Re: [PATCH] rtl8187: add master mode

Re: [PATCH] rtl8187: add master mode

[Hin-Tak Leung]

--------------------------------------------
On Mon, 4/12/17, Gabriele Gristina <gabriele.gristina@gmail.com> wrote:
 
> I use these few
> byte from years and hostapd work like a charm.I
> don't understand why you write "completely
> wrong" but you are free to refuse this
> patch.
> Have a nice
> day,Gabriele

I think the issue was to do with hardware support of certain features - power-management (allowing the clients to sleep) and maintaining states across low-power states, and somewhat large number of clients. That it can work to some extent, and even to a very good extent, to serve a small number of clients - at full power, without power managrment - is not a surprise.

My impression that software (i.e. non-hardware) support was to improve to make it possible. Larry and others can comment on the current state.

 

Re: [PATCH] rtl8187: add master mode

[Larry Finger]

On 12/04/2017 04:02 PM, Hin-Tak Leung wrote:
> --------------------------------------------
> On Mon, 4/12/17, Gabriele Gristina <gabriele.gristina@gmail.com> wrote:
>   
>> I use these few
>> byte from years and hostapd work like a charm.I
>> don't understand why you write "completely
>> wrong" but you are free to refuse this
>> patch.
>> Have a nice
>> day,Gabriele
> 
> I think the issue was to do with hardware support of certain features - power-management (allowing the clients to sleep) and maintaining states across low-power states, and somewhat large number of clients. That it can work to some extent, and even to a very good extent, to serve a small number of clients - at full power, without power managrment - is not a surprise.
> 
> My impression that software (i.e. non-hardware) support was to improve to make it possible. Larry and others can comment on the current state.

Gabriele,

I agree that merely informing mac80211 that you support AP mode is unlikely to 
provide full support for master mode, but I have not looked at that code for 
many years.

If you can show that your "fix" does support many clients, and that it does not 
go belly-up when one of them tries to go to low power, then I will agree to 
merge your patch. Until then, merging it now would suggest that we are offering 
a service that the driver does not really support.

BTW, why are you trying to create an AP with a 802.11G device? The performance 
will be on par with what was expected 10 or 12 years ago.

Larry

Re: [PATCH] rtl8187: add master mode

[Hin-Tak Leung]

--------------------------------------------
On Mon, 4/12/17, Gabriele Gristina <gabriele.gristina@gmail.com> wrote:

> This patch add the master mode to rtl8187
> wireless driver.
 
> Signed-off-by: Gabriele Gristina <gabriele.gristina@gmail.com>

Your two-line patch is most likely completely wrong... master mode is not just the driver claiming (and lying...) to support master mode. At least, it is extremely imcomplete.

We discussed this briefly some years ago; my impression of the discussion was that devices supporting master modes need to have some specific features which are not found in low-end devices (rtl818x being such). Although some of these necessities were foresaw to be possible to be implemented in software (i.e. the rest of the kernel in the core wifi stack) in a later stage.

I think Larry can say a bit more in this matter.

Hin-Tak

[PATCH] rtl8187: add master mode

[Gabriele Gristina]

This patch add the master mode to rtl8187 wireless driver.

Signed-off-by: Gabriele Gristina <gabriele.gristina@gmail.com>

---

diff --git a/drivers/net/wireless/realtek/rtl818x/rtl8187/dev.c
b/drivers/net/wireless/realtek/rtl818x/rtl8187/dev.c
index 121b94f09714..8ef22f4382ae 100644
--- a/drivers/net/wireless/realtek/rtl818x/rtl8187/dev.c
+++ b/drivers/net/wireless/realtek/rtl818x/rtl8187/dev.c
@@ -1113,6 +1113,7 @@ static int rtl8187_add_interface(struct ieee80211_hw *dev,
  goto exit;

  switch (vif->type) {
+ case NL80211_IFTYPE_AP:
  case NL80211_IFTYPE_STATION:
  case NL80211_IFTYPE_ADHOC:
  break;
@@ -1602,7 +1603,8 @@ static int rtl8187_probe(struct usb_interface *intf,
  priv->rfkill_mask = RFKILL_MASK_8198;
  }
  dev->vif_data_size = sizeof(struct rtl8187_vif);
- dev->wiphy->interface_modes = BIT(NL80211_IFTYPE_STATION) |
+ dev->wiphy->interface_modes = BIT(NL80211_IFTYPE_AP) |
+       BIT(NL80211_IFTYPE_STATION) |
        BIT(NL80211_IFTYPE_ADHOC) ;

  wiphy_ext_feature_set(dev->wiphy, NL80211_EXT_FEATURE_CQM_RSSI_LIST);