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Date: Sat, 15 Jun 2024 08:26:32 +0100
From: "Russell King (Oracle)" <linux@armlinux.org.uk>
To: Kalle Valo <kvalo@kernel.org>
Cc: Johannes Berg <johannes.berg@intel.com>,
	Michael Nemanov <michael.nemanov@ti.com>,
	linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, linux-wireless@vger.kernel.org
Subject: Re: [PATCH wireless v2] wifi: wlcore: fix wlcore AP mode
Message-ID: <Zm1CKAKCnuc94oIi@shell.armlinux.org.uk>
References: <E1sClp4-00Evu7-8v@rmk-PC.armlinux.org.uk>
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Sender: Russell King (Oracle) <linux@armlinux.org.uk>

Hi Kale,

I see all my TI Wilink patches have been marked as "deferred" in the
wireless patchwork. Please could you explain what the plan is with
these patches, especially this one which fixes a serious frustrating
failing that makes AP mode on this hardware very unreliable and thus
useless.

Thanks.

On Thu, May 30, 2024 at 08:52:26PM +0100, Russell King (Oracle) wrote:
> Using wl183x devices in AP mode with various firmwares is not stable.
> 
> The driver currently adds a station to firmware with basic rates when it
> is first known to the stack using the CMD_ADD_PEER command. Once the
> station has finished authorising, another CMD_ADD_PEER command is issued
> to update the firmware with the rates the station can use.
> 
> However, after a random amount of time, the firmware ignores the power
> management nullfunc frames from the station, and tries to send packets
> while the station is asleep, resulting in lots of retries dropping down
> in rate due to no response. This restricts the available bandwidth.
> 
> With this happening with several stations, the user visible effect is
> the latency of interactive connections increases significantly, packets
> get dropped, and in general the WiFi connections become unreliable and
> unstable.
> 
> Eventually, the firmware transmit queue appears to get stuck - with
> packets and blocks allocated that never clear.
> 
> TI have a couple of patches that address this, but they touch the
> mac80211 core to disable NL80211_FEATURE_FULL_AP_CLIENT_STATE for *all*
> wireless drivers, which has the effect of not adding the station to the
> stack until later when the rates are known. This is a sledge hammer
> approach to solving the problem.
> 
> The solution implemented here has the same effect, but without
> impacting all drivers.
> 
> We delay adding the station to firmware until it has been authorised
> in the driver, and correspondingly remove the station when unwinding
> from authorised state. Adding the station to firmware allocates a hlid,
> which will now happen later than the driver expects. Therefore, we need
> to track when this happens so that we transmit using the correct hlid.
> 
> This patch is an equivalent fix to these two patches in TI's
> wilink8-wlan repository:
> 
> https://git.ti.com/cgit/wilink8-wlan/build-utilites/tree/patches/kernel_patches/4.19.38/0004-mac80211-patch.patch?h=r8.9&id=a2ee50aa5190ed3b334373d6cd09b1bff56ffcf7
> https://git.ti.com/cgit/wilink8-wlan/build-utilites/tree/patches/kernel_patches/4.19.38/0005-wlcore-patch.patch?h=r8.9&id=a2ee50aa5190ed3b334373d6cd09b1bff56ffcf7
> 
> Reported-by: Russell King (Oracle) <rmk+kernel@armlinux.org.uk>
> Co-developed-by: Johannes Berg <johannes.berg@intel.com>
> Tested-by: Russell King (Oracle) <rmk+kernel@armlinux.org.uk>
> Signed-off-by: Johannes Berg <johannes.berg@intel.com>
> Signed-off-by: Russell King (Oracle) <rmk+kernel@armlinux.org.uk>
> ---
> v2: switch authorship and credits as requested by Johannes.
> ---
>  drivers/net/wireless/ti/wlcore/cmd.c      |  7 -------
>  drivers/net/wireless/ti/wlcore/main.c     | 17 ++++++++---------
>  drivers/net/wireless/ti/wlcore/tx.c       |  7 ++-----
