Hi Michael, > How would the virtual interfaces look like? That is quite easy to answer. > They are net_devices, as they transfer data. > They should probaly _not_ be on top of the ethernet, as 80211 does not > have very much in common with ethernet. Basically they share the same > MAC address format. Does someone have another thing, which he thinks > is shared? > How would the master interface look like? A somewhat unusual idea came > up. Using a device node in /dev. So every wireless card in the system > would have a node in /dev associated (/dev/wlan0 for example). > A node for the master device would be ok, because no data is transferred > through it. It is only a configuration interface. > So you would tell the, yet-to-be-written userspace tool wconfig (or something > like that) "I need a STA in INFRA mode and want to drive it on the > wlan0 card". So wconfig goes and write()s some data to /dev/wlan0 > telling the 80211 code to setup a virtual net_device for the driver > associated to /dev/wlan0. > The virtual interface is then configured though /dev/wlan0 using write() > (no ugly ioctl anymore, you see...). Config data like TX rate, > current essid,.... basically everything + xyz which is done by WE today, > is written to /dev/wlan0. > This config data is entirely cached in the 80211 code for the /dev/wlan0 > instance. This is important, to have the data persistent throughout > suspend/resume cycles, if up/down cycles. > After configuring, a virtual net_device (let's call it wlan0) exists, > which can be brought up by ifconfig and data can be transferred though > it as usual.
what is wrong with using netlink and/or sysfs for it? I don't see the advantage of defining another /dev something interface. Regards Marcel - 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
