Return-path: Received: from purkki.adurom.net ([80.68.90.206]:52387 "EHLO purkki.adurom.net" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1752890Ab1CULX1 (ORCPT ); Mon, 21 Mar 2011 07:23:27 -0400 To: Sean Robinson Cc: Linux Wireless Subject: Re: terminology questions References: From: Kalle Valo Date: Mon, 21 Mar 2011 13:23:22 +0200 In-Reply-To: (Sean Robinson's message of "Sat\, 19 Mar 2011 09\:18\:07 -0700") Message-ID: <87aagovhsl.fsf@purkki.adurom.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Sender: linux-wireless-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: Sean Robinson writes: > What is a station? You got an answer already. But in principle all devices supporting IEEE 802.11 are stations (or STAs) in the standard. > How does a station relate to an AP? AP is a station as are all clients. > What are the delineations between mac80211/cfg80211/nl80211? mac80211 is an IEEE 802.11 stack for softmac devices. cfg80211 is a new (relatively speaking) component for managing configuration of IEEE 802.11 devices (used by both mac80211 and fullmac device drivers). nl80211 is a new (again relatively speaking) netlink based user space interface (protocol?) for managing IEEE 802.11 devices. cfg80211 implements the kernel side of this interface. From user space at least wpasupplicant and iw use this interface, but in principle any application can use it. -- Kalle Valo