module; the ath module now brings in the hal support. Kernel
config files are almost backwards compatible; supplying
device ath_hal
gives you the same chip support that the binary hal did but you
must also include
options AH_SUPPORT_AR5416
to enable the extended format descriptors used by 11n parts.
It is now possible to control the chip support included in a
build by specifying exactly which chips are to be supported
in the config file; consult ath_hal(4) for information.
o eliminate private state indexed by 802.11 rate codes; use the hal's
rate tables directly to get the same info
o calculate a mask of operational rates to optimize lookups and checks
(instead of using for loops and similar)
o optimize size bin operations
o ignore rates marked as "do not use" in the hal phy tables
o fix bug that caused upshifting to break in 11g once the rate dropped
below 11Mb/s
o add more intelligent multi-rate tx schedules
o add support for 1/2 and 1/4 width channels
o add dev.ath.X.sample_stats sysctl to dump runtime statistics to the console
(needs to go up to a user app)
o export more tuning knobs via sysctls (still a couple of magic constants)
making the use of sc_hwmap to do direct mapping impractical. Switch to
indexing by the rate index instead of the rate code and adjust associated
state and logic appropriately. This has several benefits including
simplification of the led code.
o fix radiotap capture of HT rates
o fix conditional compilation of HT radiotap support to be based on the
hal having 5416 support; not the ABI version as hal builds may or may
not include 5416 support
Note this includes changes to all drivers and moves some device firmware
loading to use firmware(9) and a separate module (e.g. ral). Also there
no longer are separate wlan_scan* modules; this functionality is now
bundled into the wlan module.
Supported by: Hobnob and Marvell
Reviewed by: many
Obtained from: Atheros (some bits)
o major overhaul of the way channels are handled: channels are now
fully enumerated and uniquely identify the operating characteristics;
these changes are visible to user applications which require changes
o make scanning support independent of the state machine to enable
background scanning and roaming
o move scanning support into loadable modules based on the operating
mode to enable different policies and reduce the memory footprint
on systems w/ constrained resources
o add background scanning in station mode (no support for adhoc/ibss
mode yet)
o significantly speedup sta mode scanning with a variety of techniques
o add roaming support when background scanning is supported; for now
we use a simple algorithm to trigger a roam: we threshold the rssi
and tx rate, if either drops too low we try to roam to a new ap
o add tx fragmentation support
o add first cut at 802.11n support: this code works with forthcoming
drivers but is incomplete; it's included now to establish a baseline
for other drivers to be developed and for user applications
o adjust max_linkhdr et. al. to reflect 802.11 requirements; this eliminates
prepending mbufs for traffic generated locally
o add support for Atheros protocol extensions; mainly the fast frames
encapsulation (note this can be used with any card that can tx+rx
large frames correctly)
o add sta support for ap's that beacon both WPA1+2 support
o change all data types from bsd-style to posix-style
o propagate noise floor data from drivers to net80211 and on to user apps
o correct various issues in the sta mode state machine related to handling
authentication and association failures
o enable the addition of sta mode power save support for drivers that need
net80211 support (not in this commit)
o remove old WI compatibility ioctls (wicontrol is officially dead)
o change the data structures returned for get sta info and get scan
results so future additions will not break user apps
o fixed tx rate is now maintained internally as an ieee rate and not an
index into the rate set; this needs to be extended to deal with
multi-mode operation
o add extended channel specifications to radiotap to enable 11n sniffing
Drivers:
o ath: add support for bg scanning, tx fragmentation, fast frames,
dynamic turbo (lightly tested), 11n (sniffing only and needs
new hal)
o awi: compile tested only
o ndis: lightly tested
o ipw: lightly tested
o iwi: add support for bg scanning (well tested but may have some
rough edges)
o ral, ural, rum: add suppoort for bg scanning, calibrate rssi data
o wi: lightly tested
This work is based on contributions by Atheros, kmacy, sephe, thompsa,
mlaier, kevlo, and others. Much of the scanning work was supported by
Atheros. The 11n work was supported by Marvell.
o no more ds_vdata in tx/rx descriptors
o split h/w tx/rx descriptor from s/w status
o as part of the descriptor split change the rate control module api
so the ath_buf is passed in to the module so it can fetch both
descriptor and status information as needed
o add some const poisoning
Also for sample rate control algorithm:
o split debug msgs (node, rate, any)
o uniformly bounds check rate indices (and in some cases correct checks)
o move array index ops to after bounds checking
o use final tsi from the status block instead of the h/w descriptor
o replace h/w descriptor struct's with proper mask+shift defs (this
doesn't belong here; everything is known by the driver and should
just be sent down so there's no h/w-specific knowledge)
MFC after: 1 month
stale when called to reset rate control state causing us to
pickup an invalid index, check for this and skip 'em (things
will eventually get fixed up so this is not harmful)
an ap in 11g with protection enabled
o correct rate selection when operating in 11g with protection when no
packets have been sent yet (from John Bicket)
o track api change to get first descriptor and use it to collect the frame
length for calculating the state bin
o add more debugging and shuffle some existing debugging to give more info
o bump version to distinguish bug fixes
