Re: [B.A.T.M.A.N.] Stable adapters for Ad Hoc networks

Marek Lindner
2009-02-08T03:50:05Z

Hi,

> Thanks for the information. At least now I have some background
> to work on - I already have several rt73 USB dongles, some notebooks
> with Atheros, some OpenMokos (which have atheros chipsets) and a few
> Nokia N810 tablets (which have a prism chipset).

although the Openmoko Freerunner has an Atheros chip inside it does not use
the madiwifi driver (this is the AR6001 mobile chip, in case you wonder).

> And they mentioned about some intermediate mode, called
> Pseudo-IBSS or AHdemo mode, which allows a device to set a static
> BSSID and it is supported by some drivers. I suppose we are talking
> about the same thing here, just not giving any names (?).

AHdemo is not the same as setting the BSSID in ad-hoc mode manually. As
mentioned on the page you linked to the AHdemo mode does not send any beacons.
Whereas the ad-hoc mode sends beacons with a fixed BSSID. Not sending beacons
has certain side effects:
- your network will appear being "invisible" (the normal network manager wont
show it)
- you have to manually configure the connection speed and other stuff as the
usual autonegotiation is using the beacons for that
- you will have collisions (might lead to decreased performance)
- driver compat problems (only a few drivers support this mode)

Nevertheless, it will fix your cell split problem. :-)

> When you mentioned your EEE PC, which uses an Atheros chipset,
> did you also had to set a static BSSID to the same used in the mesh
> network you use?

I think EEE PC uses the madwifi driver?! If so you can set the BSSID
statically.

Regards,
Marek