Go back –> ath6kl

ath6kl todo

Contents

Side cleanups
Addressing private commands
config cleanup
1. CONFIG_HOST_TCMD_SUPPORT
2. Random always set macros
AP Mode support using cfg80211
WiFi Direct

Side cleanups

Multi architecture support (64 bit)
Bi-endian support (big endian)

Addressing private commands

Luis is working on this. This section is going to be extended as time goes by. This section will provide recipes of what needs to get done.

Understanding how ath6kl uses private ioctls

The Linux kernel now uses cfg80211 for any new driver. cfg80211 takes care of wireless-extensions for older drivers, so drivers do not need to register their own wireless-extensions at all. Private wireless extensions also cannot be supported by design. This section documents what needs to get done to replace properly these older APIs to allow us to get the driver into proper placement into the Linux kernel.

This initial section will document how the private handlers are used in the driver and defined.

Typically with the older wireless-extensions drivers are allowed to use private wireless extensions. Wireless extensions essentially allowed the netdev to use some specific ioctl()s for wireless device manipulation. If the driver needed to use private definitions of their own (private commands) they would then define their own private handlers as part of wireless-extensions in a way similar to this:

const struct iw_handler_def prism54_handler_def = {
        .num_standard = ARRAY_SIZE(prism54_handler),
        .num_private = ARRAY_SIZE(prism54_private_handler),
        .num_private_args = ARRAY_SIZE(prism54_private_args),
        .standard = (iw_handler *) prism54_handler,
        .private = (iw_handler *) prism54_private_handler,
        .private_args = (struct iw_priv_args *) prism54_private_args,
        .get_wireless_stats = prism54_get_wireless_stats,
};

However ath6kl does not use of wireless-extensions private extensions... it makes use of the standard netdev ndo_do_ioctl callback as follows:

static struct net_device_ops ar6000_netdev_ops = {
    .ndo_init               = NULL,
    .ndo_open               = ar6000_open,
    .ndo_stop               = ar6000_close,
    .ndo_get_stats          = ar6000_get_stats,
    .ndo_do_ioctl           = ar6000_ioctl,
    .ndo_start_xmit         = ar6000_data_tx,
    .ndo_set_multicast_list = ar6000_set_multicast_list,
};

It is important to understand how ath6kl uses this ioctl in order to properly address how the private commands can be addressed. ar6000_ioctl() furthermore splits received ioctls into 3 categies:

Standard wireless-extensions commands
Private wireless-extensions
Some further extensions ath6kl calls xioctls...

Now each of these will only be allowed if and only if the respective secondary command passed was designed to operate on the current mode of operation.

standard private ioctls...

It is completely useless to support standard wireless-extensions piggy backed ontop of the generic netdev ioctl given that wireless-extensions already supports the standard wireless-extensions. This support should be removed.

private ioctls

Unfortunately there are 191 private commands in total and they are all scattered throughout "private ioctls" as we are used to them, or through xioctls which is a mechanism to enable even more ioctls. All of the commands are pretty scattered throughout the ath6kl netdev ioctl commands but for each and every one of these we need to evaluate as follows:

document what they do
who uses these?
do we really want to support them?
are these users comfortable in using debugfs for this?

We need to address each one and what we should do for cfg80211, so far, these seem to not be very generic, so for generic value get/set we should evaluate for example if we can just use debugfs. Whether we can or not use debugfs will be determined by who are the users of these commands.

General private commands

0 - IEEE80211_IOCTL_SETPARAM

This gets a parameter and an associated value which is desired to be set. Both are ints, and they are passed to ar6000_ioctl_setparam(). The parameters supported are:

For AP mode of operation:

IEEE80211_PARAM_WPA: can be WPA, WPA2, both WPA and WPA2, or none.
IEEE80211_PARAM_AUTHMODE:
IEEE80211_PARAM_UCASTCIPHER:
IEEE80211_PARAM_PRIVACY:
IEEE80211_PARAM_WAPI: See WAPI cfg80211 AP API – are there really customers / users of WAPI on AR6003 in AP mode?

