HostAP_Changelog

ChangeLog for Host AP driver for Intersil Prism2/2.5/3

2004-07-17 - v0.2.4 (beginning of 0.2.x stable releases)

• fixed wlan#/wifi# interface packet counters (both are supposed to see
  • data packets once; wlan# was counting TX twice and wifi# did not count TX or RX at all for most cases)
• fixed compilation with PRISM2_NO_STATION_MODES defined
• fixed MAC address changing to update address for wifi# interface
  • (without this, at least Master mode did not work correctly when MAC address was changed for wlan#)
• fixed inner-BSS bridge (ap_bridge_packets=1) not to bridge packets
  • to unauthorized ports when IEEE 802.1X/WPA is used (i.e., require that the STA completes authentication before capturing packets in the inner bridge); previously, only association status was used and an attacker could have capture packets to any MAC address even without having proper credentials for using the network (although, the packets were dropped because the controlled port for the STA was unauthorized)

2004-06-20 - v0.2.3

• merged CryptoAPI versions of WEP/TKIP/CCMP from the wireless-2.6

  • BitKeeper tree (not used by default, can be enabled by defining HOSTAP_USE_CRYPTO_API)

2004-05-31 - v0.2.2

• fixed a buffer overflow in TKIP encryption (hostap_crypt_tkip
  • module) on big endian hosts

2004-05-06 - v0.2.1

• allow hostapd to send encrypted frames using wlan#ap interface
• fixed get_key for TKIP to return the sequence number of the last
  • transmitted frame, not the seq# of the next frame
• added driver support for hostapd WPA Authenticator
• fixed TKIP get sequence number
• clear IFF_RUNNING and generate linkwatch events based on association
  • status in Managed mode
• added alternative TKIP implementation which uses Michael MIC
  • implementation in CryptoAPI instead of Host AP specific implementation
• fixed a bug in TKIP Phase1 key caching for the case when ICV
  • verification fails
• added support for RSN (IEEE 802.11i/WPA2)
• removed (or added rate limitation to) some of the printk debug
  • messages to reduce the size of the kernel log
• fixed byte order for CCMP packet number get/set

2004-02-15 - v0.2.0

• dropped support for Linux 2.2.x and old Linux 2.4.x kernels
  • (only the latest Linux 2.4.x and Linux 2.6.x versions are "officially supported", older version may work; Host AP v0.1.x branch can be used with older kernel versions)
• fixed WDS interface selection to not select non-WDS interface. This
  • fixes cases in which frames from not associated STAs were accepted because the driver thought it was a WDS frame. In addition, this meant that the STA was not notified about it not being associated and consequently, STA did not associate again (this could happen, e.g., after driver/AP restart).
• fixed hostap_cs unregistration when PC Card is removed while Host AP
  • interfaces are still up
• restructured Linux net device use to be more like IEEE 802.1q VLAN
  • (add a master IEEE 802.11 radio netdev (wifi#) and make all other devices virtual; only one netif queue is used; share all IEEE 802.11 handling for all packets using wlan#, wlan#ap, wlan#sta, wlan#wds# interfaces)
• cleaned up encryption to use separate function to encrypt skb's

• moved hardware independent TX code (Ethernet -> IEEE 802.11 header

  • conversion, etc.) into a separate file, hostap_80211_tx.c; most hardware independent generic code has now been moved away from hostap_hw.c
• disable wlan hardware when radio netdev (wifi#) is down (i.e.,
  • beacons will not be sent in Host AP mode and STA will not associate in Managed mode when this interface is down) (this used to be configurable option, but disabled by default)
• register wlan#sta interface only when assoc_ap_addr is configured
• remove prism2_params ptype, getptype, txpower, and gettxpower because
  • these can be replaced with iwpriv set_rid_word (with iwpriv reset 2), hostap_rid get, and iwpriv readmif/writemif
• fixed Shared Key authentication when using host_decrypt and kernel
  • driver based IEEE 802.11 management
• changed Host AP crypto modules to use skb's instead of raw data
  • buffer
• added crypto hooks for full MSDU encrypt/decrypt (or MIC/de-MIC) for
  • encryption algorithms like TKIP which calculates MIC over the full MSDU
• fixed RTS and Fragmentation thresholds to be restored after hw
  • reset
• modified reading of communications quality values (Managed and Ad-Hoc
  • modes): - read Prism2 values every 10 second and when get_wireless_stats()
    • is called in suitable (non-atomic) context

