Subject: Re: [PATCH wpan-next 0/2] ieee802154: Beaconing support

From: Michael Richardson <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 27 Jan 2023 14:39:40 -0500

Alexander Aring <[email-masked]> wrote:
    >> - MLME ops without feedback constraints like beacons -> should go
    >> through the hot path, but not through the whole net stack, so
    >> ieee802154_subif_start_xmit()
    >>

    > it will bypass the qdisc handling (+ some other things which are around
    > there). The current difference is what I see llsec handling and other
    > things which might be around there? It depends if other "MLME-ops" need
    > to be e.g. encrypted or not.

I haven't followed the whole thread.
So I am neither agreeing nor disagreeing, just clarifying.
Useful beacons are "signed" (have integrity applied), but not encrypted.

It's important for userspace to be able to receive them, even if we don't
have a key that can verify them.  AFAIK, we have no specific interface to
receive beacons.

    >> NB: Perhaps a prerequisites of bringing security to the MLME ops would
    >> be to have wpan-tools updated (it looks like the support was never
    >> merged?) as well as a simple example how to use it on linux-wpan.org.
    >>

    > this is correct. It is still in a branch, I am fine to merge it in this
    > state although it's not really practical to use right now.

:-)