For STA mode of operation:

IEEE80211_PARAM_WPA: this can be WPA_AUTH, WPA2_AUTH, NONE_AUTH
IEEE80211_PARAM_AUTHMODE: this can be IEEE80211_AUTH_[WPA_PSK|WPA_CCKM]. For WPA_PSK this will be WPA_PSK_AUTH or WPA2_PSK_AUTH. For WPA_CCKM this will be WPA2_AUTH_CCKM or WPA_AUTH_CCKM.
IEEE80211_PARAM_UCASTCIPHER: this can be AES_CRYPT, TKIP_CRYPT, WEP_CRYPT, NONE_CRYPT
IEEE80211_PARAM_UCASTKEYLEN: the length of the unicast key length
IEEE80211_PARAM_MCASTCIPHER: this can be AES_CRYPT, TKIP_CRYPT, WEP_CRYPT, NONE_CRYPT
IEEE80211_PARAM_MCASTKEYLEN: the length of the multicast key length
IEEE80211_PARAM_COUNTERMEASURES: used for configuring the TKIP countermeasures.

1 - IEEE80211_IOCTL_SETKEY

XXX: Read code.

2 - IEEE80211_IOCTL_DELKEY

XXX: Read code.

3 - IEEE80211_IOCTL_SETMLME

XXX: Read code.

4 - IEEE80211_IOCTL_ADDPMKID

XXX: Read code.

5 - IEEE80211_IOCTL_SETOPTIE

XXX: Read code.

6 - IEEE80211_IOCTL_GETPARAM unused

XXX: Read code.

7 - IEEE80211_IOCTL_SETWMMPARAMS unused

XXX: Read code.

8 - IEEE80211_IOCTL_GETWMMPARAMS unused

XXX: Read code.

9 - IEEE80211_IOCTL_GETOPTIE unused

XXX: Read code.

10 - IEEE80211_IOCTL_SETAUTHALG unused

XXX: Read code.

10 - IEEE80211_IOCTL_LASTONE

XXX: Read code. Yes 10... again. This is not documented, gotta read the code.

WMI commands

11 - AR6000_IOCTL_WMI_GETREV

XXX: Read code.

12 - AR6000_IOCTL_WMI_SETPWR

XXX: Read code.

13 - AR6000_IOCTL_WMI_SETSCAN

XXX: Read code.

14 - AR6000_IOCTL_WMI_SETLISTENINT

XXX: Read code.

15 - AR6000_IOCTL_WMI_SETBSSFILTER

XXX: Read code.

16 - AR6000_IOCTL_WMI_SET_CHANNELPARAMS

XXX: Read code.

17 - AR6000_IOCTL_WMI_SET_PROBEDSSID

XXX: Read code.

18 - AR6000_IOCTL_WMI_SET_PMPARAMS

XXX: Read code.

19 - AR6000_IOCTL_WMI_SET_BADAP

XXX: Read code.

20 - AR6000_IOCTL_WMI_GET_QOS_QUEUE

XXX: Read code.

21 - AR6000_IOCTL_WMI_CREATE_QOS

XXX: Read code.

22 - AR6000_IOCTL_WMI_DELETE_QOS

XXX: Read code.

23 - AR6000_IOCTL_WMI_SET_SNRTHRESHOLD

XXX: Read code.

24 - AR6000_IOCTL_WMI_SET_ERROR_REPORT_BITMASK

XXX: Read code.

25 - AR6000_IOCTL_WMI_GET_TARGET_STATS

XXX: Read code.

26 - AR6000_IOCTL_WMI_SET_ASSOC_INFO

XXX: Read code.

27 - AR6000_IOCTL_WMI_SET_ACCESS_PARAMS

XXX: Read code.

28 - AR6000_IOCTL_WMI_SET_BMISS_TIME

XXX: Read code.

29 - AR6000_IOCTL_WMI_SET_DISC_TIMEOUT

XXX: Read code.

30 - AR6000_IOCTL_WMI_SET_IBSS_PM_CAPS

XXX: Read code.

