BCM4329 chipset -- open80211s

BCM4329 chipset -- open80211s

[Kiran Karra]

Hi All,
I would like to know if I can use open80211s with the BCM4329 chipset?
 From the research I've done, the BCM4329 is a FullMAC device, not a
SoftMAC device.  The open-source linux driver that can work with the
BCM4329 chipset is the brcmfmac.  Therefore, it does not use the
mac80211 framework.  The brcmfmac driver is integrated with cfg80211.
Since open80211s is based off the mac80211 stack, does this mean
open80211s can never be used with brcmfmac?  Is it possible to
interface the open80211s code directly with cfg80211?  Would the
cfg80211 api provide all the necessary callbacks in order to acheive
mesh functionality?  If this is possible, does anyone have an idea of
how much time this effort would require?

Additionally, looking at the documentation on the b43 driver, the
website (http://linuxwireless.org/en/users/Drivers/b43) says that all
BCM43xx are supported by the b43 driver.  The b43 driver does support
open80211s, so I am confused as to whether I can use this driver for
the BCM4329 device, although the device list doesnt have BCM4329?

Are there any other options for getting 802.11s support with the
BCM4329 chipset?

Thanks in advance,
Kiran

Re: BCM4329 chipset -- open80211s

[Franky Lin]

Hi Kiran,

On 03/31/2012 12:18 PM, Kiran Karra wrote:
> Hi All,
> I would like to know if I can use open80211s with the BCM4329 chipset?
>   From the research I've done, the BCM4329 is a FullMAC device, not a
> SoftMAC device.  The open-source linux driver that can work with the
> BCM4329 chipset is the brcmfmac.  Therefore, it does not use the
> mac80211 framework.  The brcmfmac driver is integrated with cfg80211.
> Since open80211s is based off the mac80211 stack, does this mean
> open80211s can never be used with brcmfmac?  Is it possible to
> interface the open80211s code directly with cfg80211?  Would the
> cfg80211 api provide all the necessary callbacks in order to acheive
> mesh functionality?  If this is possible, does anyone have an idea of
> how much time this effort would require?

The current implementation of support for 4329 is using the chipset to 
handle all 80211 stuff. The packet passed between host and the dongle 
chipset is Ethernet packet (802.3). Currently we don't have any plan to 
add mesh mode support in firmware.

Thanks,
-Franky