Re: Testing the Wireless driver changes

2008-01-21 Thread Ricardo Carrano
Dan,

Do we have a description of the dbus API for the XO NM implementation
somewhere?

[Like the one in:
http://people.redhat.com/dcbw/NetworkManager/NetworkManager%20DBUS%20API.txt
]

Thank you!

Carrano

On Jan 17, 2008 6:24 PM, Dan Williams [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

 On Thu, 2008-01-17 at 14:18 -0500, Mikus Grinbergs wrote:
   To completely silence the radio:
   #!/bin/bash
   rmmod usb8xxx
   mv /lib/firmaware/usb8883.bin /lib/firmaware/usb8883.bin.quiet
 
   For a more user-friendly solution, (short of a hardware rfkill switch)
   put a toggle somewhere in the control panel for Don't turn the radio
 on
   automatically that is _UN_checked by default, and a wireless
   enabled/disabled button there too.  ...
   Then ensure that NetworkManager is clued into the preference value
   above, and that NM sets it's initial wireless-enabled state coherently
   with the preference value above as well.
  
   Were these things done, by default the behavior would be the same as
 it
   is now, but those people who wish insane amounts of control over the
 TX
   power state can have their fluffy white cake and eat it too.
 
  I'm one of those who wishes for control.  The G1G1 offering has set
  up a user population different from the education design of the OLPC
  project.  I live in the boonies, have no wireless, and there are no
  other radios within range.  My connection is by wired ethernet.
 
  Took me a while to find out that NetworkManager would set up my
  wired connection, if I provided a DHCP server.  However, if I happen
  to unplug my ethernet cable for a while, NetworkManager reverts eth0
  back to radio (and I need to reboot to reconnect as wired).
 
 
  What I wish for is a user toggle that when I'm at home will inhibit
  NetworkManager from supplanting the wired connection.  (But I do
  want to restore radio function when I take my XO to a cafe.)

 NetworkManager has functionality to enable/disable the wireless, it's
 just not exposed from the user interface yet.  I believe Simon has been
 looking into this.  In the mean-time, you can disable wireless by
 running:

 dbus-send --system \
 --dest=org.freedesktop.NetworkManager \
 /org/freedesktop/NetworkManager \
 org.freedesktop.NetworkManager.setWirelessEnabled boolean:false

 and NetworkManager won't try to use either of the 802.11bg or the mesh
 interfaces until the next reboot.

 Dan


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RE: Testing the Wireless driver changes

2008-01-20 Thread Ronak Chokshi
After downloading the firmware, the ARM is told by the boot2 to jump to
a specific location of the internal memory. If the firmware is not
downloaded, the boot2 starts the grab the firmware from the Flash and
jumps to the same location of the internal memory once that is done. The
flash tool does not figure out anything here. The boot2 code is smart
enough to figure that out.

 

Best Regards,

Ronak



From: Michail Bletsas [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] 
Sent: Saturday, January 19, 2008 10:23 AM
To: Dan Williams; Ronak Chokshi
Cc: Ricardo Carrano; devel; David Woodhouse; Giannis Galanis;
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: Testing the Wireless driver changes

 



 
 Does the Boot2 code take care of figuring out the correct address to
 write the thick firmware to, or does the flash tool have to figure out
 the address to write it to?  Normally this address is embedded in the
 firmware flash file header, is there an address the tool should check
 for to verify, or is that address completely irrelevant because the
 boot2 code is smart enough to figure out where to put it?
 
Dan, 

You have to ask Ronak that. Right now the flash writing logic lives in
the firmware. 

M. 

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Re: Testing the Wireless driver changes

2008-01-19 Thread Dan Williams
On Sat, 2008-01-19 at 04:31 +0800, David Woodhouse wrote:
 On Fri, 2008-01-18 at 14:47 -0500, Dan Williams wrote:
  What is the post-boot firmware flash functionality supposed to apply to,
  the host-less active antenna? (which is what I heretofore had
  understood).
 
 As Ben says, they're the same thing. If you don't load the firmware
 within 5 seconds of the boot2 code starting up, the thing loads its own
 firmware from the internal flash.

Hmm, ok... So all the external USB 8388 dongles have a larger SPI flash
to contain both the Boot2 code and the 100K thick firmware?

Dan

 Yes, it's horrid. It doesn't even preserve the boot2 version, because we
 did some stupid hack to preserve that in the _driver_ rather than
 keeping it internal, so when we send the CMD_802_11_RESET command to
 kick the device back into boot2, we get 'device firmware changed' from
 the kernel and it appears as a completely new device...
 
 Ideally, we want to just kill the auto-mesh-repeater mode, where boot2
 times out after 5 seconds and loads the firmware from the internal flash
 (which is obviously larger on these devices than on the XO). Can we
 achieve that just by updating to a 'normal' Boot2 version from the XO?
 
 (Yes, I should be sleeping. No, I have no idea what timezone I'm in).
 

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Re: Testing the Wireless driver changes

2008-01-19 Thread Michail Bletsas
Dan Williams [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote on 01/19/2008 12:48:06 PM:


 
 Hmm, ok... So all the external USB 8388 dongles have a larger SPI flash
 to contain both the Boot2 code and the 100K thick firmware?
 
yes,

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Re: Testing the Wireless driver changes

2008-01-19 Thread Dan Williams
On Sat, 2008-01-19 at 13:05 -0500, Michail Bletsas wrote:
 
 
 Dan Williams [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote on 01/19/2008 12:48:06 PM:
 
 
  
  Hmm, ok... So all the external USB 8388 dongles have a larger SPI
 flash
  to contain both the Boot2 code and the 100K thick firmware?
  
 yes, 

Does the Boot2 code take care of figuring out the correct address to
write the thick firmware to, or does the flash tool have to figure out
the address to write it to?  Normally this address is embedded in the
firmware flash file header, is there an address the tool should check
for to verify, or is that address completely irrelevant because the
boot2 code is smart enough to figure out where to put it?

Dan


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Re: Testing the Wireless driver changes

2008-01-18 Thread Dan Williams
On Fri, 2008-01-18 at 10:33 -0500, Michail Bletsas wrote:
 Dan Williams [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote on 01/18/2008 10:08:09 AM:
 
  On Fri, 2008-01-18 at 08:36 +0800, David Woodhouse wrote:
   On Thu, 2008-01-17 at 19:16 -0500, Giannis Galanis wrote:
It must be noted that the important issue of this discussion is 
  how to have
the radio blocked from BEFORE the XO boots, so as not to be 
  conflicting with
the airline regulations.
   
   We should change the firmware so that it isn't active automatically as
   soon as it's loaded -- let the driver activate it when it's 
 appropriate.
   Then the decision as to whether the radio is blocked can properly be
   handled in userspace, and the device can be left quiescent if
   appropriate.
  
  Yes.  The active antennas firmware would need to be slightly altered to
  start on firmware boot, but the normal XO firmware should certainly be
  radio-off-until-driver-enabled (by setting IFF_UP or device open).
  
