wds how-to?

[David Cornejo]

That brief description was a big help in itself, thank you.

One question: should the BSSID in the legacy mode be the same as the
MAC address of the main WDS node?  Or can it be a random number?

thanks,
dave c

On Wed, Mar 25, 2009 at 5:31 PM, Sam Leffler <sam at freebsd.org> wrote:
> David Cornejo wrote:
>>
>> Aloha,
>>
>> I'm trying to get WDS running - I am working my way through the stuff
>> in /usr/src/tools/tools/net80211/scripts, but it really only gives
>> examples and doesn't explain the why of it - is there a more verbose
>> how to somewhere that would help me understand this?
>>
>
> I've written nothing.  You say the "why" is missing but you don't ask any
> questions.
>
> There are 2 flavors of wds, legacy and dynamic.  The legacy stuff is trivial
> to setup;
>
> ifconfig wlan create wlandev ath0 wlanmode wds wlanbssid ... wdslegacy
>
> The bssid is the peer's mac address.  This is just a fixed 4-address conduit
> for frames.  There must be an ap vap already created.  You want to plumb the
> vap into a bridge or assign it an ip address and route (not sure about
> routing; I always use it bridged).
>
> Dynamic wds setup depends on whether you're on the ap side or the sta side;
> the scripts are the best examples.  The idea is you have a sta-ap
> association that carries 4-address traffic.  Because there's a full-blown
> association you get discovery, roaming, and security for free.  This is what
> you'll find in Apple's ap products though they've done a bunch of work to
> make it more production-quality.
>
> Note that wds is implemented above the drivers (modulo a bit of glue code).
>  ath is just one driver that supports wds, ral is another.
>
>   Sam
>
>