Getting wi(4) cards talking between -stable & -current ???

[Soeren Schmidt]

It seems Greg Troxel wrote:
>   ifconfig wi0 media DS/11Mbps mediaopt ibss-master

That works, but:

>   on 5.x use:
> 
>   ifconfig wi0 media DS/11Mbps mediaopt adhoc

sos# ifconfig wi0 media DS/11Mbps mediaopt adhoc
ifconfig: SIOCSIFMEDIA (mediaopt): Device not configured

something is fishy here, on 4.x I just ifconfig'd the IP# and that
was it, then at some point adhoc mode was no longer default and
I have to add a 'wicontrol -p 3' to get things to work...

> So, it looks like in 5.x (and NetBSD current, I think), 'adhoc' means
> IBSS.  But there is the issue of 'creating' an IBSS.  As I understand
> the spec, some node has to 'create' the IBSS by starting to send
> beacons, and then other nodes will join, and then send beacons.  So
> the IBSS (assuming full connectivity) can persist even among nodes
> that are not creating the IBSS.   But, if one wishes to operate this
> way among arbitrary nodes, it seems that the right thing to do is to
> have all nodes perform the creation.
> 
> With Lucent cards, I have found that it isn't necessary to do anything
> special to make then join an IBSS as a non-creator.  Regular mode (old
> '-p 1') would associate with a real BSS (AP) or an IBSS.  But, with a
> netgear MA401, I found that I had to use '-p 0' to join an IBSS.  I
> also found that these nodes could create an IBSS.

I have no idea really, not an expert in these matters, however it still
works between two 4.x machines but not between 4.x and 5.x (dont
know if it works between 2 5.x machines as thats not possible here
without ripping a 7/24 server apart...

-Søren