On Wed, Jan 18, 2006 at 09:18:26AM +0100, Feyd wrote: > With fullmac devices the master interface makes no sense, it cannot be > used for neither the sniffing or QoS. The design where the master device > is something else than net_device is cleaner, it treats both soft/fullmac > devices equaly, without need to special-case one of them.
This may be the case with designs that do not provide anything else than a simple interface for delivering and receiving frames. However, the benefits--and I would be prepared to say even requirements--of having a master device are extensive enough to use it with many wlan designs. If a generic design is desired for both types, even fullmac devices would need to keep the master netdev even if it is not really needed. Other option would be to make it optional to add the master netdev and have something else presenting the wlan device. In addition, even fullmac devices may have uses for master netdev. For example, in AP mode with dynamic VLAN configuration (RADIUS authentication server selecting which VLAN to use), there may be benefits of being able to use multiple virtual interfaces (netdevs) that would logically be collected into master netdev for scheduling and transmission. -- Jouni Malinen PGP 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
