Wireless statistics for bcm43xx-d80211

Wireless statistics for bcm43xx-d80211

[Larry Finger]

I have gotten most things working to produce wireless statistics through /proc/net/wireless for
bcm43xx-d80211; however, I have one problem that I have not yet been able to solve. When I do a 'cat
/proc/net/wireless', the following is printed:

Inter-| sta-|   Quality        |   Discarded packets               | Missed | WE
  face | tus | link level noise |  nwid  crypt   frag  retry   misc | beacon | 20
wmaster0: 0000  100.    0.    0.       0      0      0      0      0        0
  wlan1: 0000  100.  -26.  -67.       0      0      0      0      0        0

Based on the numbers obtained using bcm43xx-softmac for my interface, the numbers for level and 
noise for wlan1 are what I expected (in dBm). The link value has not yet been finished. The main 
problem is that the wireless kicker applet for KDE, which I use for a display, is only looking at 
the first line, and never sees the wlan1 data - only the wmaster0 results.

Is there some way to detect that the master interface is being interrogated, and return data for the
attached STA instead?

Thanks,  Larry

Re: Wireless statistics for bcm43xx-d80211

[Dan Williams]

On Tue, 2006-07-18 at 23:24 -0500, Larry Finger wrote:
> I have gotten most things working to produce wireless statistics through /proc/net/wireless for
> bcm43xx-d80211; however, I have one problem that I have not yet been able to solve. When I do a 'cat
> /proc/net/wireless', the following is printed:
> 
> Inter-| sta-|   Quality        |   Discarded packets               | Missed | WE
>   face | tus | link level noise |  nwid  crypt   frag  retry   misc | beacon | 20
> wmaster0: 0000  100.    0.    0.       0      0      0      0      0        0
>   wlan1: 0000  100.  -26.  -67.       0      0      0      0      0        0
> 
> Based on the numbers obtained using bcm43xx-softmac for my interface, the numbers for level and 
> noise for wlan1 are what I expected (in dBm). The link value has not yet been finished. The main 
> problem is that the wireless kicker applet for KDE, which I use for a display, is only looking at 
> the first line, and never sees the wlan1 data - only the wmaster0 results.
> 
> Is there some way to detect that the master interface is being interrogated, and return data for the
> attached STA instead?

I'm not entirely sure how you configure d80211-based drivers [1], but I
think this is Kicker's problem?  Doesn't it know which device you are
actually connecting with, i.e. wlan1?  Kicker should know this, but we
may need to update userland applications like Kicker and NetworkManager
for the new device model that d80211 presents.  wlanmaster0 shouldn't
have any quality, because it's not connected to anything, and nothing
connects to it.  It's not exposed over the air in any way, AFAIUI.

Let's fix this the right way, in userspace apps, not working around this
stuff in the drivers.

Dan

[1] i.e., can you have more than one STA attached to a master?  I
thought so, but could be wrong.

Re: Wireless statistics for bcm43xx-d80211

[Michael Buesch]

On Wednesday 19 July 2006 06:24, Larry Finger wrote:
> I have gotten most things working to produce wireless statistics through /proc/net/wireless for
> bcm43xx-d80211; however, I have one problem that I have not yet been able to solve. When I do a 'cat
> /proc/net/wireless', the following is printed:
> 
> Inter-| sta-|   Quality        |   Discarded packets               | Missed | WE
>   face | tus | link level noise |  nwid  crypt   frag  retry   misc | beacon | 20
> wmaster0: 0000  100.    0.    0.       0      0      0      0      0        0
>   wlan1: 0000  100.  -26.  -67.       0      0      0      0      0        0
> 
> Based on the numbers obtained using bcm43xx-softmac for my interface, the numbers for level and 
> noise for wlan1 are what I expected (in dBm). The link value has not yet been finished. The main 
> problem is that the wireless kicker applet for KDE, which I use for a display, is only looking at 
> the first line, 

So it is broken. Fullstop.
Bug KDE for this.

-- 
Greetings Michael.

Re: Wireless statistics for bcm43xx-d80211

[Dan Williams]

On Tue, 2006-07-18 at 23:24 -0500, Larry Finger wrote:
> I have gotten most things working to produce wireless statistics through /proc/net/wireless for
> bcm43xx-d80211; however, I have one problem that I have not yet been able to solve. When I do a 'cat
> /proc/net/wireless', the following is printed:
> 
> Inter-| sta-|   Quality        |   Discarded packets               | Missed | WE
>   face | tus | link level noise |  nwid  crypt   frag  retry   misc | beacon | 20
> wmaster0: 0000  100.    0.    0.       0      0      0      0      0        0
>   wlan1: 0000  100.  -26.  -67.       0      0      0      0      0        0
> 
> Based on the numbers obtained using bcm43xx-softmac for my interface, the numbers for level and 
> noise for wlan1 are what I expected (in dBm). The link value has not yet been finished. The main 
> problem is that the wireless kicker applet for KDE, which I use for a display, is only looking at 
> the first line, and never sees the wlan1 data - only the wmaster0 results.
> 
> Is there some way to detect that the master interface is being interrogated, and return data for the
> attached STA instead?

Actually, now that I think about it, why are _any_ applets
screen-scraping /proc/net/wireless anymore?  If they profess to be a
wireless applet, yet screenscrape /proc/net/wireless, that's suspect
right there.  The ioctls for status are quite well-defined and haven't
changed in a very long time (ie, SIOCGIWRANGE).

On the flip side, /proc/net/wireless has been supported since the dawn
of time (ok, not really) and is the textual interface for reporting
wireless statistic, but maybe that shouldn't be the case anymore.

Dan

Re: Wireless statistics for bcm43xx-d80211

[Larry Finger]

Dan Williams wrote:
> 
> Actually, now that I think about it, why are _any_ applets
> screen-scraping /proc/net/wireless anymore?  If they profess to be a
> wireless applet, yet screenscrape /proc/net/wireless, that's suspect
> right there.  The ioctls for status are quite well-defined and haven't
> changed in a very long time (ie, SIOCGIWRANGE).
> 
> On the flip side, /proc/net/wireless has been supported since the dawn
> of time (ok, not really) and is the textual interface for reporting
> wireless statistic, but maybe that shouldn't be the case anymore.
> 

I finally found the source for the applet, and it is using iwlib to get the statistics. If the 
kernel's version of WE is really old, it will use /proc/net/wireless. For newer kernels, it is using 
the appropriate ioctl. When I get time, I will fix the error and submit a patch to KDE.

As an interim workaround, I downloaded and built kwlaninfo, a different KDE kicker applet. I don't 
like it very much but it does show the needed info.

Larry