 So let's alter a fundamental design principle so that the XO doesn't 
 transmit a single frame when riding an airplane... ??
 
 I don't think so. If people feel so strong about this they can always 
 block firmware loading.
 Mesh forwarding will go on when you initialize the adapter and it is up to 
 the user to turn it off if they feel that they have too.

We're not really arguing here, we agree.  Everyone agrees that wireless
+mesh should start automatically by default after bootup.  What David
(and I in like 3 mails yesterday in this thread already) had proposed
was that the XO firmware should disable the radio _until_Linux_loads_
and the driver tells it to enable the radio.  When Linux loads, the
driver (or NetworkManager, or whatever) starts the radio.  That way, the
user at least has a change to at some point say no, don't turn on the
radio by default if they want to.

_Nothing_ would change for users who do not want/care/need to touch the
radio in this scenario, everything would continue to work as it
currently does.

I'm not sure where you get the idea that we're saying it should all be
in airplane mode all the time unless the child explicitly turns the
radio on.  We're saying exactly the opposite of that.

Dan

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Re: Testing the Wireless driver changes

2008-01-18 Thread David Woodhouse

On Fri, 2008-01-18 at 10:08 -0500, Dan Williams wrote:
 Yes.  The active antennas firmware would need to be slightly altered to
 start on firmware boot, but the normal XO firmware should certainly be
 radio-off-until-driver-enabled (by setting IFF_UP or device open).

Let us make a clear distinction between the two types of 'active
antenna' here. The ones which are actually attached to servers and
acting as wireless devices for a computer, we want to act like in the
XO. When they come up automatically into mesh repeater mode, that's
actually a complete PITA -- and it means we can't reboot the servers
because then the driver can't initialise the wireless because it's in
mesh repeater mode and doesn't respond properly to being reset.

Only for the standalone devices which we're going to hang in a corridor
and feed 5v do we want _any_ kind of automatic network operation. And
then it needs to be configurable -- we have to set the channel.

Since we need a way to configure the channel on the active antennae,
let's use channel zero to indicate 'no automatic mesh'. And please can
we have that firmware by tomorrow, Ulan Bator time -- so that I can
actually set up the school server so that it's rebootable without
subsequently having to disconnect and reconnect the firmware? 

I'd do it myself, but bug #429 bites again...

-- 
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Re: Testing the Wireless driver changes

2008-01-18 Thread John Watlington

Michail,
This would be 3107, right ?
3109 is when we started seeing the auto-update mode.

John

On Jan 18, 2008, at 4:22 PM, David Woodhouse wrote:


 On Fri, 2008-01-18 at 15:50 -0500, Michail Bletsas wrote:
 Ideally, we want to just kill the auto-mesh-repeater mode, where  
 boot2
 times out after 5 seconds and loads the firmware from the  
 internal flash
 (which is obviously larger on these devices than on the XO). Can we
 achieve that just by updating to a 'normal' Boot2 version from  
 the XO?

 Yes, that is all that is needed to disable autoboot on the active
 antennas.

 OK, that's the plan for the Mongolia deployment then. Wad, please can
 you confirm (with libertas-flash.py) and forward me the current (XO)
 version of Boot2, so I can do that?

 Thanks.

 -- 
 dwmw2


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Re: Testing the Wireless driver changes

2008-01-18 Thread Michail Bletsas
John Watlington [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote on 01/18/2008 04:56:26 PM:

 
 Michail,
 This would be 3107, right ?
 3109 is when we started seeing the auto-update mode.
 

Yes,

M.
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Re: Testing the Wireless driver changes

2008-01-18 Thread David Woodhouse

On Fri, 2008-01-18 at 16:56 -0500, John Watlington wrote:
 
 Michail,
 This would be 3107, right ?
 3109 is when we started seeing the auto-update mode.

OK, so can we go between 3109 and 3107 in both directions using
libertas-flash.py or did the protocol get changed without telling us?

We never did get Marvell's 'firmware update' patch for the driver to
apply to the kernel they claim it applies to, did we?

-- 
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Re: Testing the Wireless driver changes

2008-01-18 Thread David Woodhouse

On Fri, 2008-01-18 at 15:50 -0500, Michail Bletsas wrote:
  Ideally, we want to just kill the auto-mesh-repeater mode, where boot2
  times out after 5 seconds and loads the firmware from the internal flash
  (which is obviously larger on these devices than on the XO). Can we
  achieve that just by updating to a 'normal' Boot2 version from the XO?
  
 Yes, that is all that is needed to disable autoboot on the active 
 antennas.

OK, that's the plan for the Mongolia deployment then. Wad, please can
you confirm (with libertas-flash.py) and forward me the current (XO)
version of Boot2, so I can do that?

Thanks.

-- 
dwmw2

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Re: Testing the Wireless driver changes

2008-01-18 Thread Michail Bletsas
David Woodhouse [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote on 01/18/2008 03:31:08 PM:


 
 Ideally, we want to just kill the auto-mesh-repeater mode, where boot2
 times out after 5 seconds and loads the firmware from the internal flash
 (which is obviously larger on these devices than on the XO). Can we
 achieve that just by updating to a 'normal' Boot2 version from the XO?
 
Yes, that is all that is needed to disable autoboot on the active 
antennas.

M.


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Re: Testing the Wireless driver changes

2008-01-18 Thread Benjamin M. Schwartz
On Fri, 2008-01-18 at 14:47 -0500, Dan Williams wrote:
 So wait, what's going on here?  I thought the devices attached to school
 servers were just run-of-the-mill USB 8388 devices like the 8388
 daughterboard of the XO, but different connector, right?
 
 What is the post-boot firmware flash functionality supposed to apply to,
 the host-less active antenna? (which is what I heretofore had
 understood).

These two are the same device (active antenna).  The device behaves
differently depending on whether it detects a USB link on startup.

--Ben

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Re: Testing the Wireless driver changes

2008-01-18 Thread David Woodhouse
On Fri, 2008-01-18 at 14:47 -0500, Dan Williams wrote:
 What is the post-boot firmware flash functionality supposed to apply to,
 the host-less active antenna? (which is what I heretofore had
 understood).

As Ben says, they're the same thing. If you don't load the firmware
within 5 seconds of the boot2 code starting up, the thing loads its own
firmware from the internal flash.

Yes, it's horrid. It doesn't even preserve the boot2 version, because we
did some stupid hack to preserve that in the _driver_ rather than
keeping it internal, so when we send the CMD_802_11_RESET command to
kick the device back into boot2, we get 'device firmware changed' from
the kernel and it appears as a completely new device...

Ideally, we want to just kill the auto-mesh-repeater mode, where boot2
times out after 5 seconds and loads the firmware from the internal flash
(which is obviously larger on these devices than on the XO). Can we
achieve that just by updating to a 'normal' Boot2 version from the XO?

(Yes, I should be sleeping. No, I have no idea what timezone I'm in).