    - use new dBm CommsQuality RID when STA f/w version is 1.3.1 or newer

• fixed Managed/Ad-hoc mode authentication with Open System algorithm
  • when using old (e.g., version 0.6.2) STA firmware
• fixed iwspy support with Linux wireless ext v16 (previous version

  • caused kernel crashes and memory corruption due to local->spy_data not being in fixed offset from all dev->priv pointers anymore); only wlan# device should be used for spy entries because other devices will not receive statistics updates

• fixed IEEE 802.11 defragmentation when using host-based WEP
  • decryption and bridging packets between two associated STAs (this caused a kernel crash in dev_queue_xmit())
• support cards without firmware in flash memory by allowing
  • initialization to continue even if card reset times out (also useful to recover from corrupted primary firmware image)
• added workaround for fragmentation threshold setting for some cases
  • that returned to default value (fragmentation disabled)
• fixed STA specific RX statistics for Repeater mode
• changed last_rx_signal and _silence to use dBm

• use cnfDbmAdjust RID (STA f/w 1.3.1 or newer) to configure RSSI->dBm

  • conversion
• added driver support for WPA Authenticator/Supplicant:
  • - requires STA f/w 1.7.0 or newer - collect BSSID list (including WPA IE) in Managed mode - added new encryption algorithm: TKIP (hostap_crypt_tkip module)
    • (TKIP = Michael MIC and WEP with per-packet temporal keys)
    - added new encryption algorithm: CCMP (hostap_crypt_ccmp module)
    • (CCMP = AES-CCM, i.e., Counter with CBC-MAC)
    - added prism2_params for WPA use: wpa, privacy_invoked,
    • tkip_countermeasures, drop_unencrypted
    - added hostapd sub-ioctl for configuring generic IEEE 802.11

    • information element for Beacon/ProbeResp/(Re)AssocReq frames

    - note: to be useful, this needs additional user space daemon for
    • key management (WPA Supplicant/Authenticator)
• fixed a race condition in registering wlan#ap and receiving
  • management frames (this could cause kernel panic if a management frame was received before wlan#ap initialization was completed)
• added minimal support for ethtool (reporting of driver info and
  • firmware version)
• report WDS peer address when SIOCGIWAP is used on a WDS device
• do not show SSID for WDS devices (SIOCGIWESSID, SIOCSIWESSID)
• fixed iwpriv wds_add to allow addition of special pre-allocated WDS
  • interfaces with 00:00:00:00:00:00

2003-10-14 - v0.1.0

• fixed wlan#wds#, wlan#ap, and wlan#sta netdevice unregistration

  • with Linux 2.6.x by using dev->destructor to delaying the freeing of allocate memory area

• added PCI ID for Prism3 mini-PCI [hostap_pci]
• fixed yield() backward compatibility code for Linux 2.4.0 .. 2.4.18

• added support for 32-bit CommTallies (if STA f/w >= 0.8.2); these

  • do not wrap around as easily as 16-bit tallies and this should

    eliminate some InfDrop events during high load

• update counters used for /proc/net/hostap/wlan#/stats periodically

  • (every 10 seconds) even if there are no unsolicited CommTallies

• fixed CommTallies handling on big endian platforms

• added support for merging two srec file (Primary and Secondary(STA)
  • firmware) into one non-volatile (flash) download (both file names are given on prism2_srec command line)
• added support for volatile download of Primary firmware using
  • Genesis mode (this is available only for hfa3842; hfa3841, i.e., old Prism2 cards, require hardware changes for similar function) ('-g' command line option in prism2_srec)
• added support for Primary-only mode, i.e., let card be initialized
  • to minimal state if secondary image is not present; this mode allows downloading secondary image both to flash and RAM (this and/or Genesis mode can be used to fix cards that do not work due to incorrect/corrupted secondary image); enabled Primary download to flash since such operation does not anymore make cards unusable with the Host AP driver
• fixed failure handling in PCI probe not to crash kernel [hostap_pci]
• reduced verbosity of prism2_srec (use '-v' or '-vv' options to get
  • more details, if needed)
• merged hostap_crypt module into hostap module; Note: old
  • hostap_crypt module should be removed since it prevents loading of the new hostap module
• separated different components (driver, hostapd, and utils) into
  • their own tarballs; new versions the these tarballs can be released separately in the future
• fixed inactivity polling of stations that are in power saving mode
  • (this worked with hostapd, but was broken when kernel-based 802.11 management was used)
• modified scanning (in Managed mode; iwlist wlan0 scan) to use

