From: John D. Rowell (jdrowell_at_exerciseyourbrain.com)
Date: 2002-04-06 16:06:34 UTC
Hi list,
I'm trying out the new WDS functionality and am glad to say that some stuff already works fine here. Entering the other APs manually using iwpriv does create new wlanXwdsY interfaces, which can be configured (and bridged!), acting like direct channels between the two APs. My test scenario involves a total of 3 APs, 2 of which are standalone, and the other which is bridged to the ethernet network.
Now comes the funky part. I can ping most IPs in either wireless or wired networks (some take a bit to show up, probably related to the bridging), using any ICMP packet size (I tried several up to 30Kb). OTOH, any UDP or TCP seems to get truncated. DNS does not work, and trying to fetch a page using HTTP only retrieves the first 4Kb. Needless to say, things like ssh do not work due to this...
I'm getting lots of debug messages in the log files. Here's a sample from one of the APs (not connected to the wired network):
Apr 6 07:39:30 vaio kernel: wlan0: dropped received packet from
00:04:5a:cc:c8:
17 with no ToDS flag (type=0x02, subtype=0x00)
Apr 6 07:39:30 vaio kernel: wlan0: RX status=0x2000 (port=0, type=1,
fcserr=0)
silence=8 signal=123 rate=10 rxflow=0; jiffies=335821
Apr 6 07:39:30 vaio kernel: FC=0x0208 (type=2:0) dur=0x0000
seq=0x0860 data_
len=54 [FromDS]
Apr 6 07:39:30 vaio kernel: A1=01:80:c2:00:00:00
A2=00:04:5a:cc:c8:17 A3=00:
04:5a:cc:c8:17 A4=3c:3d:3e:3f:40:41
Apr 6 07:39:30 vaio kernel: dst=01:80:c2:00:00:00
src=00:04:5a:cc:c8:17 len=
54
Apr 6 07:39:32 vaio kernel: wlan0: dropped received packet from
00:50:8b:d0:36:
60 with no ToDS flag (type=0x02, subtype=0x00)
Apr 6 07:39:32 vaio kernel: wlan0: RX status=0x2000 (port=0, type=1,
fcserr=0)
silence=6 signal=192 rate=20 rxflow=0; jiffies=336024
Apr 6 07:39:32 vaio kernel: FC=0x0208 (type=2:0) dur=0x0000
seq=0x0f10 data_
len=54 [FromDS]
Apr 6 07:39:32 vaio kernel: A1=01:80:c2:00:00:00
A2=00:50:8b:d0:36:60 A3=00:50:8b:d0:36:60 A4=4c:4d:4e:4f:50:51
Apr 6 07:39:32 vaio kernel: dst=01:80:c2:00:00:00
src=00:50:8b:d0:36:60 len=
54
Apr 6 07:39:32 vaio kernel: wlan0: dropped received packet from
00:04:5a:cc:c8:
17 with no ToDS flag (type=0x02, subtype=0x00)
Apr 6 07:39:32 vaio kernel: wlan0: RX status=0x2000 (port=0, type=1,
fcserr=0)
silence=5 signal=120 rate=10 rxflow=0; jiffies=336025
Apr 6 07:39:32 vaio kernel: FC=0x0208 (type=2:0) dur=0x0000
seq=0x09c0 data_
len=54 [FromDS]
Apr 6 07:39:32 vaio kernel: A1=01:80:c2:00:00:00
A2=00:04:5a:cc:c8:17 A3=00:
04:5a:cc:c8:17 A4=72:73:74:75:76:77
Apr 6 07:39:32 vaio kernel: dst=01:80:c2:00:00:00
src=00:04:5a:cc:c8:17 len=
54
Apr 6 07:39:34 vaio kernel: wlan0: dropped received packet from
00:50:8b:d0:36:
60 with no ToDS flag (type=0x02, subtype=0x00)
Apr 6 07:39:34 vaio kernel: wlan0: RX status=0x2000 (port=0, type=1,
fcserr=0)
silence=5 signal=192 rate=20 rxflow=0; jiffies=336218
Apr 6 07:39:34 vaio kernel: FC=0x0208 (type=2:0) dur=0x0000
seq=0x1050 data_
len=54 [FromDS]
Apr 6 07:39:34 vaio kernel: A1=01:80:c2:00:00:00
A2=00:50:8b:d0:36:60 A3=00:
50:8b:d0:36:60 A4=41:42:43:44:45:46
Apr 6 07:39:34 vaio kernel: dst=01:80:c2:00:00:00
src=00:50:8b:d0:36:60 len=54
The MAC addresses after the "dropped received packet from" are always from one of the other two APs I'm WDSing with. A4 varies a lot (not only sequential octets). I've seen A4=68:65:3c:2f:54:54 and A4=70:3a:2f:2f:77:77, for instance. Also notice that "rate" is always 10 or 20. For some reason, the output from iwconfig always shows 2Mbps for me, even though I do get much faster transfers.
The cards in use are 2 WL100's and a Linksys. They work great either in STA or AP mode when WDS is not in use. I've also tried using TCP between two APs using WDS without any bridging going on and still get truncated transfers, although a "telnet <ip> chargen" seems to go on forever with no apparent loss of data.
I'd like to get this working so I can test its interoperability with OpenAP, although now the HostAP has WDS, I can simply make my own flash image with updated packages instead of using OpenAP on my SMC box.
Any advice from people who got WDS to work with UDP and TCP would be greatly appreciated.
On a separate issue, doesn't the fact that WDS works on a single channel create inter-AP interference?
Cheers,
jd