-- 
dwmw2

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Re: Testing the Wireless driver changes

2008-01-18 Thread Dan Williams
On Fri, 2008-01-18 at 08:36 +0800, David Woodhouse wrote:
 On Thu, 2008-01-17 at 19:16 -0500, Giannis Galanis wrote:
  It must be noted that the important issue of this discussion is how to have
  the radio blocked from BEFORE the XO boots, so as not to be conflicting with
  the airline regulations.
 
 We should change the firmware so that it isn't active automatically as
 soon as it's loaded -- let the driver activate it when it's appropriate.
 Then the decision as to whether the radio is blocked can properly be
 handled in userspace, and the device can be left quiescent if
 appropriate.

Yes.  The active antennas firmware would need to be slightly altered to
start on firmware boot, but the normal XO firmware should certainly be
radio-off-until-driver-enabled (by setting IFF_UP or device open).

Dan

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Re: Testing the Wireless driver changes

2008-01-18 Thread Michail Bletsas
Dan Williams [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote on 01/18/2008 10:08:09 AM:

 On Fri, 2008-01-18 at 08:36 +0800, David Woodhouse wrote:
  On Thu, 2008-01-17 at 19:16 -0500, Giannis Galanis wrote:
   It must be noted that the important issue of this discussion is 
 how to have
   the radio blocked from BEFORE the XO boots, so as not to be 
 conflicting with
   the airline regulations.
  
  We should change the firmware so that it isn't active automatically as
  soon as it's loaded -- let the driver activate it when it's 
appropriate.
  Then the decision as to whether the radio is blocked can properly be
  handled in userspace, and the device can be left quiescent if
  appropriate.
 
 Yes.  The active antennas firmware would need to be slightly altered to
 start on firmware boot, but the normal XO firmware should certainly be
 radio-off-until-driver-enabled (by setting IFF_UP or device open).
 
So let's alter a fundamental design principle so that the XO doesn't 
transmit a single frame when riding an airplane... ??

I don't think so. If people feel so strong about this they can always 
block firmware loading.
Mesh forwarding will go on when you initialize the adapter and it is up to 
the user to turn it off if they feel that they have too.

M.
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Re: Testing the Wireless driver changes

2008-01-18 Thread Dan Williams
On Sat, 2008-01-19 at 01:38 +0800, David Woodhouse wrote:
 On Fri, 2008-01-18 at 10:08 -0500, Dan Williams wrote:
  Yes.  The active antennas firmware would need to be slightly altered to
  start on firmware boot, but the normal XO firmware should certainly be
  radio-off-until-driver-enabled (by setting IFF_UP or device open).
 
 Let us make a clear distinction between the two types of 'active
 antenna' here. The ones which are actually attached to servers and
 acting as wireless devices for a computer, we want to act like in the
 XO. When they come up automatically into mesh repeater mode, that's
 actually a complete PITA -- and it means we can't reboot the servers
 because then the driver can't initialise the wireless because it's in
 mesh repeater mode and doesn't respond properly to being reset.

So wait, what's going on here?  I thought the devices attached to school
servers were just run-of-the-mill USB 8388 devices like the 8388
daughterboard of the XO, but different connector, right?

What is the post-boot firmware flash functionality supposed to apply to,
the host-less active antenna? (which is what I heretofore had
understood).

Dan

 Only for the standalone devices which we're going to hang in a corridor
 and feed 5v do we want _any_ kind of automatic network operation. And
 then it needs to be configurable -- we have to set the channel.
 
 Since we need a way to configure the channel on the active antennae,
 let's use channel zero to indicate 'no automatic mesh'. And please can
 we have that firmware by tomorrow, Ulan Bator time -- so that I can
 actually set up the school server so that it's rebootable without
 subsequently having to disconnect and reconnect the firmware? 
 
 I'd do it myself, but bug #429 bites again...
 

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Re: Testing the Wireless driver changes

2008-01-17 Thread Hal Murray

 When it comes to our radio - we *designed it* to start forward frames
 soon after you initialize it and keep doing it regardless of what the
 host interface does. 

In the context of making the radio safe to use on airplanes...

Does the firmware turn the radio on at boot time?

Does your initialize above mean firmware level or OS level?



-- 
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Re: Testing the Wireless driver changes

2008-01-17 Thread Michail Bletsas
Hal Murray [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote on 01/17/2008 12:55:47 PM:

 
  When it comes to our radio - we *designed it* to start forward frames
  soon after you initialize it and keep doing it regardless of what the
  host interface does. 
 
 In the context of making the radio safe to use on airplanes...
 
 Does the firmware turn the radio on at boot time?
 
 Does your initialize above mean firmware level or OS level?
 
 
 
Initialize means loading the wireless firmware on the radio's ARM core and 
start running it.

If you want to make sure that the radio never transmits a single bit, then 
preventing that (loading the wireless firmware) is what you need right 
now. There is explicit  mesh start/stop in the plans (already implemented 
in the firmware but not in place yet since the driver people didn't like 
it).

M.
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Re: Testing the Wireless driver changes

2008-01-17 Thread Mitch Bradley
Hal Murray wrote:
 When it comes to our radio - we *designed it* to start forward frames
 soon after you initialize it and keep doing it regardless of what the
 host interface does. 
 

 In the context of making the radio safe to use on airplanes...

 Does the firmware turn the radio on at boot time?
   

OFW turns on the radio only if the need arises, i.e. if you are trying 
to boot from the wireless network.

 Does your initialize above mean firmware level or OS level?



   

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Re: Testing the Wireless driver changes

2008-01-17 Thread Dan Williams
On Thu, 2008-01-17 at 17:06 -0200, Ricardo Carrano wrote:
 Indeed we had this airplane mode discussion two weeks ago:
 Why don't we?
 ---

This is the correct sledgehammer approach as mbletsas has consistently
pointed out.

For a more user-friendly solution, (short of a hardware rfkill switch)
put a toggle somewhere in the control panel for Don't turn the radio on
automatically that is _UN_checked by default, and a wireless
enabled/disabled button there too.  Then (see my other mail in this
thread) ensure that the driver starts with the radio off, and that the
first time the mesh or eth device is brought up that it turns the radio
on.  Then ensure that NetworkManager is clued into the preference value
above, and that NM sets it's initial wireless-enabled state coherently
with the preference value above as well.

Were these things done, by default the behavior would be the same as it
is now, but those people who wish insane amounts of control over the TX
power state can have their fluffy white cake and eat it too.  The trick
is to prioritize this feature request relative to the other important
bugs that must be fixed, since it affects multiple items from the bottom
to the top of the stack.

Dan

 To completely silence the radio:
 
 #!/bin/bash
 rmmod usb8xxx
 mv /lib/firmaware/usb8883.bin /lib/firmaware/usb8883.bin.quiet 
 
 It will survive reboots.
 
 ---
 
 To bring it back:
 
 #!/bin/bash
 mv /lib/firmaware/usb8883.bin.quiet /lib/firmaware/usb8883.bin
 rmmod usb8xxx; sleep1; modprobe usb8xxx
 
 No reboot necessary. 
 
