Some queries on HostAP driver w.r.t. MAC Ports and frame conversion from 802.3 to 802.11

[Gargi D]

Hi,

I have a couple of queries related to PRISM chipset based HostAP Device driver.

a) While referring to "Intersil's PRISM Driver Programmers Manual" I was confronted with the "Concept of Logical MAC Ports".  These ports range from 0 to 6.  It is         
    mentioned in a cryptic way that Port Number 0 is for Connection to BSS and Port number 1-6 are for AP functionality.  When searched on the web there were some     
    references, where it is mentioned that transmission/reception can be controlled for these individual logical ports.  It is also mentioned that these ports can be used for 
    creating wireless distribution system (WDS) links.  For each of these links, transmit rate, fragmentation threshold, RTS Threshold can be set.

    I was wondering if I could seek some clarify on what these logical MAC Ports are for and whether they have been explored or alternatively is there a scope for exploring     the same in the HostAP driver. Current HostAP implementation seems to operate MAC Port 0 only.

b) There seems to be a conversion from 802.3 frames to 802.11 frames when transmitting a packet and vice versa on reception.  Is this a mandatory requirement of some  
    standard or is it the implementer's choice?  Is there any benefit we get by this translation as against directly framing a 802.11 frame from the IP packet received from 
    higher layers?

c) Are there any vendor specific device driver manuals for 802.11b cards available e.g. Device Driver manual for 802.11b WLAN cards from say US Robotics or from         
    Compaq or Netgear?  

I would appreciate if you could throw some pointers to these.


Regards,

Miss. Gargi Dadhich
Member Technical Staff
Networking and Internet Software Group (NISG)
C-DAC, Pune

Tel:    020-25694000/1/2/3      Extn: 484 
Fax:   020-25694059 

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