[PATCH 01/13] wifi: cfg80211: Add provision to advertise multiple radio in one wiphy

[Vasanthakumar Thiagarajan]

On 4/12/2024 7:38 PM, Ben Greear wrote:
> On 4/11/24 21:11, Vasanthakumar Thiagarajan wrote:
>>
>>
>> On 4/11/2024 2:33 AM, Ben Greear wrote:
>>> On 4/10/24 08:42, Johannes Berg wrote:
>>>> On Wed, 2024-04-10 at 07:37 -0700, Ben Greear wrote:
>>>>> On 4/10/24 00:56, Johannes Berg wrote:
>>>>>> On Fri, 2024-03-29 at 07:47 -0700, Ben Greear wrote:
>>>>>>> On 3/29/24 07:30, Johannes Berg wrote:
>>>>>>>> On Fri, 2024-03-29 at 19:41 +0530, Vasanthakumar Thiagarajan wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>> + * @hw_chans: list of the channels supported by every constituent underlying
>>>>>>>>>>> + *    hardware. Drivers abstracting multiple discrete hardware (radio) under
>>>>>>>>>>> + *    one wiphy can advertise the list of channels supported by each physical
>>>>>>>>>>> + *    hardware in this list. Underlying hardware specific channel list can be
>>>>>>>>>>> + *    used while describing interface combination for each of them.
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> I'd expect there to be a limit on channels being within a single band on
>>>>>>>>>> a single "hardware"?
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> There are ath12k hardware supporting multiple band which need to be
>>>>>>>>> registered under one mac80211_hw/wiphy. This design is to support such
>>>>>>>>> hardware.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Oh OK, that was something that I didn't have in mind any more, or never
>>>>>>>> knew or paid attention to.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Would it work to leave the phy reporting pretty much as it is now, but add
>>>>>>> a 'associated_peer_radios' list section, so that each phy could report the phys
>>>>>>> associated with it?  Then user-space, driver, mac80211 etc could look up the
>>>>>>> other phys as needed to get a full picture?
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> There's not really a good way to _do_ that short of creating multiple
>>>>>> wiphys, but that causes _massive_ complexity in the stack (both cfg80211
>>>>>> and mac80211) so we rejected it years ago.
>>>>>
>>>>> I thought the problem ath12k is trying to fix is that there are currently multiple 
>>>>> phys (radios) that needed to be made to
>>>>> look like a single phy?
>>>>
>>>> Correct.
>>>>
>>>>> For dual and tri-concurrent radios, I think we will need them to look like 3 
>>>>> individual radios for non-MLO use
>>>>> cases
>>>>
>>>> No, I don't see why, and if you want that we wouldn't support it anyway,
>>>> you'd have to have a module option or something to decide which way to
>>>> go.
>>>>
>>>> But it really ought to not be needed - the point of these patches is to
>>>> give userspace enough information to know how to (and where) to create
>>>> separate BSSes, with or without MLO between them.
>>>>
>>>>> For instance, mt7996 currently reports 3 single-band wiphys, and each can be used 
>>>>> independently.
>>>>> But assuming it starts supporting MLO, then those 3 single band wiphys will need to 
>>>>> start acting
>>>>> at least somewhat like a single entity
>>>>
>>>> Yes.
>>>>
>>>>> (while also concurrently being able to act as individual
>>>>> wiphys so that one can do a mix of MLO and non MLO sta/AP.)
>>>>
>>>> No.
>>>
>>> Hello Johannes,
>>>
>>> Is there any design document for the combined phy approach somewhere publicly available?
>>>
>>> It is hard to understand the over all goals by just reading patches as they show up on
>>> the public mailing lists...
>>>
>>
>> Hi Ben,
>>
>> I dont think there is a document for this composite phy approach. But we try to clarify
>> as much as possible in the commit log and kernel-doc. Pls let us know the area which
>> is more appropriate to be clarified in the path.
>>
>> Vasanth
> 
> I am worried that the whole approach has problems that would be better solved with different
> architecture.


If you see a better approach, please feel free to propose one (preferably some RFC) to 
solve the problem.

   I understand that someone has made a decision to go with the combined
> approach,
> and I am sure they have reasons.  It would be good to see some details about how this 
> combined
> approach can work in lots of different use cases, including with un-modified user-space,

Unmodified user space sees all bands from same radio. I guess, driver can probably provide
some configuration knob to turn this off so that everything works a before but will not
be able to operate in MLO. Please note that, user space has to updated to get MLO
support anyway.

  and
> including what changes *are* required in user-space to keep current features and control 
> working
> with combined wiphy approach.
> 
> My over-all concerns are that I feel user-space is still going to need to understand the 
> individual
> underlying phys and be able to read/modify them individually.  Older radios will continue 
> to have single phy
> mappings, so that must be supported pretty much forever.  So it seems there is going to be 
> a huge amount
> of duplicated code up and down the stack and user-space.
> 

Not sure why there should be any duplication, perhaps when corresponding user space
(hostapd) changes will clarify most of these concerns.

> Having your team grind on a large patch set that turns out to have fundamental flaws would be
> a huge waste of time for all involved.
> 

As said, please feel free to propose an alternate solution to address the issue.

Vasanth