 ---
 Tested in build 684,
 Do I miss something?
 
 On Jan 17, 2008 4:30 PM, Michail Bletsas [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 Hal Murray [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote on 01/17/2008
 12:55:47 PM:
 
 
   When it comes to our radio - we *designed it* to start
 forward frames 
   soon after you initialize it and keep doing it regardless
 of what the
   host interface does.
 
  In the context of making the radio safe to use on
 airplanes...
 
  Does the firmware turn the radio on at boot time? 
 
  Does your initialize above mean firmware level or OS
 level?
 
 
 
 
 Initialize means loading the wireless firmware on the radio's
 ARM core and
 start running it. 
 
 If you want to make sure that the radio never transmits a
 single bit, then
 preventing that (loading the wireless firmware) is what you
 need right
 now. There is explicit  mesh start/stop in the plans (already
 implemented 
 in the firmware but not in place yet since the driver people
 didn't like
 it).
 
 
 M.
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Re: Testing the Wireless driver changes

2008-01-17 Thread Ricardo Carrano
I apologize if I am over simplifying:

- mesh stop was considered when we had compatibility issues with lazy-wds
routers. We addressed this, right? Do we still need this feature? Michail?
- For airplane mode or relatives, we need to shut up radio (any traffic).

On Jan 17, 2008 5:05 PM, Dan Williams [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

 On Thu, 2008-01-17 at 13:30 -0500, Michail Bletsas wrote:
  Hal Murray [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote on 01/17/2008 12:55:47 PM:
 
  
When it comes to our radio - we *designed it* to start forward
 frames
soon after you initialize it and keep doing it regardless of what
 the
host interface does.
  
   In the context of making the radio safe to use on airplanes...
  
   Does the firmware turn the radio on at boot time?
  
   Does your initialize above mean firmware level or OS level?
  
  
  
  Initialize means loading the wireless firmware on the radio's ARM core
 and
  start running it.
 
  If you want to make sure that the radio never transmits a single bit,
 then
  preventing that (loading the wireless firmware) is what you need right
  now. There is explicit  mesh start/stop in the plans (already
 implemented
  in the firmware but not in place yet since the driver people didn't like
  it).

 Sigh.  There are two issues that you're not sufficiently separating:

 1) Whether the mesh is enabled/disabled at Layer 2.  This has nothing to
 do with the ethX device and is a completely orthogonal problem.  (or if
 it _does_ have any user-visible interaction with the ethX device that's
 a total layering violation, and somebody needs to be taken behind the
 woodshed and shot)

 2) Whether the radio is on/off at Layer 1.  This affects _both_ the ethX
 device and the mshX device.

 There are acceptable, upstreamable solutions for both of these problems.

 Solution for #1: up/down on the mshX device; if the mshX device is
 marked !IFF_UP, the mesh functionality should probably be disabled.  The
 8388 can keep the state and forwarding/blinding tables around until
 poweroff/reset, but it should simply stop handling any mesh frames at
 this point.  This can certainly be implemented with a
 CMD_802_11_MESH_CONTROL firmware command _in_the_driver_, but there's no
 need for another iwpriv just to achieve the same thing that up/down
 already can do.  Then modify NM and system scripts to never down the
 mesh device except in correct circumstances.

 Solution for #2: already exists with 'iwconfig iface txpower off' and
 'iwconfig iface txpower auto'.

 --

 The other discussion to have is what should the default radio state be
 in.  If the default state is OFF until it's explicitly turned on by
 NetworkManager or the user, then:

 a) it should be verified that the firmware doesn't turn the radio on
 until told to do so
 b) it should be verified that the driver doesn't turn the radio on until
 the device is brought up (ifconfig eth0 up)
 c) it should be verified that nothing in the host OS (startup scripts
 like the 'network' service calling ifup or NetworkManager bring the
 device up) until the point at which the user has explicit control

 Note that this approach would not be conducive to a nice exploratory
 out-of-box experience (hence I don't really condone this approach
 wholeheartedly) where access points and friends are immediately visible
 from the Mesh view, until you explain to 5 year olds what the heck
 wireless is and why it's off-by-default in the first place.

 People traveling in RF-prohibited environments should be the ones who
 bear the burden of turning off the RF, since not too many of the target
 audience is going to ever be flying on a plane or driving by a blasting
 site.  Plus those people who are flying on planes likely already know
 that they _need_ to turn off the wireless component, which isn't likely
 to be known by the 5 - 10 year old children in Peru who may never been
 near an airplane anyway.

 Dan


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Re: Testing the Wireless driver changes

2008-01-17 Thread Ricardo Carrano
Indeed we had this airplane mode discussion two weeks ago:
Why don't we?
---

To completely silence the radio:

#!/bin/bash
rmmod usb8xxx
mv /lib/firmaware/usb8883.bin /lib/firmaware/usb8883.bin.quiet

It will survive reboots.

---

To bring it back:

#!/bin/bash
mv /lib/firmaware/usb8883.bin.quiet /lib/firmaware/usb8883.bin
rmmod usb8xxx; sleep1; modprobe usb8xxx

No reboot necessary.

---
Tested in build 684,
Do I miss something?

On Jan 17, 2008 4:30 PM, Michail Bletsas [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

 Hal Murray [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote on 01/17/2008 12:55:47 PM:

 
   When it comes to our radio - we *designed it* to start forward frames
   soon after you initialize it and keep doing it regardless of what the
   host interface does.
 
  In the context of making the radio safe to use on airplanes...
 
  Does the firmware turn the radio on at boot time?
 
  Does your initialize above mean firmware level or OS level?
 
 
 
 Initialize means loading the wireless firmware on the radio's ARM core and
 start running it.

 If you want to make sure that the radio never transmits a single bit, then
 preventing that (loading the wireless firmware) is what you need right
 now. There is explicit  mesh start/stop in the plans (already implemented
 in the firmware but not in place yet since the driver people didn't like
 it).

 M.
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Re: Testing the Wireless driver changes

2008-01-17 Thread Dan Williams
On Thu, 2008-01-17 at 09:51 -1000, Mitch Bradley wrote:
 I suppose that OFW could reset the wireless to turn it off and then do 
 some chipset configuration hack that would make that USB port 
 disappear.  I'm just guessing though; I haven't studied the 5536 manual 
 with this possibility in mind.
 
 That seems like a fairly horrible way to solve a Linux problem.

My thoughts precisely.  Fix it where it should be fixed, not by playing
russian roulette with a shotgun in a pitch-black room full of cute,
cuddly, mewing kittens stacked from floor to ceiling.

I've already outlined (twice! if my mails get through moderation on
networking@) proposed changes to make airplane mode happen.

Dan

 I'm not volunteering to study this possibility right now; I have other 
 fish to fry.
 
