Virtual WiFi on Linux?

[Ben Greear]

Jim Thompson wrote:
> 
> On Oct 19, 2005, at 7:23 AM, Jouni Malinen wrote:
> 
> 
>>On Wed, Oct 19, 2005 at 09:37:08AM -0700, Ben Greear wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>>If someone could implement the ability to make one WiFi NIC appear to
>>>be multiple NICs, even if connected to the same AP, it would be  
>>>something
>>>that my company is interested in sponsoring.
>>>
>>>The requirements would be something like:
>>>
>>>* Each virtual interface is a real net-device with it's own IP,  
>>>MAC and (potentially) WiFi settings.
>>>* To the AP, it appears as if N laptops/PCs are connected to it  
>>>sending & receiving pkts.
>>>
>>
>>The IEEE 802.11 stack released by Devicescape couple of weeks ago  
>>under
>>GPLv2 (see netdev mailing list for some discussion) supports this kind
>>of functionality.
> 
> 
> 
> At the risk of igniting a flame war here, I'm gonna jump in:
> 
> First, its great to see "virtual AP" implementations start to show up  
> on the scene.
> 
> Especially since I developed the idea in 1999.  See, for example US  
> patent 6,732,176.
> 
> Now, thats not a patent threat, so don't get all wonky on me.   I  
> just like to be able to prove
> that I really did think of this back in '99.
> 
> And I think its great that Jouni continues to get things released  
> under GPL that advance the state of the art
> in linux and 802.11.
> 
> But the public is only getting 1/2 the story.
> 
> 
>>In other words, you can create multiple virtual
>>netdevs and have each one act as a separate client. Since each clients
>>shows up as a netdev in the kernel, you can do whatever you want with
>>them, i.e., own IP address and all other protocols supported by Linux
>>should work fine. However, sending IP packets between different IP
>>addresses of the same host is going to require some kernel patching.
> 
> 
> But in a BSS there is no communication between associated STAs  
> without going
> through the AP.  (Yes, I understand that the linux IP stack is going  
> to make assumptions
> because the intended destination IP address is "on this machine".)

I have patches to make communication between two interfaces go external
to the system, even if the destination is on the same system.  So long
as the net-device acts somewhat similar to ethernet & VLANs, I'm ok there.

As for the rest of your comments..they are beyond my ken :)

Ben

-- 
Ben Greear <greearb at candelatech.com>
Candela Technologies Inc  http://www.candelatech.com