Autonomous GO and Station on Intel Edison

[Marco Zavatta]

Hello,

I would kindly ask for advice regarding autonomous GO. I’m using the
Intel Edison and I need to support the use case of having station and
AP at the same time. Intel claims this dual-mode is not supported, but
also states that “The multirole feature is the capability to have
simultaneously a station (STA) connection (to an AP) and a P2P
connection (GO role). The BCM-43340 Wi-Fi driver supports this
multirole feature.” So I could support the use case by activating an
autonomous GO (which has AP-like functionality, correct me if I’m
wrong), and then still be able to scan for available networks and
connect as station to an AP simultaneously. Performance in terms of
bandwidth is less of a concern for this use case.

The output of iw list on the Edison shows:
..
Supported interface modes:
* IBSS
* managed
* AP
* monitor
* P2P-client
* P2P-GO
* P2P-device
..
software interface modes (can always be added):
valid interface combinations:
* #{ AP } <= 1, #{ managed } <= 2, #{ P2P-client, P2P-GO } <= 2, #{
P2P-device } <= 1, #{ IBSS } <= 1,
total <= 4, #channels <= 2
Device supports scan flush.
..

wpa_supplicant installed is version 2.1.

At boot, ifconfig shows only wlan0 but wpa_supplicant shows:
Available interfaces:
p2p-dev-wlan0
wlan0

I’m somehow able to turn on the autonomous GOs using this script,
after which a new interface p2p-wlan0-x (as listed with ifconfig) is
created:
wpa_cli -ip2p-dev-wlan0 disconnect
wpa_cli -ip2p-dev-wlan0 remove_network all
wpa_cli -ip2p-dev-wlan0 add_network
wpa_cli -ip2p-dev-wlan0 set_network 0 ssid \"$ssid\"
wpa_cli -ip2p-dev-wlan0 set_network 0 psk \"$psk\"
wpa_cli -ip2p-dev-wlan0 set_network 0 mode 3
wpa_cli -ip2p-dev-wlan0 set_network 0 disabled 2
wpa_cli -ip2p-dev-wlan0 P2P_GROUP_ADD persistent=0

But I don’t feel it’s the proper way to do it (for example “mode 3”
should not be required, right?). Customization of SSID is not
important, as long as the autonomous GO is visible by everybody.
What is the proper way to activate the autonomous GO? When wpa_cli
should be invoked on the “default” interface (that is without –i) and
when on p2p-dev-wlan0?
Will the autonomous GO be discoverable and connectable by stations
like a usual AP?
Will it be possible to freely scan for available networks while being
in autonomous GO? On which interface should the scan be started?
Do you see any limitation, or something I should pay special care to,
for example for channels dependency between the autonomous GO and
station?

Thanks a million for your help, we’ve done a ton of attempts and an
expert advice from you could finally get us into the right track.
Marco