For the sake of sanity, I think that the way rules from wireless-regdb
are enforced needs to be changed. An example:
country US:
(5170 - 5250 @ 40), (3, 17)
(5250 - 5330 @ 40), (3, 20), DFS
In this case, you will see that I have removed all of the rules that I
do not intend to cite to lower the complexity of the ruleset.
Take for example, channel 48, center frequency 5240. A standard 20 mhz
mode will work as expected, as well as HT40-, however HT40+ cannot be
set because it would need to cross the rule boundary. Each line of a
regulatory domain section is enforced by itself. Channel 52 has a
similiar problem where 20 and HT40+ work but HT40- will not.
As this specific example includes frequencies in the DFS range, you can
obviously see why no one has noticed this failing before. The obviously
expected result is that if two rules abut and a channel is requested
that stradles them, it should take the most restrictive mix between the
two. For instance, if I set channel 48 in HT40+ mode (and we have DFS
support) the rule would be enforced as (3, 17), DFS; while HT40- would
be enforced as the standard (3, 17).
Does this make sense? Right now each rule line is being treated as an
island, and any adjacent rules are ignored. Due to this narrow field of
vision, the proper way to rewrite the above rule is as follows:
country US:
(5170 - 5260 @ 40), (3, 17)
(5240 - 5330 @ 40), (3, 20), DFS
This of course has it's own obvious problem of allowing people to use 48
HT40+ without DFS or allowing people to use 52 HT40- at 20dBm. Not to
mention what happens if we set channel 50 because it would fall into
both rules as it has a center frequency of 5250. Of course in this
example the point is moot because channel 50 isn't allocated anywhere in
the world but the introductions of 5 and 10mhz channels (which are
allowed in the 802.11j standard) may cause some settings that would span
between multiple rules.
The only proper way to fix this is to change the enforcement to view the
entire regdomain and not just enforce one line at a time. so that we can
use legal settings like 48 HT40+ and 52HT40- (presuming we meet the DFS
requirement). I realize that this is currently completely pointless as
we _in fact_ do not support DFS, but this is going to be a problem and I
would like to see it properly resolved so I can stop writing overlapping
rules (which are at best a HACK and at worst clearly allowing people to
break the law).
Thank you for your consideration.
-Rick Farina
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