31 - AR6000_IOCTL_EXTENDED

This is used as nasty hack to allow the driver to expose more than 30 private ioctls on the netdev data structure. Further sub commands make use of the next x bits (XXX: review how many bits was used).

xioctls

Linux wireless-extensions only supports 30 private ioctls. The supported way to add more ioctls was to use subioctls, instead ath6kl decided to redefine the concept of subioctls but on the netdev ioctl... It accomplishes this by defining an extended ioctl command which is also mapped as follows:

/*
 * There is a very small space available for driver-private
 * wireless ioctls.  In order to circumvent this limitation,
 * we multiplex a bunch of ioctls (XIOCTLs) on top of a
 * single AR6000_IOCTL_EXTENDED ioctl.
 */
#define AR6000_IOCTL_EXTENDED                (SIOCIWFIRSTPRIV+31)

Below we categorize them. It seems we can likely just move these knobs to debugfs. An evaluation needs to be done to determine if users of these APIs would be happy in using debugfs.

BMI commands

1 - AR6000_XIOCTL_BMI_DONE

2 - AR6000_XIOCTL_BMI_READ_MEMORY

3 - AR6000_XIOCTL_BMI_WRITE_MEMORY

4 - AR6000_XIOCTL_BMI_EXECUTE

5 - AR6000_XIOCTL_BMI_SET_APP_START

6 - AR6000_XIOCTL_BMI_READ_SOC_REGISTER

7 - AR6000_XIOCTL_BMI_WRITE_SOC_REGISTER

8 - AR6000_XIOCTL_BMI_TEST

Historical Host-side DataSet support

9 - AR6000_XIOCTL_UNUSED9

10 - AR6000_XIOCTL_UNUSED10

11 - AR6000_XIOCTL_UNUSED11

Misc Extended Ioctls

12 - AR6000_XIOCTL_FORCE_TARGET_RESET

HTC Raw Interface ioctls

13 - AR6000_XIOCTL_HTC_RAW_OPEN

14 - AR6000_XIOCTL_HTC_RAW_CLOSE

15 - AR6000_XIOCTL_HTC_RAW_READ

16 - AR6000_XIOCTL_HTC_RAW_WRITE

17 - AR6000_XIOCTL_CHECK_TARGET_READY

GPIO Extended ioctls

18 - AR6000_XIOCTL_GPIO_OUTPUT_SET

19 - AR6000_XIOCTL_GPIO_INPUT_GET

20 - AR6000_XIOCTL_GPIO_REGISTER_SET

21 - AR6000_XIOCTL_GPIO_REGISTER_GET

22 - AR6000_XIOCTL_GPIO_INTR_ACK

23 - AR6000_XIOCTL_GPIO_INTR_WAIT

More wireless commands

24 - AR6000_XIOCTL_SET_ADHOC_BSSID

25 - AR6000_XIOCTL_SET_OPT_MODE

26 - AR6000_XIOCTL_OPT_SEND_FRAME

27 - AR6000_XIOCTL_SET_BEACON_INTVAL

28 - IEEE80211_IOCTL_SETAUTHALG

29 - AR6000_XIOCTL_SET_VOICE_PKT_SIZE

30 - AR6000_XIOCTL_SET_MAX_SP

31 - AR6000_XIOCTL_WMI_GET_ROAM_TBL

32 - AR6000_XIOCTL_WMI_SET_ROAM_CTRL

33 - AR6000_XIOCTRL_WMI_SET_POWERSAVE_TIMERS

34 - AR6000_XIOCTRL_WMI_GET_POWER_MODE

Why not just use the standard commands?!

