Re: wlan#ap seems bogus
Simon Barber wrote: The purpose of the wlap0ap or wlap0mgmt interface is to communicate between hostapd/wpa_supplicant and the kernel. What travels over this interface is not quite pure 802.11 management frames - there is some meta-data with each frame, and a few special case messages. E.G. transmitted frames are returned back to user space to indicate successful transmission (required so that the MLME state machine can be correctly implemented in user space). I believe these messages form a special management protocol between the kernel and user space, and that netlink would be the best solution for this link. Switching to netlink would allow these bogus 'network' interfaces to be removed alltogether. Unfortunately I don't currently have the time to put together a patch to do this. Ok, I'll try to remember that this is waiting on defining a complete new netlink API. I was just reading the code and this seemed odd, but I agree that no network interface is really needed and hence it can stay like this until we switch to a new API unifying it. Thanks, 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: wlan#ap seems bogus
Johannes Berg wrote: Hence, I think it ought to be named 'wlan#mgmt' instead. I see it's actually called wmgmt# now. Sorry. The rest of this mail still holds though. 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: wlan#ap seems bogus
On Mon, Aug 14, 2006 at 10:22:34AM +0200, Johannes Berg wrote: As far as I understand the entire point of the wlan#ap interface is to receive all management relevant management frames. (If that's wrong, reply now and don't read the rest) Hence, I think it ought to be named 'wlan#mgmt' instead. However, I think it's hard-coded existence is bogus. How about we just add a new interface mode called MGT_MONITOR and wpa_supplicant simply creates a new device via the regular sysfs mechanism, and then sets that MGT_MONITOR mode via the relevant WEXT ioctl? iwconfig doesn't even need to be taught about this mode except for display purposes... Isn't this already done? I don't remember what happened with client mode case, but at least hostapd is requesting the management interface dynamically at startup time. Also, like I mentioned previously, the device naming can be changed by the user and there's no guarantee that wlan0ap corresponds to wmaster0. Etc. But if wpa_supplicant simply created the device itself, it could give it any name, say wlan0_mgt (if it was controlling wlan0), but if that name is already taken it simply appends a number or something until it hits a device name that's still free (or gives up after 100 tries or so...) :) Same here.. hostapd gets the ifindex from kernel and doesn't care about the name. -- Jouni MalinenPGP id EFC895FA - 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: wlan#ap seems bogus
Jouni Malinen wrote: How about we just add a new interface mode called MGT_MONITOR and wpa_supplicant simply creates a new device via the regular sysfs mechanism, and then sets that MGT_MONITOR mode via the relevant WEXT ioctl? iwconfig doesn't even need to be taught about this mode except for display purposes... Isn't this already done? I don't remember what happened with client mode case, but at least hostapd is requesting the management interface dynamically at startup time. Yes, it's requesting it, but via a private wext call. I'd like to see it generic, and allow multiple mgmt interfaces as well if the user/hw so wishes. IOW I'd like to remove the iwpriv call and instead use the equivalent of echo -n wmgmt0 /sys/class/ieee80211/phy0/add_iface ; iwconfig wmgmt0 mode management Same here.. hostapd gets the ifindex from kernel and doesn't care about the name. Good point, I overlooked that. 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: wlan#ap seems bogus
The purpose of the wlap0ap or wlap0mgmt interface is to communicate between hostapd/wpa_supplicant and the kernel. What travels over this interface is not quite pure 802.11 management frames - there is some meta-data with each frame, and a few special case messages. E.G. transmitted frames are returned back to user space to indicate successful transmission (required so that the MLME state machine can be correctly implemented in user space). I believe these messages form a special management protocol between the kernel and user space, and that netlink would be the best solution for this link. Switching to netlink would allow these bogus 'network' interfaces to be removed alltogether. Unfortunately I don't currently have the time to put together a patch to do this. Simon -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Johannes Berg Sent: Monday, August 14, 2006 7:04 AM To: netdev@vger.kernel.org Cc: Jouni Malinen; Jiri Benc Subject: Re: wlan#ap seems bogus Johannes Berg wrote: Hence, I think it ought to be named 'wlan#mgmt' instead. I see it's actually called wmgmt# now. Sorry. The rest of this mail still holds though. 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 - 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
