On Mon, Mar 06, 2006 at 04:44:26PM +0100, Jiri Benc wrote: > Because any number of interfaces may be added, bss_devs and sta_devs arrays > cannot be fixed-size arrays. We can make them linked lists, but they are > needed for optimalization only (and even that is questionable with > subsequent patches). Let's remove them; we will probably want something > similar later to speed up packet receiving, but let's not bother ourselves > now.
The reason for this optimization was in even high-end CPUs starting to run out of resources when running one radio with 2007 "virtual STAs", i.e., when testing AP capabilities.. In other words, unless some of your other patches improved netdev lookup, more work is likely needed here to allow such a test mode to be used. With 2000 netdevs, there were other performance issues, at least with Linux 2.4.x. If I remember correctly, it took close to half an hour to just add and remove those netdevs.. ;-) Anyway, after the netdevs were up, these optimizations were enough to keep CPU load reasonable in a test case that sent data packets through all the STAs. I have not tested this with 2.6 kernels, so the area of adding/deleting netdevs may have already been improved. -- 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
