Re: [PATCH v2 0/6] Probe-resp offloading support

[Jouni Malinen <j@w1.fi>]

On Mon, Jan 24, 2011 at 11:16:43PM +0200, Arik Nemtsov wrote:
> The SSID-as-attr not used for the probe-resp template. It is used by
> FW to filter out which probe-reqs should be responded to when
> operating with a hidden SSID.

OK, that would be useful to mention in nl80211.h comments and
cfg80211.h, too, I'd guess.

> The wl12xx FW updates the timestamp and DA. I mentioned in the
> documentation of ieee80211_proberesp_get (and various other parts)
> that the DA should be set manually and that this should be used as a
> template (which also implies timestamp should be set). If some part is
> unclear can you point out a specific patch?

DA should be pretty obvious. Timestamp is something that I hope is clear
for whoever is implementing a driver, but it could be mentioned
somewhere.

> For WPS (without p2p), it appears the probe-resp doesn't depend on the
> probe-req (in hostapd code).

This is the case for WPS 1.0, but the protocol update in WSC 2.0 does
introduce a dependency.

> Perhaps we can start with these AP-mode only patches and expand the
> functionality when it is needed for p2p?

I'm fine with them if there is a capability flag that allows user space
to know that the driver does not use user space -based Probe Request
processing. With that, hostapd/wpa_supplicant can disable functionality
like multi-SSID support, WPS 2.0, P2P until we get more complete
capability information on what devices that process Probe Request frames
internally can do.

> Note that the current patch doesn't remove existing functionality - a
> driver/FW operating in p2p mode can simply choose not to use the
> template and just pass probe-requests up.

Until now, I've been assuming that nl80211-based interface means that
Probe Request frames are handled in user space. Since this set of
patches makes it very obvious that that will not be the case, I do want
to be able to figure that out in user space easily. All it really takes
is to add a capability flag indicating whether user space -based Probe
Request processing is used or not.

-- 
Jouni Malinen                                            PGP id EFC895FA