 Bennett Todd wrote:
  For airplane mode, is there some command OFW can run to make
  the whole eth/msh device poweroff and disappear until the next
  powercycle? If so, maybe we could hook another key check into
  /boot/olpc.fth?
 
  -Bennett

  
 
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Re: Testing the Wireless driver changes

2008-01-17 Thread Bennett Todd
For airplane mode, is there some command OFW can run to make
the whole eth/msh device poweroff and disappear until the next
powercycle? If so, maybe we could hook another key check into
/boot/olpc.fth?

-Bennett


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Re: Testing the Wireless driver changes

2008-01-17 Thread Mikus Grinbergs
 To completely silence the radio:
 #!/bin/bash
 rmmod usb8xxx
 mv /lib/firmaware/usb8883.bin /lib/firmaware/usb8883.bin.quiet

 For a more user-friendly solution, (short of a hardware rfkill switch)
 put a toggle somewhere in the control panel for Don't turn the radio on
 automatically that is _UN_checked by default, and a wireless
 enabled/disabled button there too.  ...
 Then ensure that NetworkManager is clued into the preference value
 above, and that NM sets it's initial wireless-enabled state coherently
 with the preference value above as well.
 
 Were these things done, by default the behavior would be the same as it
 is now, but those people who wish insane amounts of control over the TX
 power state can have their fluffy white cake and eat it too.

I'm one of those who wishes for control.  The G1G1 offering has set 
up a user population different from the education design of the OLPC 
project.  I live in the boonies, have no wireless, and there are no 
other radios within range.  My connection is by wired ethernet.

Took me a while to find out that NetworkManager would set up my 
wired connection, if I provided a DHCP server.  However, if I happen 
to unplug my ethernet cable for a while, NetworkManager reverts eth0 
back to radio (and I need to reboot to reconnect as wired).


What I wish for is a user toggle that when I'm at home will inhibit 
NetworkManager from supplanting the wired connection.  (But I do 
want to restore radio function when I take my XO to a cafe.)


mikus

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Re: Testing the Wireless driver changes

2008-01-17 Thread Dan Williams
On Thu, 2008-01-17 at 14:18 -0500, Mikus Grinbergs wrote:
  To completely silence the radio:
  #!/bin/bash
  rmmod usb8xxx
  mv /lib/firmaware/usb8883.bin /lib/firmaware/usb8883.bin.quiet
 
  For a more user-friendly solution, (short of a hardware rfkill switch)
  put a toggle somewhere in the control panel for Don't turn the radio on
  automatically that is _UN_checked by default, and a wireless
  enabled/disabled button there too.  ...
  Then ensure that NetworkManager is clued into the preference value
  above, and that NM sets it's initial wireless-enabled state coherently
  with the preference value above as well.
  
  Were these things done, by default the behavior would be the same as it
  is now, but those people who wish insane amounts of control over the TX
  power state can have their fluffy white cake and eat it too.
 
 I'm one of those who wishes for control.  The G1G1 offering has set 
 up a user population different from the education design of the OLPC 
 project.  I live in the boonies, have no wireless, and there are no 
 other radios within range.  My connection is by wired ethernet.
 
 Took me a while to find out that NetworkManager would set up my 
 wired connection, if I provided a DHCP server.  However, if I happen 
 to unplug my ethernet cable for a while, NetworkManager reverts eth0 
 back to radio (and I need to reboot to reconnect as wired).
 
 
 What I wish for is a user toggle that when I'm at home will inhibit 
 NetworkManager from supplanting the wired connection.  (But I do 
 want to restore radio function when I take my XO to a cafe.)

NetworkManager has functionality to enable/disable the wireless, it's
just not exposed from the user interface yet.  I believe Simon has been
looking into this.  In the mean-time, you can disable wireless by
running:

dbus-send --system \
 --dest=org.freedesktop.NetworkManager \
 /org/freedesktop/NetworkManager \
 org.freedesktop.NetworkManager.setWirelessEnabled boolean:false

and NetworkManager won't try to use either of the 802.11bg or the mesh
interfaces until the next reboot.

Dan


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Re: Testing the Wireless driver changes

2008-01-17 Thread David Woodhouse

On Thu, 2008-01-17 at 12:32 -0500, Michail Bletsas wrote:
 There is an iwpriv eth0 radiooff/radioon IOCTL hook in the firmware 
 which was meant to control the radio power directly - it was removed a few 
 months ago since it wasn't considered to its thing in the proper linux 
 manner.

I looked for it and I couldn't find it. Please could you point me at the
commit in which it was removed? I'm not entirely sure it ever made it
into our driver. Certainly it never made it into the upstream driver,
and the upstream driver is all that really matters, in the long term.

 ** I don't know how iwconfig eth0 txpower off is implemented, if it
 uses the same IOCTL with iwpriv eth0 radiooff, then it is doing the
 right thing.

It uses CMD_802_11_RADIO_CONTROL with the RADIO_OFF argument, which I
believe is the correct thing to do.

-- 
dwmw2

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Re: Testing the Wireless driver changes

2008-01-17 Thread Giannis Galanis
I see.
But i hope this is not done only because of the airline issue, and that
there are other reasons that it useful to boot with firmware unloaded.

Because as far as the airline issue is concerned, we should not take it tooo
seriously. As long as we have a working solution it is fine. Not many people
will use it anyway.
U see my point?

Also, if it is smth simple we can quickly implement is for Update.1.


On Jan 17, 2008 7:36 PM, David Woodhouse [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:


 On Thu, 2008-01-17 at 19:16 -0500, Giannis Galanis wrote:
  It must be noted that the important issue of this discussion is how to
 have
  the radio blocked from BEFORE the XO boots, so as not to be conflicting
 with
  the airline regulations.

 We should change the firmware so that it isn't active automatically as
 soon as it's loaded -- let the driver activate it when it's appropriate.
 Then the decision as to whether the radio is blocked can properly be
 handled in userspace, and the device can be left quiescent if
 appropriate.

 --
 dwmw2


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Re: Testing the Wireless driver changes

2008-01-17 Thread Polychronis Ypodimatopoulos
Let's not forget the dongles that act as dumb repeaters on their own, 
based on their firmware. Are they gonna use a different firmware instead?

p.

David Woodhouse wrote:
 We should change the firmware so that it isn't active automatically as
 soon as it's loaded -- let the driver activate it when it's appropriate.
 Then the decision as to whether the radio is blocked can properly be
 handled in userspace, and the device can be left quiescent if
 appropriate.

   

-- 
Polychronis Ypodimatopoulos
Graduate student
Viral Communications
MIT Media Lab
Tel: +1 (617) 459-6058
http://www.mit.edu/~ypod/

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Re: Testing the Wireless driver changes

2008-01-17 Thread Michail Bletsas
David Woodhouse [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote on 01/17/2008 06:26:38 PM:


 
 It uses CMD_802_11_RADIO_CONTROL with the RADIO_OFF argument, which I
 believe is the correct thing to do.
 

If that's the case then it does the right thing - no need to worry with 
the earlier iwpriv call.

