Linux Route/Loopback Problem - 2 STAs on same machine

[David C Wang]

Hi,

I've been unable to resolve this problem for a while.  Hopefully
someone can help me out.  I've already posted this question to
comp.os.linux.networking with no luck.  I'll probably also post 
to linux-wlan.

I have 2 wireless interfaces on the *same machine* wlan0 and wlan1
(linux-wlan), and am trying to test an ap (hostap) by having both
interfaces wlan0 and wlan1 speak to each other via the ap.  Both
interfaces associate just fine, but i'm having trouble setting up the
linux routes so that the stas can ping each other.  I'm hoping that
someone on this list has tried this before.

It seems that linux is ignoring the routing table for local network
devices, and forcing the route through the loopback device.  Is there
any way to get around this?

Here's a description of the problem.  On the same computer, I have
interfaces wlan0 (192.168.0.10) and wlan1 (192.168.0.11).  I want to
ping from wlan0 to wlan1, and make the packet physically hit the
radio, instead of going through the loopback netdevice.

I enable ip_forwarding
  echo "1" > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_forward 
I clear the kernel routing cache
  echo "1" > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/route/flush

Then, I modify my routing tables to say that packets going to
192.168.0.10 (wlan0) should exit through the wlan1 netdevice, and vice
versa:

  dave:/home/dave# route add -host 192.168.0.11 dev wlan0
  dave:/home/dave# route add -host 192.168.0.10 dev wlan1
  dave:/home/dave# route -n
  Kernel IP routing table
  Destination  Gateway      Genmask         Flags Metric Ref  Use Iface
  192.168.0.10 0.0.0.0      255.255.255.255 UH    0      0      0 wlan1
  192.168.0.11 0.0.0.0      255.255.255.255 UH    0      0      0 wlan0
  10.1.1.0     0.0.0.0      255.255.255.0   U     0      0      0 eth0
  0.0.0.0      10.1.1.254   0.0.0.0         UG    0      0      0 eth0

Then I ping 192.168.0.10, which should get routed through the second
netdevice wlan1, but the packet still goes through the loopback
netdevice, instead of directly out the physical device.

  dave:/home/dave#  ping -c 1 192.168.0.10
  PING 192.168.0.10 (192.168.0.10): 56 data bytes
  64 bytes from 192.168.0.10: icmp_seq=0 ttl=64 time=0.0 ms
  --- 192.168.0.10 ping statistics ---
  1 packets transmitted, 1 packets received, 0% packet loss
  round-trip min/avg/max = 0.0/0.0/0.0 ms

To verify, I check the Kernel Routing Cache, which indeed shows that
pings to 192.68.0.10 will go through the loopback device.

  dave:/home/dave# route -nC|grep -v 10                
  Kernel IP routing cache
  Source        Destination   Gateway       Flags Metric Ref  Use Iface
  192.168.0.11  192.168.0.11  192.168.0.11  l     0      0      0 lo
  192.168.0.11  192.168.0.11  192.168.0.11  l     0      0      0 lo
  192.168.0.10  192.168.0.10  192.168.0.10  l     0      0      1 lo
  192.168.0.10  192.168.0.10  192.168.0.10  l     0      0      1 lo

I try again by modifying the routing tables to include a gateway for
each device.  But I get the same result, and the same output from the
kernel routing cache.

  da:/home/dave# route add -host 192.168.0.11 gw 192.168.0.10 dev wlan0
  da:/home/dave# route add -host 192.168.0.10 gw 192.168.0.11 dev wlan1
  dave:/home/dave# route -n
  Kernel IP routing table
  Destination  Gateway      Genmask         Flags Metric Ref Use Iface
  192.168.0.10 192.168.0.11 255.255.255.255 UGH   0      0     0 wlan1
  192.168.0.11 192.168.0.10 255.255.255.255 UGH   0      0     0 wlan0
  10.1.1.0     0.0.0.0      255.255.255.0   U     0      0     0 eth0
  0.0.0.0      10.1.1.254   0.0.0.0         UG    0      0     0 eth0

I am also aware of the "local" routing table accessible through the
old linux-2.2 "iproute2" interface.

  dave:/home/dave# ip route show table local|grep 192
  broadcast 192.168.0.255 dev wlan0  proto kernel  scope link  src
192.168.0.10 
  broadcast 192.168.0.255 dev wlan1  proto kernel  scope link  src
192.168.0.11 
  local 192.168.0.11 dev wlan1  proto kernel  scope host  src
192.168.0.11 
  local 192.168.0.10 dev wlan0  proto kernel  scope host  src
192.168.0.10 
  broadcast 192.168.0.0 dev wlan0  proto kernel  scope link  src
192.168.0.10 
  broadcast 192.168.0.0 dev wlan1  proto kernel  scope link  src
192.168.0.11 

So I try to swap the sources also in this table for each device

  dave:/home/dave# ip route change table local local 192.168.0.10 dev
wlan1 \
		  proto kernel scope host src 192.168.0.11
  dave:/home/dave# ip route change table local local 192.168.0.11 dev
wlan0 \
		  proto kernel scope host src 192.168.0.10

And this is what i get.

  dave:/home/dave# ip route show table local|grep 192
  broadcast 192.168.0.255 dev wlan0  proto kernel  scope link  src
192.168.0.10 
  broadcast 192.168.0.255 dev wlan1  proto kernel  scope link  src
192.168.0.11 
  local 192.168.0.11 dev wlan0  proto kernel  scope host  src
192.168.0.10 
  local 192.168.0.10 dev wlan1  proto kernel  scope host  src
192.168.0.11 
  broadcast 192.168.0.0 dev wlan0  proto kernel  scope link  src
192.168.0.10 
  broadcast 192.168.0.0 dev wlan1  proto kernel  scope link  src
192.168.0.11 

Again, when i try to ping it goes through the loopback device.  The
routing cache verifies this again.

It seems that linux is ignoring the routing table for local network
devices, and forcing the route through the loopback device.  Is there
any way to get around this?

thanks,
-dave
dave at davidwang dot c*m