Queries about acx-mac80211 master mode support on the AR7 platform

Queries about acx-mac80211 master mode support on the AR7 platform

[Mark Williamson]

Hi,

I=92m currently following the Openwrt project (http://openwrt.org/) wit=
h=20
specific interest to the AR7 port. The hardworking developers on this=20
project have really brought support for this along: the unit works, the=
=20
ADSL component works, but the wireless support is still WIP. Until=20
recently the acx drivers (http://acx100.sourceforge.net/) were used to=20
drive the card on the unit; a specific pci-to-vlynq bridge had been=20
written to enable this to work on the AR7 platform. This worked well,=20
but there was no WPA support available; WEP was the only encryption=20
available with this driver.

Hence to address this, initial work was taken for the acx driver to=20
utilise the mac80211 stack and a new acx driver called acx-mac80211 was=
=20
written (http://acx100.sourceforge.net/wiki/Acx-mac80211).  IMHO this=20
still very much WIP and is nowhere near as stable as the original acx=20
driver. But, perhaps the largest sticking point is that the acx-mac8021=
1=20
driver, unlike acx, does not support AP (master) mode. I have struggled=
=20
to find out whether this is an issue in the acx-mac80211 driver=20
component or in fact the mac80211 does not support master mode at this=20
moment in time. Can anyone shed some light on this and help clear up my=
=20
ongoing confusion?

Regards,

Mark Williamson
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Re: Queries about acx-mac80211 master mode support on the AR7 platform

[Johannes Berg]

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> But, perhaps the largest sticking point is that the acx-mac80211 
> driver, unlike acx, does not support AP (master) mode. I have struggled 
> to find out whether this is an issue in the acx-mac80211 driver 
> component or in fact the mac80211 does not support master mode at this 
> moment in time.

Both, I expect, though I don't know about the driver. I'm currently
working on a large patch series to make mac80211 work in master mode
again together with hostapd, you may want to search the archives of this
list for my [FYI] mails on the topic.

johannes

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Re: Queries about acx-mac80211 master mode support on the AR7 platform

[Jeff Williams]

On Tue, 18 Dec 2007, Mark Williamson wrote:

> Hi,
Hi Mark,

>
> Hence to address this, initial work was taken for the acx driver to
> utilise the mac80211 stack and a new acx driver called acx-mac80211 was
> written (http://acx100.sourceforge.net/wiki/Acx-mac80211).  IMHO this
> still very much WIP and is nowhere near as stable as the original acx
> driver. But, perhaps the largest sticking point is that the acx-mac80211
> driver, unlike acx, does not support AP (master) mode. I have struggled
> to find out whether this is an issue in the acx-mac80211 driver
> component or in fact the mac80211 does not support master mode at this
> moment in time. Can anyone shed some light on this and help clear up my
> ongoing confusion?

I'm the guy who started the acx-softmac to acx-mac80211 conversion, and my 
intention was to provide ap support for the card, but I've had other 
projects come up demanding my attention. So I apologize for its WIP state.

I'll have to defer to those working on nl80211/lib80211 and hostapd to 
answer whether mac80211 actually supports AP mode, I recall a comment 
about b43/legacy being the only driver to actively support Master?

Anyway, I spoke with a guy who was interested in continuing work on the 
acx-mac80211 a couple of months back, he seemed eager but I've not heard 
anything from him since.

I'm sorry I couldn't help you more,
Jeff