On 10/24/07, Dan Williams <dcbw@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > On Tue, 2007-10-23 at 22:25 -0600, Eric W Anderson wrote: > > I realize that primary role of the driver is for actual use, rather than for > > research, but... It's very useful in experiments to have /proc entries for all > > the settings that you don't normally think of as tunable. (e.g. turning off > > antenna diversity, or ACKs, or changing the CCA thresholds). I'd really hate for > > knobs to go away because someone things they're not "really" needed, or because > > they're not worth merging into the new configuration framework. > > debugfs is one answer here. As it stands debugfs does provide a wide range of useful information. Here's the info for my phy0: mcgrof@pogo:~$ ls /debug/ieee80211/phy0/ antenna_sel_rx frequency netdev:wlan3 statistics antenna_sel_tx keys netdev:wmaster0 total_ps_buffered bridge_packets long_retry_limit rts_threshold wep_iv channel mode short_retry_limit fragmentation_threshold modes stations Here's statistics: mcgrof@pogo:~$ ls /debug/ieee80211/phy0/statistics/ dot11ACKFailureCount rx_handlers_fragments dot11FCSErrorCount rx_handlers_queued dot11RTSFailureCount transmitted_fragment_count dot11RTSSuccessCount transmitted_frame_count failed_count tx_expand_skb_head frame_duplicate_count tx_expand_skb_head_cloned multicast_received_frame_count tx_handlers_drop multicast_transmitted_frame_count tx_handlers_drop_fragment multiple_retry_count tx_handlers_drop_not_assoc received_fragment_count tx_handlers_drop_unauth_port retry_count tx_handlers_drop_unencrypted rx_expand_skb_head tx_handlers_drop_wep rx_expand_skb_head2 tx_handlers_queued rx_handlers_drop tx_status_drop rx_handlers_drop_defrag wep_undecryptable_count rx_handlers_drop_nullfunc wme_rx_queue rx_handlers_drop_passive_scan wme_tx_queue rx_handlers_drop_short For wlan3: mcgrof@pogo:~$ ls /debug/ieee80211/phy0/netdev\:wlan3/ aid auth_algs capab extra_ie_len ssid_len ap_capab auth_transaction channel_use flags state assoc_tries auth_tries drop_unencrypted ieee8021_x auth_alg bssid eapol prev_bssid For wmaser0: mcgrof@pogo:~$ ls /debug/ieee80211/phy0/netdev\:wmaster0/ beacon_head_len dtim_count ieee8021_x num_sta_ps beacon_tail_len dtim_period max_ratectrl_rateidx channel_use eapol num_beacons drop_unencrypted force_unicast_rateidx num_buffered_multicast > The point is to make it 110% crystal clear > what options are long-term supportable as API/ABI and which ones are > not. IMHO a lot of this is very useful information and as such probably shouldn't be exported as part of debugfs but instead be accessible via sysfs or configfs which can later be relied upon in the long term. The fine line between whether statistics should go sysfs or configfs is vague to me. As for configuration it was decided a while ago we'd use netlink so AFAICT we're sticking to that. This doesn't mean we can't provide alternatives for accessing information. My intentions was to start a configfs module for the new linux wireless subsystem (cfg80211 devices), which I have already but used only for changing regulatory domain, where we can add things onto a filesystem for configuration. The add/remove interface stuff was also pulled from sysfs and now is available only through nl80211, the idea was to later add the filesystem approach to configfs. Currently you can use the add/remove interface with the new iw utility though: http://git.sipsolutions.net/iw.git/ This requires libnl-HEAD though as we use genl. I hope there's a release soon of libnl so distributions can pick up genl support. The idea with configfs is not to replace nl80211 but to simply provide an alternative. I believe this would be the right place to put any of these easy tunable values through a filesystem, which experimenters just love to use. Ironing all this will take some time. These types of discussions will help us in the end. Luis - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-wireless" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
