Re: [PATCH] libertas: add auto auth mode feature

[Deepak Saxena <dsaxena@laptop.org>]

On Feb 26 2010, at 15:01, Dan Williams was caught saying:
> On Fri, 2010-02-26 at 12:10 -0800, Andrey Yurovsky wrote:
> > On Fri, Feb 26, 2010 at 4:55 AM, Holger Schurig
> > <holgerschurig at googlemail.com> wrote:
> > >> Auto auth mode is enabled by default. If user doesn't specify the
> > >> auth mode, while association driver will first try with open mode
> > >> and then with shared key mode. If user specifies an auth mode,
> > >> auto auth is disabled and driver will not try association with
> > >> another auth mode.
> > >
> > > I'd rather would like if you guys chime in into the cfg80211 port rather
> > > than adding stuff to assoc.c and wext.c, which hopefully get's removed
> > > really soon now.
> > >
> > >
> > > As a side note: I'm now inclined to get rid of Libertas' proprietary mesh
> > > support in the driver. I don't know no one except OLPC that uses it, and
> > > even they don't seem work with upstream. For me, this mesh stuff is the last
> > > obstacle for cfg80211 support in libertas.
<snip>
> > Perhaps the OLPC folks might want to fork the driver or maintain a
> > patch set for the XO-1 mesh features.  Meanwhile we could all move on
> > and use cfg80211 and clean things up accordingly.
<snip>
> It might not be a bad thing to rip out the mesh stuff and add it later,
> but we do want to coordinate with OLPC folks as they are still the
> *largest user by far* of this driver.  As in a million+ units.

As has been pointed out, the next-gen XO wireless FW does not have mesh 
support; however, there are still plenty of end users and developers on 
the existing XO-1 laptops and I don't think completely removing mesh 
support is an option our community would be happy with. However, I also 
don't want to end up with a libertas fork (all our mesh patches are
currently upstream and not forkd off) in the OLPC tree so let's figure 
out a path to make this work for everyone.

It looks like there is already some work in progress towards mesh support
using cfg80211 [1] and if I can get pointers to the latest version, I can 
point the OLPC community to them and see if we can find some testers.

> Is it seriously that large of a block?  I thought we'd discussed a
> fairly viable plan for keeping mesh around while still doing cfg80211.
> Would shipping you a usb8388 dongle or two make it easier to work with?

Or a few XO-1 laptops? :)

~Deepak