[RFC] nl80211: set NLMODE correctly for AP interface

Avinash Patil avinashapatil
Tue May 13 21:37:45 PDT 2014


Hi Jouni,

Please find attached logs for failure case without these changes.

Also my comments inline.

Thanks,
Avinash
On Tue, May 13, 2014 at 7:36 PM, Jouni Malinen <j at w1.fi> wrote:
> On Tue, May 13, 2014 at 03:46:05PM +0530, Avinash Patil wrote:
>> We add interface manually by "iw dev interface wlan0 add uap0 type
>> __ap" and then we start AP operations using supplicant.
>> Typical configuration file would be like this:
>>
>> network={
>>          ssid="supplicant_ap"
>>          key_mgmt=NONE
>>          mode=2
>>          frequency=2432
>> }
>>
>> #wpa_supplicant -Dnl80211 -i uap0 -c ap.conf
>
> Does this fail for you without the change? If so, could you please share
> a wpa_supplicant debug log showing the failure?
>
>> >> diff --git a/src/drivers/driver_nl80211.c b/src/drivers/driver_nl80211.c
>> >> @@ -4698,7 +4698,7 @@ wpa_driver_nl80211_finish_drv_init(struct
>> >> -       if (drv->hostapd)
>> >> +       if (drv->hostapd || nl80211_get_ifmode(bss) == NL80211_IFTYPE_AP)
>> >>                 nlmode = NL80211_IFTYPE_AP;
>> >
>> > This breaks the case of something first setting wlan0 to non-station
>> > mode (e.g., "iw wlan0 set type __ap") followed by wpa_supplicant started
>> > on wlan0. The expectation there is that wpa_supplicant runs operations
>> > in station mode until requested to something else (e.g., start AP mode).
>>
>> I did not fully understand this scenario but I think you are referring
>> to similar situation as I described earlier except while I am adding
>> interface, in this case interface type is changed.
>
> I'm talking about the exact same way of adding the vif, but different
> wpa_supplicant configuration, i.e., a configuration that does not enable
> AP mode operations.
>
>> > Why would this change be needed in the first place? Doesn't
>> > wpa_supplicant set the interface to AP mode when the AP mode network is
>> > being configured?
>>
>> This handles a case where AP<=>STA change_virtual_interface is not
>> supported but we know that interface on which supplicant is started is
>> AP interface.
>> To ensure that this check applies only to statically created
>> interface, we can add one more check:
>>
>>       if (drv->hostapd || (nl80211_get_ifmode(bss) ==
>> NL80211_IFTYPE_AP && !bss->if_dynamic))
>>                  nlmode = NL80211_IFTYPE_AP;
>
> The problem here is that this function does not know what wpa_supplicant
> will do next. In the example I described, the new operation would not be
> AP mode and as such, changing to AP mode here would not be correct. In
> the example you are describing, the next operation is AP mode, but the
> code here has no way of knowing that and as such, I don't think it
> should use the current iftype of the interface to try to guess what
> might be happening next.

Maybe we can have another config file parameter (e.g. static_ap=1) to
indicate changing to default NL_IFTYPE type STATATION is not supported
and supplicant should set iftype as AP during initialization.

> --
> Jouni Malinen                                            PGP id EFC895FA
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