Re: [RFC] mac80211/cfg80211: Add BSS configuration options for AP mode

[Johannes Berg <johannes@sipsolutions.net>]

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On Thu, 2008-08-07 at 17:15 +0300, Jouni Malinen wrote:
> On Thu, Aug 07, 2008 at 03:48:26PM +0200, Johannes Berg wrote:
> 
> > I used to have a patch to move the short-slot stuff in mac80211 to the
> > BSS info struct so that drivers that support different slot timing for
> > each frame can use it for different virtual BSSes. It no longer applies
> > though:
> > 
> > http://johannes.sipsolutions.net/patches/kernel/all/2008-08-04-12%3a26/013-BROKEN-mac80211-bss-slot-time.patch
> 
> I'll take a look at this. I hoped I would not need to go through all
> drivers to update the API ;-), but let's see.

Yeah, that was a sticky point... But if you want per-BSS information you
really have to because right now it's per-hw.

> > I think you may need to handle the case where dev is a VLAN? Or do we
> > want to have these settings per VLAN too? And should we reject them for
> > other modes than AP where the AP controls the settings?
> 
> I was thinking about this a bit, but since ieee80211_sub_if_data had
> them shared for all types on interfaces and there might be some testing
> uses for these even outside AP mode, I did not bother adding extra
> validation here. At least the three parameters added here won't be
> per-VLAN since they are advertised in Beacon frames. Though, maybe the
> easiest option would be to limit this for IEEE80211_IF_TYPE_AP for now..

Ok, they can't be per VLAN then, true, but then I think we should limit
it to _AP just so nobody tries setting them without effect on other
devices or overrides, for _STA, what the AP said. For mesh I don't know
(adding Luis) and for IBSS I'm not sure either. I suspect you could use
it for IBSS too?

> > > + * @NL80211_CMD_SET_BSS: Set BSS attributes for BSS identified by
> > > + *	%NL80211_ATTR_IFINDEX.
> > 
> > Maybe we should have a way to retrieve the settings as well, and that
> > could even work in STA mode to see what the AP asked us to do.
> 
> I did not see any normal use case for this, i.e., this would be more
> like debug information. CTS protection is already exported via debugfs
> and the other parameters could fit in there better, too.

True, there's little value in this information for regular use.

johannes

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