[ath9k-devel] multiple APs

[Mark Schloesser <mark@etcho.de>]

Hi ath9k-devel,

we are currently playing around with some ath9k + hostapd setups at
university for testing purposes.
I already have a working WPA2 installation by now but as i am fairly new
to the linux based access point world there are some problems I am
facing. Also the surroundings of wireless drivers and applications seem
to be changing and evolving in the kernel world right now - so it's even
more difficult for me to find the solutions and best practices for our
research.

So I hope I am in the right place to ask some questions and get some
help or directions :)

I am using a Ubuntu amd64 installation on the machines here and we have
D-Link DWA-556 wireless cards in each of those. To get the setup working
I used the compat-wireless modules and compiled hostapd from svn trunk.
So hostapd is using the nl80211 driver backend (libnl). I configured
hostapd, fired it up using wlan0, set up some dhcp server and by then
had a working wpa2 access point.

Now... If i understand this correctly the atheros cards (old madwifi
driver and also ath5k/ath9k) are able to bring up multiple interfaces so
you can serve as AP and be a client station in parallel - or even could
serve two access points at the same time - one with WPA2 and one with WEP.

When I tried this I ran into a quite strange situation. I created a new
device in station mode and a second hostapd configuration that uses this
interface. At first I was able to bring up a second hostapd instance and
I even was able to see the wpa2 and wep networks on another machine but
I could not associate and also the hostapds were printing messages like
crazy.
I tried to reload the modules (ath9k and the 80211 ones) - and now
trying to bring up the second device i first got a network name conflict
due to the same mac address. I changed the mac address and now get "No
buffer space available" when I try to bring it up.

So my question is if I am totally doing anything wrong here? And also
perhaps someone could clarify the status of the drivers capabilites as I
am really confused by the ath9k documentation site and some
mailing-lists / webpages I stumbled upon during my research.

Another thing: Is there some possibility to make another machine with
ath9k card "repeat" the signal - like using WDS or some other method -
how is the state there?

I also tried to revert to using madwifi as it also supports our cards -
but I was not able to bring up an accesspoint there. Would it even be
the way to go - as it is more stable perhaps? Or should ath9k be okay?

I would be thankful for any hints!

Cheers,
Mark