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Re: Testing the Wireless driver changes

2008-01-17 Thread Michail Bletsas
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote on 01/17/2008 02:17:44 PM:

 I apologize if I am over simplifying:
 
 - mesh stop was considered when we had compatibility issues with 
 lazy-wds routers. We addressed this, right? Do we still need this 
 feature? Michail?
The only reason to have this, is for debugging puproses


 - For airplane mode or relatives, we need to shut up radio (any 
traffic). 
and to be able to completely silence the radio in airplane mode.

M.



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Re: Testing the Wireless driver changes

2008-01-16 Thread Ricardo Carrano
Yani,

On the msh0_rename interface:
http://dev.laptop.org/ticket/5746

-- RC

On Jan 15, 2008 10:29 PM, Giannis Galanis [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

 David,

 There are a couple of issues i would like to address, mostly related to
 the new wireless driver.

 First, the netstat command:
 About 50% of the time it becomes very slow(practically freezes) and spews
 a getnameinfo error.
 The result from strace is:
 ---
 .
 socket(PF_INET, SOCK_DGRAM, IPPROTO_IP) = 4
 connect(4, {sa_family=AF_INET, sin_port=htons(53), 
 sin_addr=inet_addr(172.18.0.1
 )}, 28) = 0
 fcntl64(4, F_GETFL) = 0x2 (flags O_RDWR)
 fcntl64(4, F_SETFL, O_RDWR|O_NONBLOCK)  = 0
 gettimeofday({1200442106, 340565}, NULL) = 0
 poll([{fd=4, events=POLLOUT, revents=POLLOUT}], 1, 0) = 1
 send(4,
 \270\227\1\0\0\1\0\0\0\0\0\0\1e\0017\1c\1e\1c\0010\1e\1f\1f\1f..., 90,
 MSG_NOSIGNAL) = 90
 poll( unfinished ...
 
 It seems(according to Bernie)..that netstat makes queries to the DNS
 server but it is temporarily down. Still if you execute the command a couple
 of time it works again, but is a very regular phenomenon. This should be a
 network issue, and not a driver issue, but can you confirm that?

 Also, the msh0 interface is named after msh0_rename. Is there a reason for
 that? Will this change back to normal in the future? How will it be in
 Update1?. This inconsistency causes some issues in the olpc-netstatus
 command utility.

 Can you also please describe the changes from the user's perspective that
 are changed/improved in the new driver. So we know were to start testing
 from.
 For example,
 what is the situation with mesh on or off
 is the mesh-start file still in use
 are improvements related to 4470

 thanx,

 yani




 On Jan 15, 2008 6:40 PM, Kim Quirk [EMAIL PROTECTED]  wrote:

  David,
  Yani is back from his time off and finished with his exams (at least for
  now). Before the new year break, he had been working on testing, documenting
  and debugging issues mostly associated with avahi and telepathy, but also
  with wireless. He and Ricardo have been our wireless test experts.
 
  Now that he is back, it would be great if you and Michail can provide
  some thoughts on the highest priority testing that we should do here or at
  Michail's house (for a little more controlled RF setting); so we can try to
  find bugs as quickly as possible.
 
  Also - Ricardo, you might be able to give us some indication of your
  availability for testing and how many laptops you have in Brazil, etc.
 
 
  Thanks,
  Kim
 


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Re: Testing the Wireless driver changes

2008-01-16 Thread Dan Williams
On Tue, 2008-01-15 at 19:29 -0500, Giannis Galanis wrote:
 David,
 
 There are a couple of issues i would like to address, mostly related
 to the new wireless driver.
 
 First, the netstat command:
 About 50% of the time it becomes very slow(practically freezes) and
 spews a getnameinfo error. 
 The result from strace is:
 ---
 .
 socket(PF_INET, SOCK_DGRAM, IPPROTO_IP) = 4
 connect(4, {sa_family=AF_INET, sin_port=htons(53),
 sin_addr=inet_addr(172.18.0.1)}, 28) = 0
 fcntl64(4, F_GETFL) = 0x2 (flags O_RDWR)
 fcntl64(4, F_SETFL, O_RDWR|O_NONBLOCK)  = 0
 gettimeofday({1200442106, 340565}, NULL) = 0
 poll([{fd=4, events=POLLOUT, revents=POLLOUT}], 1, 0) = 1 
 send(4, \270\227\1\0\0\1\0\0\0\0\0\0\1e\0017\1c\1e\1c\0010\1e\1f\1f
 \1f..., 90, MSG_NOSIGNAL) = 90
 poll( unfinished ...
 
 It seems(according to Bernie)..that netstat makes queries to the DNS
 server but it is temporarily down. Still if you execute the command a
 couple of time it works again, but is a very regular phenomenon. This
 should be a network issue, and not a driver issue, but can you confirm
 that? 
 
 Also, the msh0 interface is named after msh0_rename. Is there a reason
 for that? Will this change back to normal in the future? How will it
 be in Update1?. This inconsistency causes some issues in the
 olpc-netstatus command utility. 
 
 Can you also please describe the changes from the user's perspective
 that are changed/improved in the new driver. So we know were to start
 testing from.

The original problem the rewrite was fixing was hanging in the driver.
There's a long explanation for that, but the short one is that the
driver should no longer periodically run around in circles screaming,
then have an arterial hemorrhage, and collapse on the ground spurting
blood from it's ears.  You may have noticed this when doing iwconfig
commands that just never completed, or took 2 or 3 minutes to complete,
during which time the driver was in the afore-mentioned state.

This state could manifest itself as weird NetworkManager errors, network
dropouts, and just plain unexplained network flakiness.

 For example, 
 what is the situation with mesh on or off 

There isn't any user-facing control for that at this time AFAIK.
mbletsas wanted some user knob for this.  The situation I'd expect is
that the mesh device would go away (a device hotplug event) and
NetworkManager wouldn't expose the mesh device at all.  When the mesh
was turned back on, the mesh device would be hotplugged back and NM
would magically notice it just like it does when you plug in some other
USB network device.

There's no way that NetworkManager is going to poll the mesh device with
iwpriv for whether it's on or off (that's just so wrong), so mbletsas
and woodhouse have to find a method they agree on that doesn't require
polling to figure out if mesh is on or off.  That may mean having the
iwpriv mesh on/off knob also apply to the eth device, so that you can
turn mesh off by doing:

iwpriv eth0 mesh off
iwpriv msh0 mesh off

and you'll get the same behavior, and then you do

iwpriv eth0 mesh on

to turn it back on, and using the normal Linux device hotplug stuff.  I
think mbletsas has historically disliked having to manipulate other
devices than the mesh device to actually affect changes on the mesh
device, but that's life.

 is the mesh-start file still in use

Yes, since the mesh-start file is something from NetworkManager and not
driver related.

Dan

 are improvements related to 4470
 
 thanx,
 
 yani
 
 
 
 On Jan 15, 2008 6:40 PM, Kim Quirk [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 David,
 Yani is back from his time off and finished with his exams (at
 least for now). Before the new year break, he had been working
 on testing, documenting and debugging issues mostly associated
 with avahi and telepathy, but also with wireless. He and
 Ricardo have been our wireless test experts. 
 
