Subject: Re: [PATCH 8/10] d80211: get rid of default management interface

From: "Jouni Malinen" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 21 Apr 2006 19:44:31 -0700

On Fri, Apr 21, 2006 at 10:53:28PM +0200, Jiri Benc wrote:
> Default management interface (wlanXap) confuses users. It is only needed for
> AP mode (and only until interfaces are converted to use native 802.11
> frames).

Or when using user space MLME in client mode which is something that I
just got working as far as scanning and association is concerned. In
other words, wpa_supplicant will be needing this interface..

> This patch removes default management interface. When a new interface is
> switched to AP mode, a management interface is created automatically. This
> also fixes some problems with multiple AP interfaces - now you have
> different management interface for each AP interface.

That sounds like something that could break multi-BSSID/SSID aware
hostapd. Are you saying that there would be new wlanXap like interface
for each BSS/VLAN interface? What are the problems this is fixing with
multiple AP interfaces? So far, hostapd has been responsible for
receiving all management from a single interface and then internally
decide which BSS/multi-SSID entry to use for each.

I would assume that hostapd could be changed to process frames from
multiple interfaces (at least if this is only for multi-BSSID, not for
multi-SSID/VLAN case). There may be some special cases, where it would
be easier to just be able to use one interface. Likewise, I would expect
single interface to be closer to a design that would be using netlink
for getting management frames into user space.

-- 
Jouni Malinen                                            PGP id EFC895FA