  • HostScan request if firmware supports it (STA f/w >= 1.3.1); improved scan result reporting (both SIOCGIWSCAN and /proc/net/hostap/wlan#/scan_results use the latest scan results); reduced debug messages in kernel log for scanning since all information is now available through better interfaces; generate "Scan request completed" iwevents even when host_roaming=0

• added persistent mode for volatile download (keep firmware data in
  • kernel memory and automatically download images to the card in case of hw_reset; without this, card would return to the firmware images that are stored in flash); this mode is enabled by adding '-p' flag to prism2_srec command line when loading primary and secondary firmware into RAM
• added support for sending interim accounting updates to RADIUS
  • Accounting server (hostapd.conf: radius_acct_interim_interval)

2003-07-27 - v0.0.4

• moved non-hardware specific RX code from hostap_hw.c into a new file,
  • hostap_80211_rx.c and removed Prism2 RX descriptor dependency from hostap_ap.c
• fixed number of compilation issues (RH9 kernel, *.mod files to local
  • directory, 2.4.x compilation with CONFIG_MODVERSIONS, external pcmcia-cs)
• removed extra tasklet that was used with TX callback handler
• update basic rate set automaticallyt when changing supported rate set
• fixed compilation without Linux Wireless Extensions
  • (CONFIG_NET_RADIO) (this is not recommended, but should work now; it will limit driver functionality)
• use less aggressive transmit rate decreasing algorithm
• fixed inactivity expiration of stations using power saving mode
• fixed sending of IEEE 802.1X frames to buffer them if STA is in power
  • saving mode
• removed backward compatibility code for Linux Wireless Extensions
  • versions older than ver 9
• added module parameter 'dev_template' for setting the device name
  • template (default: 'wlan%d'); this is for hostap_{cs,pci,plx}.o
• changed monitor mode to use pseudo-IBSS mode instead of Host AP mode

  • to avoid sending out Beacon and ProbeResp frames

• fixed enh_sec setting (hide SSID) to reset Port0 so that the changes
  • to the beacon are taken into use immediately
• added support for selection which authentication algorithm to use
  • in station mode (prism2_param 'ap_auth_algs', 1 = open system, 2 = shared key (requires WEP), 3 = both, default) (ap_auth_algs was previously used only in AP/Master mode, but it is now also used for STA mode configuration)
• added support for manual scan and roaming mode (managed/ad-hoc);
  • prism2_param host_roaming 2; this disabled automatic IEEE 802.11 scans and gives more control to user space programs using Linux wireless extensions (see 'Roaming in station mode' section in README file for more information)
• process beacon frames in kernel driver even when hostapd is used
  • (this updates AP tables and allows automatic WDS link generation)
• removed TX power controlling (iwconfig txpower) since the
  • experimental algorithm in the driver did not include any feedback from the measured TX power and could allow TX power values that cause interference or signal quality issues; now only txpower 'off' and 'auto' are allowed. TX power controlling will be returned after proper algorithm using feedback loop has been implemented.

