On 10/24/06, Simon Barber <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
The Client MLME code in the kernel was only ever written to be used for quick testing. It does not have good roaming performance, and was never intended to be a complete client. The right place for the Client MLME is in userspace, where it can be closely coupled with the supplicant, and better scanning and roaming decisions can be made. If the Client MLME is removed from the kernel, then a userspace part is always required in order for 802.11 to be used at all. (It's already required in order to use any of the recent security modes, or have automatic network selection, or decent roaming). In this case the regulatory constraints can be set in a privileged userspace deamon.
We also have to take into consideration FullMAC devices where we don't need an MLME implemented in kernel/userspace and how regulatory domain control will dictate their behaviour. My approach here was to support a map between stack regulatory domain values and device regulatory domain values. This is currently provided by ieee80211_regdomains. We can add to ieee80211_conf a ieee80211_regulatory_map and if defined d80211 will simply call the the stack's set regdomain which the device implements and sets the regdomain internally to whatever the device should have. Mind you I realize most new devices are taking the SoftMAC design approach and while these vary ultimately I do agree with your point. All that said though: 1. Anyone working on completing FullMAC support on d80211? 2. Who's working on a userspace MLME replacement for d80211 and where are we with that? 3. Who's doing the endianness/smp testing of d80211 and how far are we with that? Lastly, as I have said in previous e-mails -- I agree with a userspace daemon but where is it and how long before its ready.. also it may be difficult to introduce as a requirement for distributions and for this reason I am suggesting going with in-kernel regulatory domain control and now perhaps in-kernel MLME for a first stable push of d80211, specially since only... 3 in-kernel drivers currently use d80211! Luis - 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
