Return-path: Received: from mail-vw0-f52.google.com ([209.85.212.52]:59798 "EHLO mail-vw0-f52.google.com" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1755287Ab1G1QSL convert rfc822-to-8bit (ORCPT ); Thu, 28 Jul 2011 12:18:11 -0400 Received: by vws16 with SMTP id 16so3095062vws.11 for ; Thu, 28 Jul 2011 09:18:09 -0700 (PDT) MIME-Version: 1.0 In-Reply-To: <201107232235.16710.chunkeey@googlemail.com> References: <201107151622.43671.chunkeey@googlemail.com> <201107232235.16710.chunkeey@googlemail.com> Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2011 11:18:09 -0500 Message-ID: (sfid-20110728_181816_526644_D8FDE5A9) Subject: Re: carl9170: Beacons at lower Tx power than data frames? From: Harshal Chhaya To: Christian Lamparter Cc: linux-wireless@vger.kernel.org, Sujith Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Sender: linux-wireless-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: On Sat, Jul 23, 2011 at 3:35 PM, Christian Lamparter wrote: > On Saturday 23 July 2011 21:22:35 Harshal Chhaya wrote: >> On Fri, Jul 15, 2011 at 9:22 AM, Christian Lamparter >> wrote: >> > On Thursday 14 July 2011 21:37:29 Harshal Chhaya wrote: >> >> I am working on an AP design that uses a TI-OMAP3 host processor with >> >> an Atheros AR9170 + AR9101 WLAN chipset. We are currently using >> >> carl9170 version 1.9.2 and carl9170 firmware version 1.9.4. >> > One question: have you considered ath9k_htc? I would certainly recommend >> > it over any ar9170 device. >> >> I was under the impression that AP mode support is better in carl9170 >> than in ath9k_htc. I had considered using AR9271 (which is a more >> recent chipset than the AR9170) but decided against it based on my >> understanding (which is based on the info on the wiki pages). > Interesting... Sujith, can you please take a look at the wiki if ath9k_htc's AP/P2P > infos are still up to date? Sujith, Christian, On the wiki page for carl9170, the first item in the "not working yet" list is: * Power Save Mode, It's implemented but buggy Is this still the case? I am seeing clients disconnect after a few seconds when I enable power saving on the clients. I can send more details if needed. >> If AR9271 (and ath9k_htc) are more stable and preferable to the AR9170 >> w/ carl9170, please let me know. > AR9271 recevied a lot more testing, so it's ought to perform better. > >> Also, to clarify: my application is a wireless network that needs to >> support 60-70 802.11g clients connecting to the AP using WPA2-PEAP. >> All of the clients are battery powered and use the power save >> mechanisms of 802.11. > 60-70 clients is a lot. This would rule out ath9k_htc since the firmwares > only supports 7/8 stations at a time and I think that's a reasonable limit > for any wireless network. Also, with so many stations the hardware crypto > will not have enough space to store all station keys and has to switch to > software de- and encryption. > >> Do you see any issues using AR9170 and carl9170 in this scenario? > Sorry, but I've no data about this scenario. However some time ago > Ben played around 128 stations on a ath9k > network. But I don't know if he tested any USB solutions at that time. > >> Also, I am running openWRT on an TI-OMAP3 processor @ 600 MHz. > Any word about the USB hcd? Does it support sending unaligned data dma, > or is it necessary to align all buffer addresses to a 4-byte boundary? > >> [...] >> Here is what I have tried so far: >> >> 30 802.11g clients >> >> open mode + power save - no problems, can send data to all 30 for hrs >> wpa2 + disable power save - no problems, can send data to all 30 for hrs >> wpa2 + enable power save - clients connect but then randomly >> disconnect every few seconds. > Is this with or without the hardware crypto enabled? Usually it's enabled by > default. But in your case I would give it a try to go without one. Just load > the module with: > > nohwcrypt=1 > > this will help to rule out any hw limitations in this regard. Thanks for this suggestion. With h/w crypto enabled, I was limited to 32 clients. With 'nohwcrypt=1', I can connect up to 50 clients (haven't tried more). However - I am curious about the limit of 32. The chip itself supports keys for up to 64 users (i.e. a total of 128 keys). I didn't see any obvious pieces of the carl9170 code that limited this number to 32. I first thought that the 'u64 usedkeys;' field in the ar9170 struct (carl9170.h) limited me to 32 users (each user took up two bits - one for tx, one for rx). But that doesn't seem to be the case. Any ideas why I couldn't go beyond 32 when I used h/w encryption? Thanks, - Harshal > Regards, > ? ? ? ?Chr