Question: ath10k and tcpdump antenna noise information missing

[Tomi Saarnio]

Hi all,

More information on this. When I run the following bash script, the iw survey dump returns channel noise value,
but I have no idea whether this value would be identical to the "antenna noise" that the tcpdump should return. 

while [ 1 ]
do
  iwlist wlan0 scan > /dev/null
  reset
  iw wlan0 survey dump | grep "noise"
done

And, running the iwlist scan + iw survey dump is v-e-r-y s-l-o-w as it scans all the channels supported, where as
the tcpdump will return the antenna noise only on the specific channel we are monitoring.

Any suggestions?

Best regards,
Tomi Saarnio

________________________________________
From: ath10k <ath10k-bounces at lists.infradead.org> on behalf of Tomi Saarnio <Tomi.Saarnio at ekahau.com>
Sent: Monday, November 2, 2015 1:27 PM
To: ath10k at lists.infradead.org
Subject: Question: ath10k and tcpdump antenna noise information missing

Hi,

I have been trying to figure out how to get the antenna noise information from the tcpdump.
So far, no luck.

The purpose is to estimate the channel noise level and quality using the antenna signal level
(which is available in the tcpdump already) and the antenna noise level (the missing piece of
the puzzle).

For example:

# tcpdump -ni wlan0 -c 10 2> /dev/null

 [63933.453161] device wlan0 entered promiscuous mode
15:22:43.038447 1.0 Mb/s 2412 MHz[63934.205367] device wlan0 left promiscuous mode
 11b -60dB signal antenna 0 Beacon (NM-WLAN2) [1.0* 2.0* 5.5* 11.0* 9.0 18.0 36.0 54.0 Mbit] ESS CH: 1, PRIVACY
15:22:43.038853 11.0 Mb/s 2412 MHz 11b -31dB signal antenna 0 Probe Response (aaaa) [9.0 11.0* 12.0 18.0 24.0 36.0 48.0 54.0 Mbit] CH: 1, PRIVACY
15:22:43.039077 5421223us tsft 11.0 Mb/s 2412 MHz 11b -38dB signal antenna 0 Acknowledgment RA:00:19:07:c5:58:11
15:22:43.039469 11.0 Mb/s 2412 MHz 11b -31dB signal antenna 0 Probe Response (bbbb) [9.0 11.0* 12.0 18.0 24.0 36.0 48.0 54.0 Mbit] CH: 1, PRIVACY
15:22:43.039694 5421839us tsft 11.0 Mb/s 2412 MHz 11b -39dB signal antenna 0 Acknowledgment RA:00:19:07:c5:58:1e
15:22:43.040062 11.0 Mb/s 2412 MHz 11b -31dB signal antenna 0 Beacon (cccc) [9.0 11.0* 12.0 18.0 24.0 36.0 48.0 54.0 Mbit] ESS CH: 1, PRIVACY
15:22:43.040298 5422447us tsft 11.0 Mb/s 2412 MHz 11b -31dB signal antenna 0 Clear-To-Send RA:00:19:07:c5:58:1e
15:22:43.040580 5421593us tsft 11.0 Mb/s 2412 MHz 11b -31dB signal antenna 0 CF +QoS Data IV:4d23 Pad 20 KeyID 0
15:22:43.040659 5422747us tsft 5.5 Mb/s 2412 MHz 11b -38dB signal antenna 0 Acknowledgment RA:00:19:07:c5:58:1e
15:22:43.043266 5425416us tsft 11.0 Mb/s 2412 MHz 11b -28dB signal antenna 0 Clear-To-Send RA:00:19:07:c5:58:1e

(Note: it seems that the board didn't enter the promiscous mode, but apparently the tcpdump
captures data successfully.)

The platform is Gateworks Ventana board with the latest kernel 4 build and WLE600VX Ath10k miniPCIe board.
"Linux OpenWrt 4.1.6 #2 SMP Thu Oct 29 15:18:59 EET 2015 armv7l GNU/Linux"
 The ath10k firmware version is firmware-2.bin_10.1.467.2-1, but I have also tried firmware-5.bin_10.2.4.70.10-2.

Questions:

- Does the current athk10k firmware and/or driver support the antenna noise information?
- If the current driver doesn't support the feature yet, any plans when it would be available?
- If the current driver does provide the missing information, how can I get it to the tcpdump capture?
- Is there any other ways of obtaining the same information by not using tcpdump?

Any pointers and suggestions greatly appreciated.

Best regards,
Tomi Saarnio

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