 Now that he is back, it would be great if you and Michail can
 provide some thoughts on the highest priority testing that we
 should do here or at Michail's house (for a little more
 controlled RF setting); so we can try to find bugs as quickly
 as possible. 
 
 Also - Ricardo, you might be able to give us some indication
 of your availability for testing and how many laptops you have
 in Brazil, etc.
 
 
 Thanks,
 Kim
 
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Re: Testing the Wireless driver changes

2008-01-16 Thread Ricardo Carrano
IMHO, there is no point in investing time in mesh stop/start now (or any
time in the future unless there is a strong reason for that - which we lack
now).

On Jan 16, 2008 1:48 PM, Dan Williams [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

 On Tue, 2008-01-15 at 19:29 -0500, Giannis Galanis wrote:
  David,
 
  There are a couple of issues i would like to address, mostly related
  to the new wireless driver.
 
  First, the netstat command:
  About 50% of the time it becomes very slow(practically freezes) and
  spews a getnameinfo error.
  The result from strace is:
  ---
  .
  socket(PF_INET, SOCK_DGRAM, IPPROTO_IP) = 4
  connect(4, {sa_family=AF_INET, sin_port=htons(53),
  sin_addr=inet_addr(172.18.0.1)}, 28) = 0
  fcntl64(4, F_GETFL) = 0x2 (flags O_RDWR)
  fcntl64(4, F_SETFL, O_RDWR|O_NONBLOCK)  = 0
  gettimeofday({1200442106, 340565}, NULL) = 0
  poll([{fd=4, events=POLLOUT, revents=POLLOUT}], 1, 0) = 1
  send(4, \270\227\1\0\0\1\0\0\0\0\0\0\1e\0017\1c\1e\1c\0010\1e\1f\1f
  \1f..., 90, MSG_NOSIGNAL) = 90
  poll( unfinished ...
  
  It seems(according to Bernie)..that netstat makes queries to the DNS
  server but it is temporarily down. Still if you execute the command a
  couple of time it works again, but is a very regular phenomenon. This
  should be a network issue, and not a driver issue, but can you confirm
  that?
 
  Also, the msh0 interface is named after msh0_rename. Is there a reason
  for that? Will this change back to normal in the future? How will it
  be in Update1?. This inconsistency causes some issues in the
  olpc-netstatus command utility.
 
  Can you also please describe the changes from the user's perspective
  that are changed/improved in the new driver. So we know were to start
  testing from.

 The original problem the rewrite was fixing was hanging in the driver.
 There's a long explanation for that, but the short one is that the
 driver should no longer periodically run around in circles screaming,
 then have an arterial hemorrhage, and collapse on the ground spurting
 blood from it's ears.  You may have noticed this when doing iwconfig
 commands that just never completed, or took 2 or 3 minutes to complete,
 during which time the driver was in the afore-mentioned state.

 This state could manifest itself as weird NetworkManager errors, network
 dropouts, and just plain unexplained network flakiness.

  For example,
  what is the situation with mesh on or off

 There isn't any user-facing control for that at this time AFAIK.
 mbletsas wanted some user knob for this.  The situation I'd expect is
 that the mesh device would go away (a device hotplug event) and
 NetworkManager wouldn't expose the mesh device at all.  When the mesh
 was turned back on, the mesh device would be hotplugged back and NM
 would magically notice it just like it does when you plug in some other
 USB network device.

 There's no way that NetworkManager is going to poll the mesh device with
 iwpriv for whether it's on or off (that's just so wrong), so mbletsas
 and woodhouse have to find a method they agree on that doesn't require
 polling to figure out if mesh is on or off.  That may mean having the
 iwpriv mesh on/off knob also apply to the eth device, so that you can
 turn mesh off by doing:

 iwpriv eth0 mesh off
 iwpriv msh0 mesh off

 and you'll get the same behavior, and then you do

 iwpriv eth0 mesh on

 to turn it back on, and using the normal Linux device hotplug stuff.  I
 think mbletsas has historically disliked having to manipulate other
 devices than the mesh device to actually affect changes on the mesh
 device, but that's life.

  is the mesh-start file still in use

 Yes, since the mesh-start file is something from NetworkManager and not
 driver related.

 Dan

  are improvements related to 4470
 
  thanx,
 
  yani
 
 
 
  On Jan 15, 2008 6:40 PM, Kim Quirk [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
  David,
  Yani is back from his time off and finished with his exams (at
  least for now). Before the new year break, he had been working
  on testing, documenting and debugging issues mostly associated
  with avahi and telepathy, but also with wireless. He and
  Ricardo have been our wireless test experts.
 
  Now that he is back, it would be great if you and Michail can
  provide some thoughts on the highest priority testing that we
  should do here or at Michail's house (for a little more
  controlled RF setting); so we can try to find bugs as quickly
  as possible.
 
  Also - Ricardo, you might be able to give us some indication
  of your availability for testing and how many laptops you have
  in Brazil, etc.
 
 
  Thanks,
  Kim
 
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Re: Testing the Wireless driver changes

2008-01-16 Thread Michail Bletsas
Dan Williams [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote on 01/16/2008 10:48:13 AM:


 There's a long explanation for that, but the short one is that the
 driver should no longer periodically run around in circles screaming,
 then have an arterial hemorrhage, and collapse on the ground spurting
 blood from it's ears. 

Dude!

I sense some Woodhousian-Shakespearian inspiration in you today...;-)

M.

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Re: Testing the Wireless driver changes

2008-01-16 Thread Dan Williams
On Wed, 2008-01-16 at 15:11 -0500, Michail Bletsas wrote:
 Dan Williams [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote on 01/16/2008 10:48:13 AM:
 
 
  There's a long explanation for that, but the short one is that the
  driver should no longer periodically run around in circles screaming,
  then have an arterial hemorrhage, and collapse on the ground spurting
  blood from it's ears. 
 
 Dude!
 
 I sense some Woodhousian-Shakespearian inspiration in you today...;-)

Woodhousian is a good way to put it, certainly.  That adjective should
be added to the OED :)

Dan


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Re: Testing the Wireless driver changes

2008-01-16 Thread Edward Cherlin
2008/1/16 Ricardo Carrano [EMAIL PROTECTED]:
 IMHO, there is no point in investing time in mesh stop/start now (or any
 time in the future unless there is a strong reason for that - which we lack
 now).

The stated reason for wanting this feature is to easily disable
wireless before getting on an airplane. There is a way to do it at the
command line, but I don't see government ministers and education
officials doing that with any reliability.

If all you want is transport, you can take out the battery pack, but
if the mesh is not disabled, it will come alive when the battery pack
is inserted, long before you can boot and get to a command line to
turn it off. I am quite certain that some of the aforementioned
ministers and officials will want to show off their new toyz on planes
just like the rest of us.

