From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: "Jouni Malinen" Subject: Re: [PATCH wireless-dev] d80211: Add support for user space client MLME Date: Wed, 3 May 2006 09:44:58 -0700 Message-ID: <20060503164458.GB10524@instant802.com> References: <20060502211817.GA30842@instant802.com> <20060503182815.1a9ebb5e@griffin.suse.cz> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Cc: "John W. Linville" , netdev@vger.kernel.org, jkmaline@cc.hut.fi Return-path: Received: from dhost002-38.dex002.intermedia.net ([64.78.21.123]:32392 "EHLO dhost002-38.dex002.intermedia.net") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1030241AbWECQpD (ORCPT ); Wed, 3 May 2006 12:45:03 -0400 To: Jiri Benc Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <20060503182815.1a9ebb5e@griffin.suse.cz> Sender: netdev-owner@vger.kernel.org List-Id: netdev.vger.kernel.org On Wed, May 03, 2006 at 06:28:15PM +0200, Jiri Benc wrote: > It is too early for this. We need to implement some better communication > interface between kernel and hostapd (or what will implement userspace > MLME) first. The current solution, where there is some special > net_device interface (wmaster0ap) abused to dump informations to > userspace, is ugly and confusing for users. Why do you think that this would be too early now? I agree that the interface between kernel and user space MLME can be improved, but I see no point in making client MLME implementation wait for that to happen. Personally, I don't think that the wmaster#ap interface is really that ugly, but I have nothing against this being improved if someone has time for doing it. I just don't see it as the highest priority. > There is no userspace MLME implementation yet. And if one is going to be > written, I'm really convinced it should be written in a clean way. I > think Simon said he would examine a possibility to convert this stuff to > netlink - is there some progress there? But there is.. I committed changes to the wpa_supplicant devel branch for this yesterday. It seems to work fine with net/d80211 and bcm43xx with this small patch to d80211 to allow the functionality to be moved into user space. I have not yet heard of anyone working with details of converting the management frame communication to use netlink. > Also, I'm not sure how fullmac cards could be (potentially) supported > with this approach. In the same way as with the kernel space MLME implementation.. This does not really change regardless of where the MLME code is implemented. Some time ago, I sent a preliminary patch showing what kind of changes are needed and this was mainly avoiding calls to some ieee80211_sta.c functions. -- Jouni Malinen PGP id EFC895FA