mac80211_hwsim - simulator of 802.11 radios for mac80211

[Jouni Malinen <j@w1.fi>]

hostapd and wpa_supplicant include a test driver interface that allows
them to be tested on a single host without any wireless hardware for
development purposes. I have found this very valuable both for
developing new functionality and for testing existing code.

In order to provide similar mechanism for mac80211 developers and to
extend the scope of suitable test cases for hostapd/wpa_supplicant, I've
written a Linux kernel module that provides a similar test interface at
a lower layer. mac80211_hwsim simulates WLAN hardware and the air
interface between the radios by acting as a low-level radio driver for
mac80211. Neither mac80211 nor user space programs need any changes to
work with the simulated radios.

The initial version of mac80211_hwsim is available from the
mac80211_hwsim subdirectory of my hostap Git tree:
git://w1.fi/srv/git/hostap.git
http://w1.fi/gitweb/gitweb.cgi?p=hostap.git;a=tree;f=mac80211_hwsim

If there is interest in moving mac80211_hwsim module into the Linux
kernel tree, I'm open to doing that, too.

I've included some more information about the code in the README file
(see below) and there are also example configuration files for hostapd
and wpa_supplicant to show how a WPA2-Personal connection can be opened
with mac80211_hwsim.

mac80211_hwsim is still very minimal, but I have added couple of TODO
comments to the source code to indicate areas that I'm hoping to add for
more complete support of mac80211 features. I would also be interested
in feedback from other mac80211 developers on what kind of functionality
would be useful to have in this kind of simulated test setup. I'm first
looking into using this to develop IEEE 802.11w (management frame
protection) support into mac80211 and I would expect that the current
minimal design is enough for that, but there is certainly room for much
more, e.g., in the area of simulating signal strength and packet loss
for testing TX rate control, retransmission, and power save
functionality.



README:

Introduction

mac80211_hwsim is a Linux kernel module that can be used to simulate
arbitrary number of IEEE 802.11 radios for mac80211 on a single
device. It can be used to test most of the mac80211 functionality and
user space tools (e.g., hostapd and wpa_supplicant) in a way that
matches very closely with the normal case of using real WLAN
hardware. From the mac80211 view point, mac80211_hwsim is yet another
hardware driver, i.e., no changes to mac80211 are needed to use this
testing tool.

The main goal for mac80211_hwsim is to make it easier for developers
to test their code and work with new features to mac80211, hostapd,
and wpa_supplicant. The simulated radios do not have the limitations
of real hardware, so it is easy to generate an arbitrary test setup
and always reproduce the same setup for future tests. In addition,
since all radio operation is simulated, any channel can be used in
tests regardless of regulatory rules.

mac80211_hwsim kernel module has a parameter 'radios' that can be used
to select how many radios are simulates (default 2). This allows
configuration of both very simply setups (e.g., just a single access
point and a station) or large scale tests (multiple access points with
hundreds of stations).

mac80211_hwsim works by tracking the current channel of each virtual
radio and copying all transmitted frames to all other radios that are
currently enabled and on the same channel as the transmitting
radio. Software encryption in mac80211 is used so that the frames are
actually encrypted over the virtual air interface to allow more
complete testing of encryption.


Simple example

This example shows how to use mac80211_hwsim to simulate two radios:
one to act as an access point and the other as a station that
associates with the AP. hostapd and wpa_supplicant are used to take
care of WPA2-PSK authentication. In addition, hostapd is also
processing access point side of association.

Please note that the currently released Linux kernel (2.6.25) does not
enable AP mode, so a simple patch is needed to enable AP mode selection:
http://johannes.sipsolutions.net/patches/kernel/all/LATEST/006-allow-ap-vlan-modes.patch


# Build mac80211_hwsim:
make

# Load the module
insmod ./mac80211_hwsim.ko

# Run hostapd (AP) for wlan0
hostapd hostapd.conf

# Run wpa_supplicant (station) for wlan1
wpa_supplicant -Dwext -iwlan1 -c wpa_supplicant.conf

-- 
Jouni Malinen                                            PGP id EFC895FA