2003-05-18 - v0.0.3

• redesigned RADIUS client implementation
  • - share same client code for all Authentication and Accounting
    • functionality
    - support retransmission - support multiple servers
• redesigned configuration of hostapd vs. kernel driver management
  • - include support for hostapd operations in all builds, i.e., do
    • not require PRISM2_HOSTAPD definition
    - support for both kernel side and hostapd management is included in
    • the default build (kernel code will be used automatically, if hostapd is not running)
    - kernel implementation (hostap_ap.c) of IEEE 802.11 management can
    • be removed by defining PRISM2_NO_KERNEL_IEEE80211_MGMT
    - new prism2_param for setting hostapd mode (hostapd will
    • automatically use this)
    - wlan#ap interface will be created only when in hostapd mode and it
    • will be removed when disabling this mode

• fixed a race condition in local->event_loop vs. IntEn register

  • read/write (fixes a kernel hang caused by interrupt loop)

• fixed a race condition in local->hw_ready/hw_resetting writes and

  • event unmasking to resolve some issues with card resets during heavy traffic load
• fixed number of problems with hw reset during high traffic load
• disable shared interrupts during COR sreset to avoid host system
  • crashes
• modified encryption configuration _not_ to reset Port0 when in
  • Managed mode to avoid looping with some IEEE 802.1X Authenticators (port reset causes Prism2 to re-authenticate (IEEE 802.11))
• simplified build process for Linux 2.4.x and Linux 2.5.x:
  • 'make' and 'make install' (as root) can be used to build and install modules for all support hardware versions
• updated hostap_cs module for new Linux 2.5 pcmcia API

• fixed MOD_{INC,DEC}_USE_COUNT use (do not use them when driver is

  • compiled into the kernel)
• use longer timeout values for command and BAP busy to avoid some
  • timeout issues (firmware seems to be still alive in some cases, where previous version of the driver would report a timeout error and abort the operation)
• fixed WDS links to accept frames when IEEE 802.1X PAE is used
  • (however, please do note that bridging WDS interfaces with no or minimal encryption together with an interface using dynamic, individual keys will weaken the security of the system)

2003-05-03 - v0.0.2

• fixed iwconfig 'rate' command to change supported rates element
  • in beacon frames
• added support for setting basic rate set with new prism2_param
  • 'basic_rates' and operational rates with 'oper_rates'
• added support for new AVS (linux-wlan-ng) monitoring header
  • (patch from Gerald Britton)
• fixed TX rate controlling for Repeater/WDS mode
• fixed power saving mode updating on PS Poll frames
• optimized AP management frame handling by removing not anymore needed
  • RX packet queue since AP code is not called in hw IRQ context anymore
• added support for wireless extensions v16 iwspy operations (based on
  • patch from Jean Tourrilhes)
• improved hostapd event logging (stdout and/or syslog)
• fixed Linux 2.2.x compatibility code for monitor mode with Prism2
  • headers (monitor_type 1)
• fixed CRC-16 (signature stamp) generation in prism2_srec (this is
  • needed for writing flash upgrade)
• added support for non-volatile download, i.e., flash upgrade
  • (based on patch from Pavel Roskin) Note! This has _not_ yet been tested thorougly and the current version of code should not be used unless you are prepared to facing corrupted flash and killed cards.. The code is commented out in default build and can be enabled by defining PRISM2_NON_VOLATILE_DOWNLOAD.
• fixed IEEE 802.11 defragmentation when using host-based WEP
  • decryption (this caused a kernel crash in netif_rx())
• fixed host-based WEP decryption not to leave 8 extra octets in the
  • end of the frame
• added support for IEEE 802.11 Shared Key Authentication when using
  • hostapd (new hostapd.conf field 'auth_algs' for configuring supported algorithms)
• fixed race condition in get/set RID operations that seemed to have
  • caused BAP timeouts and RID read failures (e.g., 'RID len mismatch' on get_rid and problems with host_roaming)
• fixed automatic WDS addition to schedule a process context task for
  • registering the new device to avoid crashing kernel
• added automatic WDS link addition on reception of 4-addr WDS frame
  • from unknown transmitter (if autom_ap_wds is set)
• fixed handling of non-WDS frames from a STA in 'AP client' mode
  • (do not assume that they are bogus WDS frames if STA has associated)
• added support for Session-Timeout Attribute in RADIUS messages
  • (both IEEE 802.11 ACL and IEEE 802.1X)

