RE: [patch] d80211: use pfifo_qdisc_ops rather thand80211-specific qdisc
There are many reasons to have the master device - and many reasons not to get rid of it. The only excpetion is when using a limited fullmac card. Some fullmac cards only support a single ethernet interface, so for these cards a single device may be OK, if we want to allow multiple different appearences for different types of card (a bad thing in my book). (Note - older prism 54g fullmac cards support WDS, hence need multiple interfaces). The master interface represents the physical networking device that works using native 802.11 frames. The qdisc works on 802.11 frames - not ethernet, and it can change how 802.11 management frames are queued. It can only be got rid of in the case of a fullmac card with only a single interface, where all management frames are processed in the card. In addition as we move to make 802.11 devices native (i.e. create an 802.11 protocol) the 802.11 master interface will be essential. I don't see the problem with 802.11 master devices - they are not ethernet devices, and should not confuse any user space. Any user space that gets confused by netdevices with arp-hdr types that they do not recognise is broken, and needs to be fixed. Simon -Original Message- From: Johannes Berg [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, November 02, 2006 6:23 AM To: Christoph Hellwig Cc: James Ketrenos; John W. Linville; Simon Barber; Jeff Garzik; Patrick McHardy; David Kimdon; netdev@vger.kernel.org Subject: Re: [patch] d80211: use pfifo_qdisc_ops rather thand80211-specific qdisc On Thu, 2006-11-02 at 15:05 +0100, Jiri Benc wrote: - Single device is not as easy as it sounds. It would require rather invasive changes in the networking core or ugly hacks in d80211. I'm afraid this is something not achievable in a near future with current number of people working on d80211. But in general, it's doable and desirable, yes. Actually, just as a note to all the others (talked to Jiri about it already), I think it's easier than thought since the code is so convoluted. The only purpose of the wmaster device appears to be to have an outgoing frame queue through the qdisc. Since we require the 802.11 qdisc to be installed at the root for all netdevices anyway, we could just as well hand the frame to it right away. I'll look into that later today. johannes - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line unsubscribe netdev in the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
RE: [patch] d80211: use pfifo_qdisc_ops rather thand80211-specific qdisc
On Thu, 2006-11-02 at 08:33 -0800, Simon Barber wrote: There are many reasons to have the master device - and many reasons not to get rid of it. The only excpetion is when using a limited fullmac card. Some fullmac cards only support a single ethernet interface, so for these cards a single device may be OK, if we want to allow multiple different appearences for different types of card (a bad thing in my book). (Note - older prism 54g fullmac cards support WDS, hence need multiple interfaces). The master interface represents the physical networking device that works using native 802.11 frames. The qdisc works on 802.11 frames - not ethernet, and it can change how 802.11 management frames are queued. It can only be got rid of in the case of a fullmac card with only a single interface, where all management frames are processed in the card. In addition as we move to make 802.11 devices native (i.e. create an 802.11 protocol) the 802.11 master interface will be essential. While these are good points, I don't believe having the master interface as a *netdev* is essential. In fact, it now has no functionality as a netdev, if you try routing packets over it they're simply dropped. Of course we need some notion of the wireless PHY and cfg80211 explicitly represents that by assigning a wiphy index, but there's no need for it to be a netdev. johannes signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part
Re: [patch] d80211: use pfifo_qdisc_ops rather thand80211-specific qdisc
On Thu, 02 Nov 2006 17:43:57 +0100 Johannes Berg [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Thu, 2006-11-02 at 08:33 -0800, Simon Barber wrote: There are many reasons to have the master device - and many reasons not to get rid of it. The only excpetion is when using a limited fullmac card. Some fullmac cards only support a single ethernet interface, so for these cards a single device may be OK, if we want to allow multiple different appearences for different types of card (a bad thing in my book). (Note - older prism 54g fullmac cards support WDS, hence need multiple interfaces). The master interface represents the physical networking device that works using native 802.11 frames. The qdisc works on 802.11 frames - not ethernet, and it can change how 802.11 management frames are queued. It can only be got rid of in the case of a fullmac card with only a single interface, where all management frames are processed in the card. In addition as we move to make 802.11 devices native (i.e. create an 802.11 protocol) the 802.11 master interface will be essential. While these are good points, I don't believe having the master interface as a *netdev* is essential. In fact, it now has no functionality as a netdev, if you try routing packets over it they're simply dropped. It makes 802.11 packet capture easier as well. Please don't invent yet another network access object for the master device. Of course we need some notion of the wireless PHY and cfg80211 explicitly represents that by assigning a wiphy index, but there's no need for it to be a netdev. johannes -- Stephen Hemminger [EMAIL PROTECTED] - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line unsubscribe netdev in the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Re: [patch] d80211: use pfifo_qdisc_ops rather thand80211-specific qdisc
On Thu, 2006-11-02 at 14:34 -0800, Stephen Hemminger wrote: It makes 802.11 packet capture easier as well. Please don't invent yet another network access object for the master device. Oh, but the master device doesn't get any packets you could capture. For that, you need to add a monitor interface. johannes signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part
