Atheros (madwifi/ath5k) virtual STA support

Atheros (madwifi/ath5k) virtual STA support

[Catalin Patulea]

Hi linux-wireless,

I'm interested in virtual STA support in madwifi and/or ath5k on an
AR5414 (AR5006XS). Specifically, I want one physical wireless adapter
to act as an infrastructure client on multiple networks. I understand
the network will most likely need to be on the same channel.

This is currently prohibited by the madwifi driver (haven't looked at
ath5k thoroughly). What's the underlying reason for this? Someone on
IRC mentioned powersaving, beacon handling and "other reasons". Can
anyone elaborate?

Secondly, what is the procedure to get hardware documentation from
Atheros? I'm specifically interested in the AR5414 datasheet.

Thanks,

Catalin

Re: Atheros (madwifi/ath5k) virtual STA support

[Luis R. Rodriguez]

On Tue, Jan 20, 2009 at 11:33:13AM -0800, Catalin Patulea wrote:
> Hi linux-wireless,
> 
> I'm interested in virtual STA support in madwifi and/or ath5k on an
> AR5414 (AR5006XS). Specifically, I want one physical wireless adapter
> to act as an infrastructure client on multiple networks. I understand
> the network will most likely need to be on the same channel.
> 
> This is currently prohibited by the madwifi driver (haven't looked at
> ath5k thoroughly). What's the underlying reason for this? Someone on
> IRC mentioned powersaving, beacon handling and "other reasons". Can
> anyone elaborate?

Please use linux-wireless only for upstream drivers like ath5k or ath9k.

You will most likely see this first implemented in ath9k. Work is underway
for just that.

> Secondly, what is the procedure to get hardware documentation from
> Atheros? I'm specifically interested in the AR5414 datasheet.

Please see:

http://wireless.kernel.org/en/developers/Documentation/specs#Atherosspecifications

  Luis

Re: Atheros (madwifi/ath5k) virtual STA support

[Catalin Patulea]

On Tue, Jan 20, 2009 at 3:08 PM, Luis R. Rodriguez
<lrodriguez@atheros.com> wrote:
> Please use linux-wireless only for upstream drivers like ath5k or ath9k.
Apologies for that, I will direct my madwifi questions to the
project's mailing list.

I had actually meant my question in a driver-agnostic sense as well
("Are there any hardware limitations blocking virtual STA support?"),
and hoped I could harvest the brains of the knowledgeable people on
linux-wireless regardless of project affiliation. ;-) Regardless, I
got my answer.

> You will most likely see this first implemented in ath9k. Work is underway
> for just that.
Who's working on this? Any time estimates (not making demands, just
asking)? Also, I was under the impression that ath9k is only meant for
802.11n chipsets (as opposed to abg), and therefore that AR5414 would
not be supported. What am I missing?

In truth, I should stop sending mails and just try it on my device. I
haven't. If there's no more information on the topic, I'm open to the
good old "try it and tell us if it works" ;-).

> http://wireless.kernel.org/en/developers/Documentation/specs#Atherosspecifications
Thanks!

Catalin

Re: Atheros (madwifi/ath5k) virtual STA support

[Michael Renzmann]

Hi.

Catalin Patulea wrote:
> Also, I was under the impression that ath9k is only meant for
> 802.11n chipsets (as opposed to abg), and therefore that AR5414 would
> not be supported. What am I missing?

ath9k is for Atheros' 11n chipsets, that's true. However, if Luis says
that they are working on such a feature for ath9k, one can expect that
this work will include patches for mac80211 which then other drivers can
rely on to implement a similar feature.

Bye, Mike

Re: Atheros (madwifi/ath5k) virtual STA support

[Johannes Berg]

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On Wed, 2009-01-21 at 08:03 +0100, Michael Renzmann wrote:
> Hi.
> 
> Catalin Patulea wrote:
> > Also, I was under the impression that ath9k is only meant for
> > 802.11n chipsets (as opposed to abg), and therefore that AR5414 would
> > not be supported. What am I missing?
> 
> ath9k is for Atheros' 11n chipsets, that's true. However, if Luis says
> that they are working on such a feature for ath9k, one can expect that
> this work will include patches for mac80211 which then other drivers can
> rely on to implement a similar feature.

mac80211 should be fine already

johannes

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Re: Atheros (madwifi/ath5k) virtual STA support

[Ben Greear]

Catalin Patulea wrote:
> Hi linux-wireless,
>
> I'm interested in virtual STA support in madwifi and/or ath5k on an
> AR5414 (AR5006XS). Specifically, I want one physical wireless adapter
> to act as an infrastructure client on multiple networks. I understand
> the network will most likely need to be on the same channel.
>
> This is currently prohibited by the madwifi driver (haven't looked at
> ath5k thoroughly). What's the underlying reason for this? Someone on
> IRC mentioned powersaving, beacon handling and "other reasons". Can
> anyone elaborate?
>
> Secondly, what is the procedure to get hardware documentation from
> Atheros? I'm specifically interested in the AR5414 datasheet.
>   
I have an old hacked up madwifi driver that supports this, and I'm currently
funding the development of this feature for ath5k, so hopefully it will
be available soon.  We will be integrating this feature set into our network
traffic generator tool, but I also hope that the patches get into the 
main kernel
for all to use freely.

Thanks,
Ben

> Thanks,
>
> Catalin
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-- 
Ben Greear <greearb@candelatech.com> 
Candela Technologies Inc  http://www.candelatech.com