Return-path: Received: from mail-vx0-f174.google.com ([209.85.220.174]:47290 "EHLO mail-vx0-f174.google.com" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1751916Ab1EDROR convert rfc822-to-8bit (ORCPT ); Wed, 4 May 2011 13:14:17 -0400 Received: by vxi39 with SMTP id 39so1369600vxi.19 for ; Wed, 04 May 2011 10:14:17 -0700 (PDT) MIME-Version: 1.0 In-Reply-To: <4DC165D7.50403@openwrt.org> References: <1304467039-7730-1-git-send-email-javier@cozybit.com> <1304467039-7730-14-git-send-email-javier@cozybit.com> <4DC165D7.50403@openwrt.org> From: Javier Cardona Date: Wed, 4 May 2011 10:13:56 -0700 Message-ID: (sfid-20110504_191421_441702_E0BB1B39) Subject: Re: [PATCH 13/13] ath9k: fix beaconing for mesh interfaces To: Felix Fietkau Cc: "John W. Linville" , Thomas Pedersen , devel@lists.open80211s.org, Johannes Berg , linux-wireless@vger.kernel.org, jlopex@gmail.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Sender: linux-wireless-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: On Wed, May 4, 2011 at 7:42 AM, Felix Fietkau wrote: > On 2011-05-04 1:57 AM, Javier Cardona wrote: >> >> Mesh beaconing on ath9k was broken by this commit: >> >> commit 4801416c76a3a355076d6d371c00270dfe332e1c >> Author: Ben Greear >> Date: ? Sat Jan 15 19:13:48 2011 +0000 >> >> This patch assigns the right opmode when the device is used in mesh >> mode. >> >> Reported-by: Fabrice Deyber fabricedeyber@agilemesh.com >> Signed-off-by: Javier Cardona > > Any idea why exactly ath9k needs to use this opmode? If I understand the > specs correctly, 802.11s does not use distributed beacons like ad-hoc mode, > so theoretically it should be fine with using the AP iftype. > If beacons don't work at all in this opmode for 802.11s then this patch may > just be covering up an underlying bug rather than fixing the real issue. Older versions of the 11s draft let implementers decide whether mesh nodes would beacon in ad-hoc or AP mode. Apparently on ath9k ad-hoc mode was chosen when the earlier mesh draft was implemented. The current version of the draft defines a different beaconing mode specific for mesh. This is very unlikely to change since 11s has already passed sponsor ballot. My suggestion would be to keep using ad-hoc style beaconing in ath9k for mesh and to leave the opmode around for when mesh-specific beaconing is implemented in the driver. But I know little about ath9k. If someone can suggest a better way to "unbreak" mesh beaconing I'll be equally happy. Thanks! Javier