35 - AR6000_XIOCTRL_WMI_SET_WLAN_STATE

36 - AR6000_XIOCTL_WMI_GET_ROAM_DATA

37 - AR6000_XIOCTL_WMI_SETRETRYLIMITS

Radio test commands

38 - AR6000_XIOCTL_TCMD_CONT_TX

39 - AR6000_XIOCTL_TCMD_CONT_RX

40 - AR6000_XIOCTL_TCMD_PM

More random commands

41 - AR6000_XIOCTL_WMI_STARTSCAN

42 - AR6000_XIOCTL_WMI_SETFIXRATES

43 - AR6000_XIOCTL_WMI_GETFIXRATES

44 - AR6000_XIOCTL_WMI_SET_RSSITHRESHOLD

45 - AR6000_XIOCTL_WMI_CLR_RSSISNR

46 - AR6000_XIOCTL_WMI_SET_LQTHRESHOLD

47 - AR6000_XIOCTL_WMI_SET_RTS

48 - AR6000_XIOCTL_WMI_SET_LPREAMBLE

49 - AR6000_XIOCTL_WMI_SET_AUTHMODE

50 - AR6000_XIOCTL_WMI_SET_REASSOCMODE

51 - AR6000_XIOCTL_WMI_SET_WMM

52 - AR6000_XIOCTL_WMI_SET_HB_CHALLENGE_RESP_PARAMS

53 - AR6000_XIOCTL_WMI_GET_HB_CHALLENGE_RESP

54 - AR6000_XIOCTL_WMI_GET_RD

55 - AR6000_XIOCTL_DIAG_READ

56 - AR6000_XIOCTL_DIAG_WRITE

57 - AR6000_XIOCTL_WMI_SET_TXOP

58 - AR6000_XIOCTL_USER_SETKEYS

59 - AR6000_XIOCTL_WMI_SET_KEEPALIVE

60 - AR6000_XIOCTL_WMI_GET_KEEPALIVE

ROM Patching ioctls

61 - AR6000_XIOCTL_BMI_ROMPATCH_INSTALL

62 - AR6000_XIOCTL_BMI_ROMPATCH_UNINSTALL

63 - AR6000_XIOCTL_BMI_ROMPATCH_ACTIVATE

64 - AR6000_XIOCTL_BMI_ROMPATCH_DEACTIVATE

More wireless stuff

65 - AR6000_XIOCTL_WMI_SET_APPIE

66 - AR6000_XIOCTL_WMI_SET_MGMT_FRM_RX_FILTER

67 - AR6000_XIOCTL_DBGLOG_CFG_MODULE

68 - AR6000_XIOCTL_DBGLOG_GET_DEBUG_LOGS

69 - undefined

not sure why this happened

70 - AR6000_XIOCTL_WMI_SET_WSC_STATUS

Bluetooth commands

71 - AR6000_XIOCTL_WMI_SET_BT_STATUS

ar6000_xioctl_set_bt_status_cmd()

72 - AR6000_XIOCTL_WMI_SET_BT_PARAMS

ar6000_xioctl_set_bt_params_cmd()

more random stuff

73 - AR6000_XIOCTL_WMI_SET_HOST_SLEEP_MODE

WoW ioctls

74 - AR6000_XIOCTL_WMI_SET_WOW_MODE

75 - AR6000_XIOCTL_WMI_GET_WOW_LIST

76 - AR6000_XIOCTL_WMI_ADD_WOW_PATTERN

77 - AR6000_XIOCTL_WMI_DEL_WOW_PATTERN

More commands

78 - AR6000_XIOCTL_TARGET_INFO

79 - AR6000_XIOCTL_DUMP_HTC_CREDIT_STATE

80 - AR6000_XIOCTL_TRAFFIC_ACTIVITY_CHANGE

This ioctl is used to emulate traffic activity timeouts. Activity/inactivity will trigger the driver to re-balance credits.

81 - AR6000_XIOCTL_WMI_SET_CONNECT_CTRL_FLAGS

82 - AR6000_XIOCTL_WMI_SET_AKMP_PARAMS

This IOCTL sets any Authentication, Key Management and Protection related parameters. This is used along with the information set in Connect Command. Currently this enables Multiple PMKIDs to an AP.

