Re: [ath5k-devel] [PATCH 1/5] nl80211: Add new WIPHY attribute COVERAGE_CLASS

["Luis R. Rodriguez" <lrodriguez@atheros.com>]

On Tue, Dec 15, 2009 at 09:56:48AM -0800, Lukáš Turek wrote:
> The new attribute NL80211_ATTR_WIPHY_COVERAGE_CLASS sets IEEE 802.11
> Coverage Class, which depends on maximum distance of nodes in a
> wireless network. It's required for long distance links (more than a few
> hundred meters).
> 
> The attribute is now ignored by two non-mac80211 drivers, rndis and
> iwmc3200wifi, together with WIPHY_PARAM_RETRY_SHORT and
> WIPHY_PARAM_RETRY_LONG. If it turns out to be a problem, we could split
> set_wiphy_params callback or add new capability bits.
> 
> Signed-off-by: Lukas Turek <8an@praha12.net>
> @@ -803,9 +807,16 @@ static int nl80211_set_wiphy(struct sk_buff *skb, struct genl_info *info)
>                 changed |= WIPHY_PARAM_RTS_THRESHOLD;
>         }
> 
> +       if (info->attrs[NL80211_ATTR_WIPHY_COVERAGE_CLASS]) {
> +               coverage_class = nla_get_u8(
> +                       info->attrs[NL80211_ATTR_WIPHY_COVERAGE_CLASS]);
> +               changed |= WIPHY_PARAM_COVERAGE_CLASS;
> +       }
> +

Does setting the coverage class make sense for all modes of operation?

If not it'd be good to catch those early and avoid setting them and also
properly document them.

The AP seems to pass the coverage class on country IE, so I guess
this means we can support this for AP mode and IBSS and only through the
country IE for STA. Mind you that would mean hostapd would need to kick
the coverage class as well and some new code on cfg80211 reg.c
country_ie_2_rd() to parse it.

Doesn't seem to make sense to set this for monitor interfaces.

  Luis