Re: [current] hostap+wi

On Sun, Jul 06, 2003 at 09:40:38AM +0900, M. Warner Losh wrote:
> In message: <20030705221335.GC66426_at_sunbay.com>
>             Ruslan Ermilov <ru_at_freebsd.org> writes:
> : On Sat, Jul 05, 2003 at 04:48:09PM -0400, David Gilbert wrote:
> : [...]
> : > The hostap machine is 4.8-STABLE and the client is 5.1-RELEASE.
> : > 
> : One nice thing about the hostap is that bridge(4) works with wi(4)
> : that is in hostap mode.  Does anybody know if only Intersil cards
> : have the hostap mode, or some Prism's also do?
> 
> Intersil and Prism are the same thing.  Prism 2, 2.5 and 3 cards have
> Intersil firmware.  There are some cards based on prism chipsets that
> have Symbol firmware, but those are rare.  The wavelan/lucent/orinoco
> firmware doesn't support a hostap mode, but there are add-ins that
> give ap functionality.
> 
Uh sorry, it was very late in the night here; of course I meant Lucent
chipsets when asking if they also support host-ap mode.  What are
these add-ins you're talking about?

I'm mostly interested in the bridge(4) functionality.

As I understand, to do briding, the card should be able to send
frames with arbitrary MAC addresses, and when not in host-ap mode,
Lucent based chipsets do not allow this (i.e., you see with
tcpdump(1) that packets is written to wi0 interface, but the other
end doesn't receive the frame).  What surprises me here, is that
these same cards appear to work (by forwarding arbitrary Ethernet
frames) when inserted into Lucent-based APs.  Does anyone have a
valid explanation to this?  Is this an artificial limitation on
these cards to limit their commercial use, or am I missing an
obvious?


Cheers,
-- 
Ruslan Ermilov		Sysadmin and DBA,
ru_at_sunbay.com		Sunbay Software Ltd,
ru_at_FreeBSD.org		FreeBSD committer