2003-04-05 - v0.0.1

• added support for IEEE 802.11 standard compliant WDS (4 addresses)
  • frames for Host AP mode - this requires station firmware version 1.5.x or newer - standard compliant vs. bogus 3-addr format can be selected with
    • bit2 of prism2_param wds_type; it is automatically enabled, if station firmware is version 1.5.0 or newer
• added new prism2_param 'hostscan' for requesting scanning of APs and
  • IBBSs from all channels; this requires STA f/w 1.3.1 or newer; in Master mode, this command moves to Managed mode for a second to perform to scan, so normal AP functionality is disturbed; at the moment, the results are shown only in the kernel ring buffer ('dmesg')
• added experimental version of passive AP scanning functionality for
  • Host AP mode: - driver can be instructed to scan other channels passively, i.e.,
    • by listening to beacon frames from other APs
    - prism2_param 'ap_scan' is used to set the interval (in seconds)
    • between scan attempts on different channels; 0 = passive scanning disabled (default)
    - prism2_param 'other_ap_policy' should be set to at least 1
    • (2 or 3 would probably be more useful) in order to record the found APs
    - changing channels will cause some disturbance on normal
    • functionality and using very small values of ap_scan is not recommended

• added new procfs file /proc/net/hostap/<device>/ap to provide

  • compact information about other APs found (other_ap_policy must be set for this)
• added support for TX callbacks
  • - driver code can register callback that will receive status of
    • selected TX frame (i.e., whether they were ACKed or not)
    - modified AP management to mark stations authenticated/associated
    • only after they have acknowledged the response frame (previously, stations were marked auth/assoc when sending the frame)
• moved a lot of code from hardware interrupt context to tasklets
  • (software IRQ) - RX, Info, TX and TX Exc event handling is now in tasklets instead
    • of performing data copying and all computation in hardware IRQ handler (this includes host-based decryption)
    - this should make the driver behave better especially with low
    • performance CPUs that might have lost interrupts and systems that need timely IRQ delivery for other devices
    - AP code in hostap_ap.c is from now never called in hard IRQ
    • context, so lighter spinlocks can be used; most of the other code can also use lighter locks (e.g., with baplock)
    - as an extra bonus, RX code path is now more readable than before
• added new kernel patch for including Host AP driver into Linux 2.5.47
  • - new kernel configuration items for selecting hostapd and firmware
    • download support
• added station (Managed/Ad-hoc) mode support for promiscuous mode and
  • multicast frames (using promiscuous mode with kernel side packet filtering); Note! This is currently commented out due to problems with various station firmware versions.
• modified Host AP (Master) mode to honor TX rate configuration
  • (e.g., 'iwconfig wlan0 rate 11M')
• fixed kernel AP management code to change station status from AP to
  • STA when no beacons have been received from the AP for some time and a station using same hwaddr tries to authenticate with us
• fixed monitor mode setting with the old, now deprecated, interface
  • (iwpriv wlan0 monitor #)
• changed Buffer Access Path (BAP) usage
  • - use only one BAP (BAP0) for all wlan card memory access (RX, TX,
    • info frame, configuration)
    - there have been lot of problems with using two BAPs concurrently
    • even though hardware should support it; in addition, PCI Prism2.5 has a known problem that would require sleeping for some time between BAP0 and BAP1 accesses (with recommended workaround to use only one BAP)

