Re: [RFC] nl80211: don't require netdev UP for wdev

[Michal Kazior <michal.kazior@tieto.com>]

Johannes Berg wrote:
>>> We should do the same for AP mode as well, since the channel really
>>> becomes relevant only upon start_ap(), before that there's no real
>>> concept of a channel since you don't use it yet anyway.
>>
>> Maybe we should do the same with monitor interface type, i.e. introduce
>> start_monitor() and have it pass the channel.
>
> No, that's the special case that doesn't work that way -- monitor mode
> interfaces are also great for debugging when they're just concurrently
> running with other interfaces and don't have their own channel setting.

We can make monitor interface to be a slave to other non-monitor 
interface by passing an extra parameter in start_monitor(). We could 
then have such a monitor interface follow channel changes of a given 
non-monitor interface (or rather it wouldn't be using a channel on it's 
own).


>> But then I'm thinking we shouldn't really be changing interface types
>> explicitly, since they would be set implicitly by start_ap() and such.
>> We could then use the NL80211_IFTYPE_UNSPECIFIED when we're not associated.
>
>  From some point of view, it should work that way, yes.
>
> Given how entrenched interface types are we definitely can't get rid of
> them though, and they're still needed to do concurrency management etc.

Well, I don't think we can get completely rid of them, too. Or do you 
mean something else?


-- 
Pozdrawiam / Best regards, Michal Kazior.