From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-path: Received: from mail.neratec.com ([80.75.119.105]:35965 "EHLO mail.neratec.com" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1753933Ab3BVKH7 (ORCPT ); Fri, 22 Feb 2013 05:07:59 -0500 Message-ID: <51274372.9030600@neratec.com> (sfid-20130222_110804_908071_EE843B9B) Date: Fri, 22 Feb 2013 11:07:46 +0100 From: Zefir Kurtisi MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Simon Wunderlich CC: linux-wireless@vger.kernel.org, Thomas Pedersen , johannes@sipsolutions.net, antonio@open-mesh.com, marek@open-mesh.com, Mathias Kretschmer Subject: Re: [RFC] design discussion: Collecting information for (non-peer) stations References: <20130215171938.GA4140@pandem0nium> In-Reply-To: <20130215171938.GA4140@pandem0nium> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Sender: linux-wireless-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: On 02/15/2013 06:19 PM, Simon Wunderlich wrote: > Hello wireless folks, > > Mathias Kretschmer and me would like to bring another new feature to the kernel: > Collecting information for (non-peer) stations. [...] > > Cheers, > Simon > Hi Simon, our areas of operations obviously highly overlap, since I did the same consideration path only recently ;) For the frequency planning feature we are currently working on, I need those extended statistics you are proposing with additional filtering rules (OUI or mask based) to classify peers. My initial idea was to do a sliding time window aggregation of those statistics in the kernel with almost the same interface to the userspace you are proposing. But with your integration of the spectral feature I realized how efficient relay based continuous data transfer is (as compared to sending samples over netlink). Consequently I revised the initial plan and consider realizing the extended statistics collection in userspace. The modifications required in the kernel are minimal: * create relay file in debugfs * provide enable flag in debugfs * based on this flag, extract relevant information from frames and write to relay This way, you move complexity out of the kernel and maximize flexibility for statistical evaluation in userspace. Also, the overhead for moving data between kernel and userspace is minimized, since you do them in bulk. This is all in the planning phase, so I have no proof-of-concept patches yet. Would just like to hear what your thoughts are and whether this could be the way to go. Thanks for your initiative Zefir