No reception of new action frame type in wpa_supplicant

[Jouni Malinen]

On Mon, Mar 27, 2017 at 09:54:34AM +0200, Ronald Linders wrote:
> I'm aware that I have to register this new action frame type by adding
> in driver_nl80211.c:
>     nl80211_register_action_frame(bss,(u8 *) "\x04\x09\x50\x6f\x9a\x1a",6)
> but this is not sufficient to let the kernel driver pass this frame to
> wpa_supplicant.

It is sufficient as far as cfg80211 and wpa_supplicant are concerned..

> I have the feeling that the kernel driver is discarding action frames
> with unknown OUI types, but for the new Wi-Fi standard it is required
> that wpa_supplicant can handle these action frames.
> Is there anyone who can point me in the right direction how I can
> direct the kernel driver to pass me these new typed action frames to
> wpa_supplicant?

If the Wi-Fi driver itself does not follow the cfg80211 API
expectations, the driver may need to be modified for this, but anyway,
that should not require any wpa_supplicant (or cfg80211) changes since
the registered patterns are already provided to the kernel.

> I have used the new action frames types in a simulated environment
> (hwsim) and there I have not encountered any problems in sending and
> receiving these action frames. But only real hardware (one smartphone
> to another) reception fails.

That's a driver specific issue. If this works with mac80211_hwsim (and
it does), it will work with more or less all mac80211-based drivers.
Some non-mac80211 drivers might have different implementations for
handling Action frame RX registration.

-- 
Jouni Malinen                                            PGP id EFC895FA