Or we could just wait until there is sufficient public pressure to
allow XOs to mesh on airplanes so that the rules are changed. Hey, who
wants to make the movie Toyz on a Plane? %-]

-- 
Edward Cherlin
End Poverty at a Profit by teaching children business
http://www.EarthTreasury.org/
The best way to predict the future is to invent it.--Alan Kay
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Re: Testing the Wireless driver changes

2008-01-16 Thread Dan Williams
On Wed, 2008-01-16 at 20:22 -0200, Ricardo Carrano wrote:
 I believe what you want is radio off, not mesh stop.

radio off == iwconfig eth0 txpower off

that's always been around from day #1.

 On Jan 16, 2008 8:01 PM, Edward Cherlin [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: 
 2008/1/16 Ricardo Carrano [EMAIL PROTECTED]:
  IMHO, there is no point in investing time in mesh stop/start
 now (or any
  time in the future unless there is a strong reason for that
 - which we lack
  now).
 
 
 The stated reason for wanting this feature is to easily
 disable
 wireless before getting on an airplane. There is a way to do
 it at the
 command line, but I don't see government ministers and
 education
 officials doing that with any reliability. 
 
 If all you want is transport, you can take out the battery
 pack, but
 if the mesh is not disabled, it will come alive when the
 battery pack
 is inserted, long before you can boot and get to a command
 line to
 turn it off. I am quite certain that some of the
 aforementioned
 ministers and officials will want to show off their new toyz
 on planes
 just like the rest of us.
 
 Or we could just wait until there is sufficient public
 pressure to 
 allow XOs to mesh on airplanes so that the rules are changed.
 Hey, who
 wants to make the movie Toyz on a Plane? %-]
 
 --
 Edward Cherlin
 End Poverty at a Profit by teaching children business 
 http://www.EarthTreasury.org/
 The best way to predict the future is to invent it.--Alan
 Kay
 

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Re: Testing the Wireless driver changes

2008-01-16 Thread Dan Williams
On Wed, 2008-01-16 at 14:01 -0800, Edward Cherlin wrote:
 2008/1/16 Ricardo Carrano [EMAIL PROTECTED]:
  IMHO, there is no point in investing time in mesh stop/start now (or any
  time in the future unless there is a strong reason for that - which we lack
  now).
 
 The stated reason for wanting this feature is to easily disable
 wireless before getting on an airplane. There is a way to do it at the
 command line, but I don't see government ministers and education
 officials doing that with any reliability.

I've been working with Simon on this for the past week or so.  It's
almost there on the backend, just needs testing and GUI bits from Simon
before it gets pushed to joyride builds.

Dan

 If all you want is transport, you can take out the battery pack, but
 if the mesh is not disabled, it will come alive when the battery pack
 is inserted, long before you can boot and get to a command line to
 turn it off. I am quite certain that some of the aforementioned
 ministers and officials will want to show off their new toyz on planes
 just like the rest of us.
 
 Or we could just wait until there is sufficient public pressure to
 allow XOs to mesh on airplanes so that the rules are changed. Hey, who
 wants to make the movie Toyz on a Plane? %-]
 

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Re: Testing the Wireless driver changes

2008-01-16 Thread Edward Cherlin
On Jan 16, 2008 2:46 PM, Dan Williams [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

 On Wed, 2008-01-16 at 20:22 -0200, Ricardo Carrano wrote:
  I believe what you want is radio off, not mesh stop.

 radio off == iwconfig eth0 txpower off

 that's always been around from day #1.


That turns off the radio for this session. How do you disable it so it
doesn't come on at the next boot?

-- 
Edward Cherlin
End Poverty at a Profit by teaching children business
http://www.EarthTreasury.org/
The best way to predict the future is to invent it.--Alan Kay
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Re: Testing the Wireless driver changes

2008-01-16 Thread Jim Gettys
Is this related to Wodehousian? :)
   - Jim

On Wed, 2008-01-16 at 15:15 -0500, Dan Williams wrote:
 On Wed, 2008-01-16 at 15:11 -0500, Michail Bletsas wrote:
  Dan Williams [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote on 01/16/2008 10:48:13 AM:
  
  
   There's a long explanation for that, but the short one is that the
   driver should no longer periodically run around in circles screaming,
   then have an arterial hemorrhage, and collapse on the ground spurting
   blood from it's ears. 
  
  Dude!
  
  I sense some Woodhousian-Shakespearian inspiration in you today...;-)
 
 Woodhousian is a good way to put it, certainly.  That adjective should
 be added to the OED :)
 
 Dan
 
 
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Re: Testing the Wireless driver changes

2008-01-15 Thread Giannis Galanis
David,

There are a couple of issues i would like to address, mostly related to the
new wireless driver.

First, the netstat command:
About 50% of the time it becomes very slow(practically freezes) and spews a
getnameinfo error.
The result from strace is:
---
.
socket(PF_INET, SOCK_DGRAM, IPPROTO_IP) = 4
connect(4, {sa_family=AF_INET, sin_port=htons(53), sin_addr=inet_addr(
172.18.0.1)}, 28) = 0
fcntl64(4, F_GETFL) = 0x2 (flags O_RDWR)
fcntl64(4, F_SETFL, O_RDWR|O_NONBLOCK)  = 0
gettimeofday({1200442106, 340565}, NULL) = 0
poll([{fd=4, events=POLLOUT, revents=POLLOUT}], 1, 0) = 1
send(4, \270\227\1\0\0\1\0\0\0\0\0\0\1e\0017\1c\1e\1c\0010\1e\1f\1f\1f...,
90, MSG_NOSIGNAL) = 90
poll( unfinished ...

It seems(according to Bernie)..that netstat makes queries to the DNS server
but it is temporarily down. Still if you execute the command a couple of
time it works again, but is a very regular phenomenon. This should be a
network issue, and not a driver issue, but can you confirm that?

Also, the msh0 interface is named after msh0_rename. Is there a reason for
that? Will this change back to normal in the future? How will it be in
Update1?. This inconsistency causes some issues in the olpc-netstatus
command utility.

Can you also please describe the changes from the user's perspective that
are changed/improved in the new driver. So we know were to start testing
from.
For example,
what is the situation with mesh on or off
is the mesh-start file still in use
are improvements related to 4470

thanx,

yani



On Jan 15, 2008 6:40 PM, Kim Quirk [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

 David,
 Yani is back from his time off and finished with his exams (at least for
 now). Before the new year break, he had been working on testing, documenting
 and debugging issues mostly associated with avahi and telepathy, but also
 with wireless. He and Ricardo have been our wireless test experts.

 Now that he is back, it would be great if you and Michail can provide some
 thoughts on the highest priority testing that we should do here or at
 Michail's house (for a little more controlled RF setting); so we can try to
 find bugs as quickly as possible.

 Also - Ricardo, you might be able to give us some indication of your
 availability for testing and how many laptops you have in Brazil, etc.


 Thanks,
 Kim

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