    - from now on, BAP accesses are fully protected with local->baplock

    • and this should remove all issues related to concurrent (or "almost concurrent") BAP0/BAP1 accesses
    - very experimental PCI bus mastering code is still using BAP1, but
    • it is not enabled in default configuration (and anyway, it has not even been tested with the latest versions of the driver)
• added SIOCSIWSCAN ('iwlist wlan0 scan') support also to Host AP mode
• updated EAPOL state machines to use IEEE 802.1aa/D4
  • (note! order of EAP Success and EAPOL-Key packets has been reverted back to IEEE 802.1x due to compatibility problems with WinXP Supplicant)
• added support for WEP rekeying into hostapd (IEEE 802.1x)
• added preliminary (and so far minimal) support for IEEE 802.11f
  • (IAPP) to hostapd
• added preliminary support for RADIUS Accounting to hostapd
• added preliminary support for station functionality into hostapd:
  • - associate as a client to another AP while simultaneously operating
    • as an AP (must use same channel as the other AP)
    - hostapd can wait for beacons from one AP (command line argument -C)
    • and then authenticate and associate with it
    - new netdevice (wlan#sta) will be used for data frames to and from
    • this BSS
    - this link can be used instead of WDS link, e.g., to extend range
    • of an AP or to remove need for wired uplink; however, client connection does _not_ support layer 2 bridge operations (i.e., IP routing or ProxyARP must be used)
    - Note! Simultaneous client operation seems to work with station
    • firmware version 0.6.2, 0.7.6, and 0.8.0, but not with 1.?.?. With new firmware versions, promiscuous mode can be used to work around this ('iwpriv wlan0 set_rid_word 64645 1')
• added '-B' command line argument for hostapd to fork it into
  • a background process
• moved hostapd configuration from command line arguments into a
  • configuration file (see hostapd/hostapd.conf for an example)
• added hostapd configuration file reloading on SIGHUP (not yet fully
  • implemented)
• added hostapd support for MAC address based ACLs in IEEE 802.11
  • authentication - accept/deny lists in configuration file - optional query to external RADIUS Authentication server
    • (User-Name and User-Password are set to station MAC address; default format (RADIUS_ADDR_FORMAT in hostapd/radius.h has no delimiters and uses lower case hex characters, e.g., 00123456789a (= 00:12:34:56:78:9a); this shares the same RADIUS server configuration with IEEE 802.1X
• added support for S3 firmware info records that span multiple lines
  • and for multiple variant,bottom,top triplets (prism2_srec)
• added new prism2_param 'enh_sec' for hiding SSID in beacon frames
  • and ignoring clients configured with "ANY" (broadcast) SSID (note: this requires STA f/w ver 1.6.3 or newer)
• added a workaround for STA f/w version 1.6.3 (and possibly other
  • 1.6.x or newer) to operate in Host AP mode
• fixed TX rate controlling and statistics gathering for WDS links that
  • are generated manually (i.e., not based on received beacon) and for AP client mode; this should improve WDS performance for cases where the maximum rate seemed to be 1 or 2 Mbps

2002-10-12

• added utils/hostap_diag tool for showing diagnostics information
  • about wireless LAN card - moving debugging related code from kernel driver to user space - this replaces previously used
    • /proc/net/hostap/wlan#/{rids,unknown_rids}
    - replaces utils/dump_mmi_dev0_status (hostap_diag -b wlan#)
• added configuration option for TX/RX antenna selection
  • - prism2_param antsel_tx and antsel_rx - 0 = do not touch (default), 1 = use antenna diversity,

    • 2 = force AntSel Low, 3 = force AntSel High

• changed monitor mode configuration style
  • - 'iwconfig wlan0 mode monitor' (this requires wireless tools
    • versions 25 or newer) is now used to setup monitor mode

    - 'prism2_param wlan0 monitor_type <0/1>' configures which headers

    • are included (0 = IEEE 802.11, 1 = Prism2 + IEEE 802.11)

    - old method 'iwpriv wlan0 monitor <2/3>' is now implemented as a

    • wrapper for iwconfig mode command to provide backward compatibility (however, iwpriv command 'monitor' is now deprecated and it may be removed in the future versions)
• changed host_encrypt default in Host AP mode to be based on the
  • station firmware version; f/w 1.4.9 seems to fix a bug that prevented firmware-based WEP encryption (although, decryption was working) to be used in Host AP mode; from now on, this can be configured with prism2_param also when using Host AP mode; the default is to use firmware-based encryption if f/w version is 1.4.9 or newer
• added new WDS frame options:
  • - new prism2_param wds_type bitmap:
    • bit0: 0 = use unicast RA/BSSID for broadcast/multicast frames to
      • WDS link 1 = use broadcast RA/BSSID for broadcast/multicast frames
        • (Note! Prism2 firmware has limitations on this)
      bit1: AP client mode - if AP client mode is enabled and device is
      • in Managed mode (i.e., associated to an AP), driver accepts 4-addr WDS frames from current AP. In addition, outgoing frames that have a foreign source address in the Ethernet header are sent using 4-addr WDS frame to the AP. This allows station mode to perform layer 2 bridgeing. Please note, that due to firmware limitations Host AP in Master mode cannot operate with such station.
• fixed ap_bridge_packets to send broadcast/multicast packets back to
  • wireless interface only in Master mode

