the kernel which country's regulations
to follow by running "iw reg set <country-code>", and you can make
this setting persistent by editing /etc/default/regdomain.  The
<country-code> is an ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 code, such as BE for Belgium.
Note that some Wi-Fi controllers are "self-managed" and cannot be
configured in this way.

The database is loaded directly by the kernel.  If you use a custom
kernel built from upstream source, it will only trust this database if
it is signed by the upstream maintainer of wireless-regdb.  To use the
upstream database and signature instead of the Debian version, run:

    update-alternatives --set regulatory.db \
        /lib/firmware/regulatory.db-upstream

 -- Ben Hutchings <benh@debian.org>, Fri, 13 Feb 2026 13:58:58 +0100
