Hi Alex, > > 3. coordinator (any $TYPE specific) userspace software > > > > May the main argument. Some coordinator specific user space daemon > > does specific type handling (e.g. hostapd) maybe because some library > > is required. It is a pain to deal with changing roles during the > > lifetime of an interface and synchronize user space software with it. > > We should keep in mind that some of those handlings will maybe be > > moved to user space instead of doing it in the kernel. I am fine with > > the solution now, but keep in mind to offer such a possibility. > > > > I think the above arguments are probably the same why wireless is > > doing something similar and I would avoid running into issues or it's > > really difficult to handle because you need to solve other Linux net > > architecture handling at first. > > Yep. The spec makes a difference between "coordinator" and "PAN coordinator", which one is the "coordinator" interface type supposed to picture? I believe we are talking about being a "PAN coordinator", but I want to be sure that we are aligned on the terms. > > > > You are mixing things here with "role in the network" and what > > > > the transceiver capability (RFD, FFD) is, which are two > > > > different things. > > > > > > I don't think I am, however maybe our vision differ on what an > > > interface should be. > > > > > > > You should use those defines and the user needs to create a new > > > > interface type and probably have a different extended address > > > > to act as a coordinator. > > > > > > Can't we just simply switch from coordinator to !coordinator > > > (that's what I currently implemented)? Why would we need the user > > > to create a new interface type *and* to provide a new address? > > > > > > Note that these are real questions that I am asking myself. I'm > > > fine adapting my implementation, as long as I get the main idea. > > > > > > > See above. > > That's okay for me. I will adapt my implementation to use the > interface thing. In the mean time additional details about what a > coordinator interface should do differently (above question) is > welcome because this is not something I am really comfortable with. I've updated the implementation to use the IFACE_COORD interface and it works fine, besides one question below. Also, I read the spec once again (soon I'll sleep with it) and actually what I extracted is that: * A FFD, when turned on, will perform a scan, then associate to any PAN it found (algorithm is beyond the spec) or otherwise create a PAN ID and start its own PAN. In both cases, it finishes its setup by starting to send beacons. * A RFD will behave more or less the same, without the PAN creation possibility of course. RFD-RX and RFD-TX are not required to support any of that, I'll assume none of the scanning features is suitable for them. I have a couple of questions however: - Creating an interface (let's call it wpancoord) out of wpan0 means that two interfaces can be used in different ways and one can use wpan0 as a node while using wpancoord as a PAN coordinator. Is that really allowed? How should we prevent this from happening? - Should the device always wait for the user(space) to provide the PAN to associate to after the scan procedure right after the add_interface()? (like an information that must be provided prior to set the interface up?) - How does an orphan FFD should pick the PAN ID for a PAN creation? Should we use a random number? Start from 0 upwards? Start from 0xfffd downwards? Should the user always provide it? - Should an FFD be able to create its own PAN on demand? Shall we allow to do that at the creation of the new interface? Thanks, Miquèl
