From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1423015AbWAMWTv (ORCPT ); Fri, 13 Jan 2006 17:19:51 -0500 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1423016AbWAMWTv (ORCPT ); Fri, 13 Jan 2006 17:19:51 -0500 Received: from ra.tuxdriver.com ([24.172.12.4]:65040 "EHLO ra.tuxdriver.com") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1423015AbWAMWTu (ORCPT ); Fri, 13 Jan 2006 17:19:50 -0500 Date: Fri, 13 Jan 2006 17:19:36 -0500 From: "John W. Linville" To: netdev@vger.kernel.org Cc: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Subject: wireless: recap of current issues (configuration) Message-ID: <20060113221935.GJ16166@tuxdriver.com> Mail-Followup-To: netdev@vger.kernel.org, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org References: <20060113195723.GB16166@tuxdriver.com> <20060113212605.GD16166@tuxdriver.com> <20060113213011.GE16166@tuxdriver.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <20060113213011.GE16166@tuxdriver.com> User-Agent: Mutt/1.4.1i Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Configuration ============= Configuration seems to be coalescing around netlink. Among other things, this technology provides for muliticast requests and asynchronous event notification. The kernel should provide generic handlers for netlink configuraion messages, and there should be a per-device 80211_ops (wireless_ops? akin to ethtool_ops) structure for drivers to populate appropriately. At init, physical devices should be represented by a "WiPHY" device, not directly by a net_device. The list of physical devices should be discoverable through netlink and/or sysfs. (A WiPHY device is an abstraction representing the radio interface itself.) Virtual wlan devices should be associated to a WiPHY device many-to-one (one-to-one for some devices). Virtual devices correspond to a net_device. Virtual devices will have a mode (e.g. station, AP, WDS, ad-hoc, rfmon, raw?, other modes?) which defines its "on the air" behaviour. Should this mode be fixed when the wlan device is created? Or something that can be changed when the net_device is down? It may be necessary to remove, suspend, and/or disable wlan devices in order to add, resume, and/or enable other types of wlan devices on the same WiPHY device (especialy true for rfmon). A mechanism is needed for drivers to be able to influence or disallow combinations of wlan devices in accordance with capabilities of the hardware. Do "global" config requests go to any associated wlan device? Or must they be directed to the WiPHY device? Does it matter? I think we should require "global" configuration to target the WiPHY device, while "local" configuration remains with the wlan device. (I'm not sure how important this point is?) Either way, the WiPHY device will need some way to be able to reject configuration requests that are incompatible among its associated wlan devices. Since the wlan interface implementations should not be device specific, perhaps the 802.11 stack can be smart enough to filter-out most conflicting config requests before they get to the WiPHY device? -- John W. Linville linville@tuxdriver.com