Re: virtual wireless interfaces / WDS

At 04:41 15/04/2003, M. Warner Losh wrote:
>I don't doubt that.  I should have added that most of the other
>reasons to create these things which I understand.  However, one
>doesn't create a virtual interface for every host on your wired
>network, so I'm torn.

Yes, but if you had an Ethernet interface with a built-in switch (several 
ports, but only one MAC address), having one interface per port would not 
be a bad idea, would it? [Actually, are there any such PCI cards, and are 
they supported by FreeBSD?] Also, one interface per VLAN on an 802.1Q 
Ethernet interface seems obvious too, doesn't it?

Another advantage of the sta approach could be to facilitate implementation 
of 802.1X. The 802.1X daemon should be "between" the sta and whatever is 
higher up (the bridge interface?) to enable/disable the port.

>I'm assuming that all devices that support AP would use staN
>attachments?  There's talk of a hostap mode for the an driver, there's
>the amd driver in the pipeline, there's the Atheros driver that's in
>the pipe, and there's the awi driver.  All of these support hostap in
>some form or another.

Even those in ad-hoc mode should support it, shoudn't they? Really, even in 
BSS client mode, having an sta should not be a problem either: there will 
only ever be one :-)

>Does the sta get an IP address, or does the wi?

Both should be possible, ideally. This allows things like VLANs, or 
point-to-point links with a dedicated /30 or unnumbered. Really, the 
difference between a wds and a sta interface are minimal at this point (the 
wds interface just has additional capabilities in terms of 802.11 headers, 
and a different way of being set up), so I'm not sure separating them is 
necessary?

Jacques.


-- Jacques Caron, IP Sector Technologies
    Join the discussion on public WLAN open global roaming:
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