>  drivers/net/wireless/ti/wlcore/wlcore_i.h |  6 ++++++
>  4 files changed, 16 insertions(+), 21 deletions(-)
> 
> diff --git a/drivers/net/wireless/ti/wlcore/cmd.c b/drivers/net/wireless/ti/wlcore/cmd.c
> index a939fd89a7f5..92fc2d456c2c 100644
> --- a/drivers/net/wireless/ti/wlcore/cmd.c
> +++ b/drivers/net/wireless/ti/wlcore/cmd.c
> @@ -1566,13 +1566,6 @@ int wl12xx_cmd_add_peer(struct wl1271 *wl, struct wl12xx_vif *wlvif,
>  		cpu_to_le32(wl1271_tx_enabled_rates_get(wl, sta_rates,
>  							wlvif->band));
>  
> -	if (!cmd->supported_rates) {
> -		wl1271_debug(DEBUG_CMD,
> -			     "peer has no supported rates yet, configuring basic rates: 0x%x",
> -			     wlvif->basic_rate_set);
> -		cmd->supported_rates = cpu_to_le32(wlvif->basic_rate_set);
> -	}
> -
>  	wl1271_debug(DEBUG_CMD, "new peer rates=0x%x queues=0x%x",
>  		     cmd->supported_rates, sta->uapsd_queues);
>  
> diff --git a/drivers/net/wireless/ti/wlcore/main.c b/drivers/net/wireless/ti/wlcore/main.c
> index ef12169f8044..492cd7aef44f 100644
> --- a/drivers/net/wireless/ti/wlcore/main.c
> +++ b/drivers/net/wireless/ti/wlcore/main.c
> @@ -5139,19 +5139,23 @@ static int wl12xx_update_sta_state(struct wl1271 *wl,
>  
>  	/* Add station (AP mode) */
>  	if (is_ap &&
> -	    old_state == IEEE80211_STA_NOTEXIST &&
> -	    new_state == IEEE80211_STA_NONE) {
> +	    old_state == IEEE80211_STA_AUTH &&
> +	    new_state == IEEE80211_STA_ASSOC) {
>  		ret = wl12xx_sta_add(wl, wlvif, sta);
>  		if (ret)
>  			return ret;
>  
> +		wl_sta->fw_added = true;
> +
>  		wlcore_update_inconn_sta(wl, wlvif, wl_sta, true);
>  	}
>  
>  	/* Remove station (AP mode) */
>  	if (is_ap &&
> -	    old_state == IEEE80211_STA_NONE &&
> -	    new_state == IEEE80211_STA_NOTEXIST) {
> +	    old_state == IEEE80211_STA_ASSOC &&
> +	    new_state == IEEE80211_STA_AUTH) {
> +		wl_sta->fw_added = false;
> +
>  		/* must not fail */
>  		wl12xx_sta_remove(wl, wlvif, sta);
>  
> @@ -5165,11 +5169,6 @@ static int wl12xx_update_sta_state(struct wl1271 *wl,
>  		if (ret < 0)
>  			return ret;
>  
> -		/* reconfigure rates */
> -		ret = wl12xx_cmd_add_peer(wl, wlvif, sta, wl_sta->hlid);
> -		if (ret < 0)
> -			return ret;
> -
>  		ret = wl1271_acx_set_ht_capabilities(wl, &sta->deflink.ht_cap,
>  						     true,
>  						     wl_sta->hlid);
> diff --git a/drivers/net/wireless/ti/wlcore/tx.c b/drivers/net/wireless/ti/wlcore/tx.c
> index 7bd3ce2f0804..464587d16ab2 100644
> --- a/drivers/net/wireless/ti/wlcore/tx.c
> +++ b/drivers/net/wireless/ti/wlcore/tx.c
> @@ -140,11 +140,8 @@ EXPORT_SYMBOL(wl12xx_is_dummy_packet);
>  static u8 wl12xx_tx_get_hlid_ap(struct wl1271 *wl, struct wl12xx_vif *wlvif,
>  				struct sk_buff *skb, struct ieee80211_sta *sta)
>  {
> -	if (sta) {
> -		struct wl1271_station *wl_sta;
> -
> -		wl_sta = (struct wl1271_station *)sta->drv_priv;
> -		return wl_sta->hlid;
> +	if (sta && wl1271_station(sta)->fw_added) {
> +		return wl1271_station(sta)->hlid;
>  	} else {
>  		struct ieee80211_hdr *hdr;
>  
> diff --git a/drivers/net/wireless/ti/wlcore/wlcore_i.h b/drivers/net/wireless/ti/wlcore/wlcore_i.h
> index eefae3f867b9..817a8a61cac6 100644
> --- a/drivers/net/wireless/ti/wlcore/wlcore_i.h
> +++ b/drivers/net/wireless/ti/wlcore/wlcore_i.h
> @@ -324,6 +324,7 @@ struct wl12xx_rx_filter {
>  
>  struct wl1271_station {
>  	u8 hlid;
> +	bool fw_added;
>  	bool in_connection;
>  
>  	/*
> @@ -335,6 +336,11 @@ struct wl1271_station {
>  	u64 total_freed_pkts;
>  };
>  
> +static inline struct wl1271_station *wl1271_station(struct ieee80211_sta *sta)
> +{
> +	return (struct wl1271_station *)sta->drv_priv;
> +}
> +
>  struct wl12xx_vif {
>  	struct wl1271 *wl;
>  	struct list_head list;
> -- 
> 2.30.2
> 
> 

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