83 - AR6000_XIOCTL_WMI_GET_PMKID_LIST

84 - AR6000_XIOCTL_WMI_SET_PMKID_LIST

This IOCTL is used to set a list of PMKIDs. This list of PMKIDs is used in the [Re]AssocReq Frame. This list is used only if the MultiPMKID option is enabled via the AR6000_XIOCTL_WMI_SET_AKMP_PARAMS IOCTL.

85 - AR6000_XIOCTL_WMI_SET_PARAMS

86 - AR6000_XIOCTL_WMI_SET_MCAST_FILTER

87 - AR6000_XIOCTL_WMI_DEL_MCAST_FILTER

88 - undefined

not sure why

89 - undefined

not sure why

90 - AR6000_XIOCTL_UNUSED90

Historical DSETPATCH support for INI patches

91 - AR6000_XIOCTL_BMI_LZ_STREAM_START

Support LZ-compressed firmware download

92 - AR6000_XIOCTL_BMI_LZ_DATA

93 - AR6000_XIOCTL_PROF_CFG

94 - AR6000_XIOCTL_PROF_ADDR_SET

95 - AR6000_XIOCTL_PROF_START

96 - AR6000_XIOCTL_PROF_STOP

97 - AR6000_XIOCTL_PROF_COUNT_GET

98 - AR6000_XIOCTL_WMI_ABORT_SCAN

AP mode

99 - AR6000_XIOCTL_AP_GET_STA_LIST

100 - AR6000_XIOCTL_AP_HIDDEN_SSID

101 - AR6000_XIOCTL_AP_SET_NUM_STA

102 - AR6000_XIOCTL_AP_SET_ACL_MAC

103 - AR6000_XIOCTL_AP_GET_ACL_LIST

104 - AR6000_XIOCTL_AP_COMMIT_CONFIG

105 - IEEE80211_IOCTL_GETWPAIE

106 - AR6000_XIOCTL_AP_CONN_INACT_TIME

107 - AR6000_XIOCTL_AP_PROT_SCAN_TIME

108 - AR6000_XIOCTL_AP_SET_COUNTRY

109 - AR6000_XIOCTL_AP_SET_DTIM

110 - AR6000_XIOCTL_WMI_TARGET_EVENT_REPORT

111 - AR6000_XIOCTL_SET_IP

112 - AR6000_XIOCTL_AP_SET_ACL_POLICY

113 - AR6000_XIOCTL_AP_INTRA_BSS_COMM

114 - AR6000_XIOCTL_DUMP_MODULE_DEBUG_INFO

115 - AR6000_XIOCTL_MODULE_DEBUG_SET_MASK

116 - AR6000_XIOCTL_MODULE_DEBUG_GET_MASK

117 - AR6000_XIOCTL_DUMP_RCV_AGGR_STATS

118 - AR6000_XIOCTL_SET_HT_CAP

119 - AR6000_XIOCTL_SET_HT_OP

120 - AR6000_XIOCTL_AP_GET_STAT

121 - AR6000_XIOCTL_SET_TX_SELECT_RATES

122 - AR6000_XIOCTL_SETUP_AGGR

123 - AR6000_XIOCTL_ALLOW_AGGR

124 - AR6000_XIOCTL_AP_GET_HIDDEN_SSID

125 - AR6000_XIOCTL_AP_GET_COUNTRY

Huh?

126 - AR6000_XIOCTL_AP_GET_WMODE

127 - AR6000_XIOCTL_AP_GET_DTIM

128 - AR6000_XIOCTL_AP_GET_BINTVL

129 - AR6000_XIOCTL_AP_GET_RTS

130 - AR6000_XIOCTL_DELE_AGGR

131 - AR6000_XIOCTL_FETCH_TARGET_REGS

132 - AR6000_XIOCTL_HCI_CMD

133 - AR6000_XIOCTL_ACL_DATA

134 - AR6000_XIOCTL_WLAN_CONN_PRECEDENCE

135 - AR6000_XIOCTL_AP_SET_11BG_RATESET

136 - AR6000_XIOCTL_WMI_SET_AP_PS

137 - AR6000_XIOCTL_WMI_MCAST_FILTER

More BT coex

138 - AR6000_XIOCTL_WMI_SET_BTCOEX_FE_ANT

See ar6000_xioctl_set_btcoex_fe_ant_cmd()

