RFC: more finegrained configuration of 11b/11g rates and modulations

[Denis Vlasenko]

Hi all,

I am going to do some unification work on rate support for
11b/11g, immediately targeting acx111, prism54 and possibly
hostap.

The proposal is to use ASCII formatted private ioctl:

iwpriv <iface> set_rate "1,2,5,11 11p,24d"

Syntax is: two space delimited lists.
First one defines basic rate set, second one
lists additional usable rates and is optional.

I'll call 6,9,12,18,24,36,48,54Mbit/s data rates
defined in 11g and 11a standards 'g-rates'

Syntax of lists: either comma separated list of
rates in Mbit/s, rounded down to integer value
(translation: 5 == 5.5Mbit/s), a single entry 'a'
(means 'all rates'), or 'g' == g-rates only
(rationale: too many of them to list individually).

All variants can be optionally suffixed by modulation.
Currently valid suffixes are:
c: cck
d: cckofdm
o: ofdm
p: pbcc
more will be added as new standards emerge.

When suffix is omitted, defaults to "natural" modulation
for given rate. Here are default and currently
allowed alternative modulations, default is listed first:
1,2:(no suffixes allowed)
5:cck pbcc
11:cck pbcc
22:pbcc
33:pbcc
g-rates:ofdm cckofdm

Driver must refuse ioctl if it cannot satisfy it precisely.

Examples:

iwpriv wlan0 set_rate 11
    fixed rate, 11Mbit/s (cck) basic rate
iwpriv wlan0 set_rate 22
    fixed rate, 22Mbit/s (pbcc) basic rate
iwpriv wlan0 set_rate 5,11
    auto rate, both 5.5 and 11Mbit/s (cck) are basic rates
iwpriv wlan0 set_rate "5 11,22"
    auto rate, 5.5 is basic rate, 11 (cck) and 22(pbcc) extended rates
iwpriv wlan0 set_rate "5 11p,22"
    auto rate, 5.5 is basic rate, 11 (pbcc) and 22(pbcc) extended rates
iwpriv wlan0 set_rate "1,2,5,11 ao"
    auto rate, 1,2,5.5,11 are basic, everything else
    are extended rates, using ofdm
iwpriv wlan0 set_rate "6 g"
    6 (ofdm) basic rate, g-rates (ofdm) extended
    it is an '11g-only' setup: use only g-rates with ofdm,
    will interfere with 11b equipment
iwpriv wlan0 set_rate "6d gd"
    6 (cckofdm) basic rate, g-rates (cckofdm) extended
    '11g 11b-compatible' setup: use only g-rates with cckofdm,
    11b stations in the area can detect signal and avoid collisions
    (am I right here?)

That's it.

I have test code for parser. It contains common code and
example prism54 and acx111 implementations (#ifdef'ed out).

You can compile attached file, run it, type in test string
and see resulting translation into prism54-compatible
basic/extended rates oid data.
acx111 testing is not done yet.

I solicit comments on:
* use space or a semicolon as basic/extended rates separator?
* do we need suffixes for 1 and 2 Mbit?
* will one-letter suffixes suffice?
* are 11g/11a defaults ok?
* are 'a' and 'g' pseudo-rates ok?
* is last example's comment right?
* other comments?

P.S. if you happen to have 11g documents, can you
mail them to me? I need to look closer on 11g/11b
rates and modulations compatibility...
--
vda
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