Re: [PATCH] nl80211 connect API support

[Zhu Yi <yi.zhu@intel.com>]

Hi Jouni,

On Thu, 2009-08-13 at 17:11 +0800, Jouni Malinen wrote:
> On Thu, Aug 13, 2009 at 04:55:31PM +0800, Zhu Yi wrote:
> 
> > -	 * authenticate - Request driver to authenticate
> > +	 * authenticate - Request driver to authenticate (deprecated)
> 
> > +	 * This is an optional function that to make compatibility for wireless
> > +	 * stack that doesn't support connect API when driver SME is used
> > +	 * (WPA_DRIVER_FLAGS_SME).
> 
> Thanks for the patch. If I understood this correctly, wpa_supplicant
> would be converted to use the new connect command whenever it is
> supported. While it is nice to get support for connect added, this is
> not how it should be done as it breaks all the new work we have been
> enabling with mac80211. The separate auth/assoc commands should be the
> default operation and only if the driver does not support this, should
> the connect command be used.

The connect API wraps auth/assoc commands in cfg80211 SME. For example,
when cfg80211 receives NL80211_CMD_CONNECT (cfg80211_connect), it checks
if connect API is supported or not. If it is not supported (for all
mac80211 based drivers), it uses the common cfg80211_conn_do_work() to
do auth/assoc the same way as it handles NL80211_CMD_AUTHENTICATE. So
from user space point of view, if connect API is supported, it can use
it directly and let cfg80211 to maintain the state of auth and assoc.

Thanks,
-yi