Re: [PATCH v5] mac80211: implement multi-vif in-place reservations

[Johannes Berg <johannes@sipsolutions.net>]

Hi Michal, all,

So I finally got around to discussing this with Luca and getting a
better understanding of what we have right now and where we're going to
this. Unfortunately (for you :) ) I don't think we're quite on the right
track between what we have and what you (and others) are doing here and
what we'll want.

>  	IEEE80211_HW_CHANCTX_STA_CSA			= 1<<28,
> -	IEEE80211_HW_CHANGE_RUNNING_CHANCTX		= 1<<29,

Right now we have this, along with WIPHY_FLAG_HAS_CHANNEL_SWITCH (which
we still turn off upstream though)

> +	list_for_each_entry(sdata, &ctx->reserved_vifs, reserved_chanctx_list) {
> +		drv_unassign_vif_chanctx(local, sdata, ctx);
> +		rcu_assign_pointer(sdata->vif.chanctx_conf, &new_ctx->conf);
> +	}
> +
> +	list_del_rcu(&ctx->list);
> +	ieee80211_del_chanctx(local, ctx);
> +
> +	/* don't simply overwrite radar_required in case of failure */
> +	list_for_each_entry(sdata, &ctx->reserved_vifs, reserved_chanctx_list) {
> +		bool tmp = sdata->radar_required;
> +		sdata->radar_required = sdata->reserved_radar_required;
> +		sdata->reserved_radar_required = tmp;
> +	}
> +
> +	ieee80211_recalc_radar_chanctx(local, new_ctx);
> +
> +	err = ieee80211_add_chanctx(local, new_ctx);
> +	if (err)
> +		goto err_revert;
> +
> +	list_for_each_entry(sdata, &ctx->reserved_vifs, reserved_chanctx_list) {
> +		err = drv_assign_vif_chanctx(local, sdata, new_ctx);
> +		if (err)
> +			goto err_unassign;
> +	}

I think this is problematic in terms of the channel context API, as is
the "unassign while in use" case of ieee80211_vif_use_reserved_context()
through the call of ieee80211_assign_vif_chanctx() (unassign is inside
of that.)

Without those APIs, we have perfect ordering between using the channel
context and having the interface active (interfaces have to be idle
while no channel context is assigned). The logic here breaks this, which
could cause issues.

In fact, drivers now will have to rely on out-of-band information (e.g.
vif->csa_active) to detect that this is not a "real" unassign, but
rather a temporary one, and then rely on getting the new assignment
immediately.

Going back to this out-of-band information is not only ugly in the
driver, but also makes the API less predictable IMHO. It also doesn't
allow for drivers that have the ability to change a channel context on
the fly - in which case none of this add/remove stuff would really be
needed.

Luca and I discussed this and came up with this suggested new API:

/**
 * enum ieee80211_chanctx_switch_mode - channel context switch mode
 * @CHANCTX_SWMODE_REASSIGN_VIF: Both old and new contexts already exist
 *	(and may continue to exist), but the virtual interface needs to
 *	be switched from one to the other
 * @CHANCTX_SWMODE_SWAP_CONTEXTS: The old context exists but will stop
to
 *	exist with this call, the new context doesn't exist but will be
 *	active after this call, the virtual interface switches from the
 *	old to the new (note that the driver may of course implement this
 *	as an on-the-fly chandef switch of the existing hardware context,
 *	but the mac80211 pointer for the old context will cease to exist
 *	and only the new one will later be used for changes/removal.)
 */
enum ieee80211_chanctx_switch_mode {
	CHANCTX_SWMODE_REASSIGN_VIF,
	CHANCTX_SWMODE_SWAP_CONTEXTS,
};

	(*switch_vif_chanctx)(struct ieee80211_hw *hw,
			    struct ieee80211_vif *vif,
			    struct ieee80211_chanctx_conf *old_ctx,
			    struct ieee80211_chanctx_conf *new_ctx,
			    enum ieee80211_chanctx_switch_mode mode);



Separately, I think due to the complexities involved in the driver
implementation we'll probably need a bitmap indicating which interface
types are supported (this is not something we do today, and this would
be broken in iwlwifi for sure.)

As a result, I'm going to drop this patch, which likely also means your
other 5-patch series won't apply?

johannes