Difference between Prism 2 HostAP and Prism54's FirmwareAP ?

[Obermeier Markus ICM MP PD TS]

Jouni Malinen jkmaline wrote at cc.hut.fi on Sat Nov 29 22:18:06 MST 2003 

> I was wondering (before buying any WiFi-cards) what the main difference 
> between these two *AP-modes is. Prism2 supports something that's called 
> HostAP whereas Prism54 (see www.prism54.org) supports something like 
> FirmwareAP.

> Actually, Prism2 supports both "Host AP" and "firmware AP" modes.

> The main difference is in which component in the system is taking care
> of IEEE 802.11 management functionality (like authentication and
> association). Host AP mode leaves these to the host system whereas
> firmware AP mode does these within the wlan card. Which one is better
> depends on your needs.. If you want to change something in the
> management code or experiment with whatever, you most likely would
> prefer to have more control and Host AP mode would be more useful. If
> you just want a basic AP, you probably don't care about which mode is
> used, assuming it supports everything you need.

> -- 
> Jouni Malinen   

Hi Jouni,

do plan to support PrismGT in future. I would like to use all the features
of your 802.1X with PrismGT. If you do not plan to support PrismGT, what
do you think is easier ...

a) ... to port your hostapd to the Prism54.org project or
b) ... to port the Prism54.org project to your Host AP software ?

Regards,
Markus