AP (Master Mode) of wireless drivers

AP (Master Mode) of wireless drivers

[Mark Ryden]

Hello,

According to the linux wireless wiki, only four Linux drivers support
AP (Master Mode) ; these
are  b43/b43legacy (Broadcom chips), Intel ipw2200, and
libertas_tf and p54 (Intersil chips).
see:
http://www.linuxwireless.org/en/users/Drivers

My question is: is this information updated ?

More specifically, I am particularly interested to know whether Intel
iwl3945 and Intel iwl4965 support AP (Master Mode), and in case they
do not (as I am afraid is the situation)
- is there any intention to add AP (masted mode) support to these drivers
in the near future ?

Regards,
Mark

Re: AP (Master Mode) of wireless drivers

[Pavel Roskin]

On Tue, 2008-11-25 at 17:35 +0200, Mark Ryden wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> According to the linux wireless wiki, only four Linux drivers support
> AP (Master Mode) ; these
> are  b43/b43legacy (Broadcom chips), Intel ipw2200, and
> libertas_tf and p54 (Intersil chips).
> see:
> http://www.linuxwireless.org/en/users/Drivers
> 
> My question is: is this information updated ?

If you check the page history, you'll see that the page is being updated
regularly.  That doesn't mean that it's 100% correct.

> More specifically, I am particularly interested to know whether Intel
> iwl3945 and Intel iwl4965 support AP (Master Mode), and in case they
> do not (as I am afraid is the situation)
> - is there any intention to add AP (masted mode) support to these drivers
> in the near future ?

The driver announces AP mode support (look for NL80211_IFTYPE_AP and
hw->wiphy->interface_modes in iwl-core.c and iwl3945-base.c), so it
might work, or at least the intention is to make it work.  By the way,
rt2x00 announces AP mode support too (in some conditions).

-- 
Regards,
Pavel Roskin

Re: AP (Master Mode) of wireless drivers

[Vladimir Koutny]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 838 bytes --]

>> More specifically, I am particularly interested to know whether Intel
>> iwl3945 and Intel iwl4965 support AP (Master Mode), and in case they
>> do not (as I am afraid is the situation)
>> - is there any intention to add AP (masted mode) support to these drivers
>> in the near future ?
> 
> The driver announces AP mode support (look for NL80211_IFTYPE_AP and
> hw->wiphy->interface_modes in iwl-core.c and iwl3945-base.c), so it
> might work, or at least the intention is to make it work.  By the way,
> rt2x00 announces AP mode support too (in some conditions).

I've tested AP mode on iwl4965 about 2 weeks ago and a very quick test did
work (no encryption, just connected a win notebook to it and did some
browsing). Just be sure to fetch correct (=recent) versions of hostapd and
libnl..

Regards,
  Vladimir


[-- Attachment #2: OpenPGP digital signature --]
[-- Type: application/pgp-signature, Size: 378 bytes --]

Re: AP (Master Mode) of wireless drivers

[Johannes Berg]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 966 bytes --]

On Wed, 2008-11-26 at 09:34 +0100, Vladimir Koutny wrote:
> >> More specifically, I am particularly interested to know whether Intel
> >> iwl3945 and Intel iwl4965 support AP (Master Mode), and in case they
> >> do not (as I am afraid is the situation)
> >> - is there any intention to add AP (masted mode) support to these drivers
> >> in the near future ?
> > 
> > The driver announces AP mode support (look for NL80211_IFTYPE_AP and
> > hw->wiphy->interface_modes in iwl-core.c and iwl3945-base.c), so it
> > might work, or at least the intention is to make it work.  By the way,
> > rt2x00 announces AP mode support too (in some conditions).
> 
> I've tested AP mode on iwl4965 about 2 weeks ago and a very quick test did
> work (no encryption, just connected a win notebook to it and did some
> browsing). Just be sure to fetch correct (=recent) versions of hostapd and
> libnl..

I don't think it'll do mcast buffering correctly.

johannes

[-- Attachment #2: This is a digitally signed message part --]
[-- Type: application/pgp-signature, Size: 836 bytes --]

Re: AP (Master Mode) of wireless drivers

[Mark Ryden]

Hello,

Probing the code, it seems to me that the wiki is not accurate when
specifying which drivers support Access Point mode, when you think of
doing multicast buffering correctly

The wiki says:

"For AP mode, it must
honour IEEE80211_TX_CTL_SEND_AFTER_DTIM or set
		IEEE80211_HW_HOST_BROADCAST_PS_BUFFERING and use the
ieee80211_get_buffered_bc() function"
		
see:
 http://wireless.kernel.org/en/developers/Documentation/mac80211/API

However, I found out that in wireless-testing, this is the situation:

