why is an interfcae in monitor mode (mon.wlan0) needed

[Eugene]

Hello Christian,

What do you mean "thing of the past"?

As far as I know the mac80211 support the BSS management for STA only.
For the AP completely responsible hostapd.
And mac80211 can forward the raw frames in to the hostapd via monitor interface or via netlink socket.

Do you mean that mac80211 in the future will handle AP as well?
Or netlink is more recommended?
Or something other?

-- 
Regards,
Eugene

On Sat Oct 13 11:50:02 EDT 2012 Christian Lamparter wrote:
> Hello,
>
> On Saturday 13 October 2012 17:21:34 Kevin Wilson wrote:
>> I am running hostapd under backfire.
>> I use b43 kernel module.
>> I have a very basic hostapd.conf file. (see at the end of this mail)
>> [...]
>> My question is:
>> for what do we need an interface in monitor mode?
> Don't worry, in recent kernels (and hostapd) the
> monitor interface will be a thing of the past.
> If it really bothers you, you should think
> about updating.
> 
> Previously, the monitor interface was necessary simply
> because mac80211 will not implement most of the basic
> AP functionality (apart form the most basic stuff, which
> is however not enough for clients to assoc). Hostapd
> needs to be able to listen for some "raw" 802.11 frames
> from clients and other APs in the neighborhood.
> 
> Regards,
> 	Chr