Completely disabling RTS/CTS

[Raj Joshi]

I am operating VHT (802.11ac) in AP-client configuration and thus
aggregation is inevitable (as per the standard) as well as desirable
(I suppose). I am receiving all A-MSDUs and not A-MPDUs. Now since
losses are expensive to recover in case of A-MSDUs than A-MPDUs, is
that the reason that there are intermittent RTS/CTS frames by rate
control?

If the culprit is firmware rate-control, I can try setting the bitrate
mask and check again. Also how can I force the use of A-MPDUs rather
than A-MSDUs? If this is outside the purview of firmware rate control,
then I can try this one as well.

Thanks,
Raj Joshi


On Fri, Jul 22, 2016 at 12:44 AM, Ben Greear <greearb at candelatech.com> wrote:
> On 07/21/2016 07:29 AM, Krishna Chaitanya wrote:
>>
>> On Thu, Jul 21, 2016 at 7:45 PM, Raj Joshi <rajjoshi at comp.nus.edu.sg>
>> wrote:
>>>
>>> Hi all,
>>>
>>> I am trying to "completely" disable RTS/CTS.
>>>
>>> * Case 1: Using iw/iwconfig when I set the sender's RTS threshold to a
>>> very high value (RTS thr=10000 B), I expect that no RTS should be
>>> sent. However, it seems that this threshold is not being honored and I
>>> can sniff large number of RTS/CTS frames. I verified that no A-MSDU is
>>> exceeding 10000 B.
>>> * Case 2: Interestingly, when I set the sender's RTS threshold to off
>>> (RTS thr:off), compared to case #1 much less number of RTS/CTS frames
>>> are seen and throughput is seen to improve. But I can still see
>>> RTS/CTS frames being sent.
>>> * Since the channel is clear and much isolated, and there is just one
>>> AP and one STA, there is negligible chance of other factors playing
>>> any role.
>>> * There is one change though that I have disabled dynamic bandwidth
>>> i.e. ar->wmi.pdev_param->dynamic_bw set zero in mac.c. I believe this
>>> is likely not an issue as similar RTS/CTS behavior is seen even with
>>> dynamic_bw set to 1 (there are no heterogeneous channel widths in the
>>> network in any case).
>>> * Another thing I noticed is that the RTS/CTS protection mode if set,
>>> it is set to CTS-to-self, rather than "RTS/CTS" i.e.
>>> ar->wmi.vdev_param->protection_mode in mac.c is either set to 1 or 0
>>> (depending upon use_cts_prot), but not 2. This probably seems not
>>> helpful in hidden node scenarios as the CTS frame is unicasted instead
>>> broadcasting.
>>>
>>> I would appreciate any pointers on completely disabling RTS/CTS as
>>> well as the ability to choose between complete RTS/CTS versus
>>> CTS-to-self whenever RTS/CTS is enabled.
>>
>> Which mode is this? For aggregated frames (AMPDU) RTS Threshold is
>> not checked, so it can still be enabled
>
>
> Probably would require firmware changes to fully disable RTS/CTS
> from what I recall when I was reading the rate-ctrl code...
>
> Thanks,
> Ben
>
>>
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>
> --
> Ben Greear <greearb at candelatech.com>
> Candela Technologies Inc  http://www.candelatech.com
>