139 - AR6000_XIOCTL_WMI_SET_BTCOEX_COLOCATED_BT_DEV

See ar6000_xioctl_set_btcoex_colocated_bt_dev_cmd()

140 - AR6000_XIOCTL_WMI_SET_BTCOEX_BTINQUIRY_PAGE_CONFIG

See ar6000_xioctl_set_btcoex_btinquiry_page_config_cmd()

141 - AR6000_XIOCTL_WMI_SET_BTCOEX_SCO_CONFIG

See ar6000_xioctl_set_btcoex_sco_config_cmd()

142 - AR6000_XIOCTL_WMI_SET_BTCOEX_A2DP_CONFIG

See ar6000_xioctl_set_btcoex_a2dp_config_cmd()

143 - AR6000_XIOCTL_WMI_SET_BTCOEX_ACLCOEX_CONFIG

See ar6000_xioctl_set_btcoex_aclcoex_config_cmd()

144 - AR6000_XIOCTL_WMI_SET_BTCOEX_DEBUG

See ar60000_xioctl_set_btcoex_debug_cmd()

145 - AR6000_XIOCTL_WMI_SET_BT_OPERATING_STATUS

See ar6000_xioctl_set_btcoex_bt_operating_status_cmd()

146 - AR6000_XIOCTL_WMI_GET_BTCOEX_CONFIG

See ar6000_xioctl_get_btcoex_config_cmd()

147 - AR6000_XIOCTL_WMI_GET_BTCOEX_STATS

See ar6000_xioctl_get_btcoex_stats_cmd()

More random stuff on wireless

148 - AR6000_XIOCTL_WMI_SET_QOS_SUPP

149 - AR6000_XIOCTL_GET_WLAN_SLEEP_STATE

150 - AR6000_XIOCTL_SET_BT_HW_POWER_STATE

151 - AR6000_XIOCTL_GET_BT_HW_POWER_STATE

152 - AR6000_XIOCTL_ADD_AP_INTERFACE

153 - AR6000_XIOCTL_REMOVE_AP_INTERFACE

154 - AR6000_XIOCTL_WMI_SET_TX_SGI_PARAM

155 - 160 undefined

not sure why

some last command

AR6000_XIOCTL_WMI_SET_EXCESS_TX_RETRY_THRES 161

Android

Android needs to be changed to use standard APIs, see this Android changes section.

config cleanup

CONFIG_HOST_TCMD_SUPPORT

This requires some special firmware and will vary depending on the revision of the chipset.

AR6003_REV1_VERSION –> AR6003_REV1_TCMD_FIRMWARE_FILE
AR6003_REV2_VERSION –> AR6003_REV2_TCMD_FIRMWARE_FILE

It seems this does not actually affect the WMI API other firmware so why not just remove the ifdef and keep the code in place. The only use I see for the config option is that it enables a module parameter testmode which if set then it will load the test firmware. This can likely be kept for now, even for proper placement in the Linux kernel.

Random always set macros

This can be remove and the code that makes sense left in place.

ccflags-y += -DLINUX -DKERNEL_2_6
ccflags-y += -DTCMD
ccflags-y += -DSEND_EVENT_TO_APP
ccflags-y += -DUSER_KEYS
ccflags-y += -DNO_SYNC_FLUSH
ccflags-y += -DHTC_EP_STAT_PROFILING
ccflags-y += -DATH_AR6K_11N_SUPPORT
ccflags-y += -DWAPI_ENABLE
ccflags-y += -DCHECKSUM_OFFLOAD
ccflags-y += -DWLAN_HEADERS
ccflags-y += -DINIT_MODE_DRV_ENABLED
ccflags-y += -DBMIENABLE_SET
...
#if WIRELESS_EXT < 18

AP Mode support using cfg80211

No one is working on this yet.

WiFi Direct

No one is working on this yet