	
IEEE80211_TX_CTL_SEND_AFTER_DTIM appears only in rt2x00mac.c

There is a call to ieee80211_get_buffered_bc() only in:
1) drivers/net/wireless/ath9k/beacon.c
2) wireless-testing/drivers/net/wireless/libertas_tf/main.c

According to this , b43/b43legacy (Broadcom chips), Intel ipw2200, and
and p54 (Intersil chips) should not appear to support masted mode in
the wiki, in the following URL:

http://www.linuxwireless.org/en/users/Drivers
Am I right ?
Mark




On Wed, Nov 26, 2008 at 12:03 PM, Johannes Berg
<johannes@sipsolutions.net> wrote:
> On Wed, 2008-11-26 at 09:34 +0100, Vladimir Koutny wrote:
>> >> More specifically, I am particularly interested to know whether Intel
>> >> iwl3945 and Intel iwl4965 support AP (Master Mode), and in case they
>> >> do not (as I am afraid is the situation)
>> >> - is there any intention to add AP (masted mode) support to these drivers
>> >> in the near future ?
>> >
>> > The driver announces AP mode support (look for NL80211_IFTYPE_AP and
>> > hw->wiphy->interface_modes in iwl-core.c and iwl3945-base.c), so it
>> > might work, or at least the intention is to make it work.  By the way,
>> > rt2x00 announces AP mode support too (in some conditions).
>>
>> I've tested AP mode on iwl4965 about 2 weeks ago and a very quick test did
>> work (no encryption, just connected a win notebook to it and did some
>> browsing). Just be sure to fetch correct (=recent) versions of hostapd and
>> libnl..
>
> I don't think it'll do mcast buffering correctly.
>
> johannes
>

Re: AP (Master Mode) of wireless drivers

[Johannes Berg]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 974 bytes --]


> "For AP mode, it must
> honour IEEE80211_TX_CTL_SEND_AFTER_DTIM or set
> 		IEEE80211_HW_HOST_BROADCAST_PS_BUFFERING and use the
> ieee80211_get_buffered_bc() function"
> 		
> see:
>  http://wireless.kernel.org/en/developers/Documentation/mac80211/API

Yup.

> However, I found out that in wireless-testing, this is the situation:
> 
> 	
> IEEE80211_TX_CTL_SEND_AFTER_DTIM appears only in rt2x00mac.c

It's also in b43 and p54. I think your grep-fu is weak ;)

> There is a call to ieee80211_get_buffered_bc() only in:
> 1) drivers/net/wireless/ath9k/beacon.c
> 2) wireless-testing/drivers/net/wireless/libertas_tf/main.c
> 
> According to this , b43/b43legacy (Broadcom chips), Intel ipw2200,

ipw2200 is a very special case, and it doesn't use mac80211 so that
constant above won't occur in it anyway. Not sure if anybody has
recently tried, I'd almost assume it's broken since the project hasn't
been maintained forever, afaict.

johannes

[-- Attachment #2: This is a digitally signed message part --]
[-- Type: application/pgp-signature, Size: 836 bytes --]

Re: AP (Master Mode) of wireless drivers

[Mark Ryden]

Hello,

>> IEEE80211_TX_CTL_SEND_AFTER_DTIM appears only in rt2x00mac.c

>It's also in b43 and p54. I think your grep-fu is weak ;)

Sorry, my grep was indeed wrong. You are right.
Mark


On Wed, Nov 26, 2008 at 3:58 PM, Johannes Berg
<johannes@sipsolutions.net> wrote:
>
>> "For AP mode, it must
>> honour IEEE80211_TX_CTL_SEND_AFTER_DTIM or set
>>               IEEE80211_HW_HOST_BROADCAST_PS_BUFFERING and use the
>> ieee80211_get_buffered_bc() function"
>>
>> see:
>>  http://wireless.kernel.org/en/developers/Documentation/mac80211/API
>
> Yup.
>
>> However, I found out that in wireless-testing, this is the situation:
>>
>>
>> IEEE80211_TX_CTL_SEND_AFTER_DTIM appears only in rt2x00mac.c
>
> It's also in b43 and p54. I think your grep-fu is weak ;)
>
>> There is a call to ieee80211_get_buffered_bc() only in:
>> 1) drivers/net/wireless/ath9k/beacon.c
>> 2) wireless-testing/drivers/net/wireless/libertas_tf/main.c
>>
>> According to this , b43/b43legacy (Broadcom chips), Intel ipw2200,
>
> ipw2200 is a very special case, and it doesn't use mac80211 so that
> constant above won't occur in it anyway. Not sure if anybody has
> recently tried, I'd almost assume it's broken since the project hasn't
> been maintained forever, afaict.
>
> johannes
>