Linksys Firmware problem.

[Jouni Malinen]

On Mon, Sep 01, 2003 at 09:51:49PM +0200, wim at djo.tudelft.nl wrote:

> It may be that 1.4.2 has a bug, but that bug can't be 'fatal for the Host
> AP mode'.  I've got a BenQ AWL500 access point, build around an AWL100
> PCMCIA card (prism2.5). The AP works nicely, although it's running on
> STA 1.4.2. That clearly proves that Host AP mode can be done with 1.4.2
> and the 'bug' actually is in the hostap driver. It's probably just that
> hostap does not provide a workaround for an apparent problem.

No, this does not prove anything. If you want to prove that 1.4.2 does
not have a fatal bug for the _Host AP_ mode, please feel free to either
implement or at least describe a generic workaround needed for the issue
of not processing Probe Request frames in the AP. As far as I'm
concerned, there is no way to work around that issue without changing
firmware code. Yes, you could change all stations to work without active
probing, but I would not consider that to be realistic solution.


On Mon, Sep 01, 2003 at 11:12:18PM +0200, wim at djo.tudelft.nl wrote:

> I can't see that. But it's hard to believe that the manufacturer puts buggy
> firmware into their cards, just to load better firmware when they actually
> want to use it. If it were just a license problem, they wouldn't circumvent
> that by silently use another version, although it's less visible that way.

Maybe they do not have the firmware they want to use in the AP available
in a form that can be written into flash. They would thus need to load a
RAM downloadable firmware and could not care less of what STA firmware
version actually is in the card since it would not really be used.

> > How do you know that the card operates in the HostAP mode?
> Can the access point be an acces point by not being in access point mode?

No, but it can be one without being in _Host_ AP mode. You might want to
learn about the other AP mode that is actually used in many (most?) APs
based on Prism2 cards. That is so called firmware AP mode, in which all
the IEEE 802.11 management operations are actually performed in the
card. This mode uses "tertiary AP firmware" which is only available in
RAM downloadable version..

-- 
Jouni Malinen                                            PGP id EFC895FA