2002-09-12

• hostapd improvements: implemented ioctl() for controlling kernel
  • driver from hostapd; this version is able to add stations (and flush list on exit/startup) and remove expired stations so operations with user space handling of management frames is starting to be usable
• cleaned up RX and TX paths by moving AP related operations from
  • prism2.c into prism2_ap.c
• added new monitor mode 3 (like mode 2, but also include linux-wlan-ng
  • style Prism2 header and use ARPHRD_IEEE80211_PRISM) and removed monitor mode 1 (netlink) - new libpcap and Ethereal knows how to use device with type
    • ARPHRD_IEEE80211_PRISM so netlink version is not needed anymore for getting signal levels and rate
    - removed prism2ethereal since Ethereal can directly capture packets
    • with Prism2 header
    - netlink mode did not fully support more than one interface
• fixed couple of bugs causing timeouts while setting RID (TIM) in
  • power saving mode with PRISM2_USE_CMD_COMPL_INTERRUPT
• record SSID and channel of the monitored APs and show it in procfs
  • file
• fixed AP data expiration (timer was not initialized)
• cleanup of TX buffering for power saving stations:
  • - got rid of 'struct sta_buffer_frame' and use kernel routines for
    • queueing skb instead
    - use prism2_tx() to send buffered frames instead of using copied

    • code in prism2_ap.c (skb->cb is used to indicate that the packet was buffered)

• fixed WEP with PS stations (buffered frames were not encrypted
  • before)
• added optional defines for removing unneeded parts of the driver
  • (e.g., to limit the size of the kernel module); see the end of prism2_config.h for more information; defining all PRISM2_NO_* defines seem to reduce module size about 30% on Intel x86 platforms
• added generic callback function to make it easier to add platform
  • specific operations, like activity led blinking, without needing to change Host AP driver source code. If PRISM2_CALLBACK is defined, external file, hostap_callback.c, is included and it must define prism2_callback() that will be called on events like card enable/disable and RX/TX.
• converted wireless extension ioctls to new API (based on patch from
  • Jean Tourrilhes)

• added support for wireless events (wireless ext >= 14)

  • - IWEVTXDROP, SIOCGIWAP, SIOCGIWSCAN (Jean Tourrilhes)

    - IWEVREGISTERED, IWEVEXPIRED (wireless ext >= 15)

• improved AP scanning support:

  • - moved ScanResult debug messages into

    • /proc/net/hostap/wlan#/scan_results

    - send wireless SIOCGIWSCAN event when receiving ScanResult info

    • frame

    - added SIOCSIWSCAN and SIOCGIWSCAN for wireless extensions ver >= 13

    • (i.e., 'iwlist scan' can be used to perform AP scanning; currently only in station modes) (based on patch from Jean Tourrilhes)
• added support for host-based roaming decision for Managed mode
  • (default is to use firmware-based roaming; use new prism2_param 'host_roaming' to enable driver-based selection)

• added support for SIOCSIWAP (iwconfig wlan0 ap <preferred AP BSSID>)

  • when using host_roaming (this can be used to implement user space roaming daemon (scan request with SIOCSIWSCAN, get results using SIOCGIWSCAN, and select AP with SIOCSIWAP)
• fixed a bug in AP management queue handling (noticed by
  • Tiebing Zhang) - if AP management frame queue had more than one item, only the last
    • one was processed; other items were dropped with memory leak
• fixed priv ioctls wds_add, wds_del, addmac, delmac, and kickmac to

  • use copy_from_user() when referencing wrq->u.data.pointer

• added support for wireless extensions sub-ioctls
  • - an optional replacement for prism2_param wrapper

    - these are included for WIRELESS_EXT >= 15 or if

    • PRISM2_USE_WE_SUB_IOCTLS is defined (WIRELESS_EXT >= 12 is required in any case)

    - new iwpriv version is required (ver 25 or higher; older versions
    • segfault due to long private ioctl list)
• added support for IW_PRIV_TYPE_ADDR (replace old 18*char with user

  • space parsing of MAC address). This requires iwpriv ver >= 25. This will be automatically included for WIRELESS_EXT >= 15; defining PRISM2_USE_WE_TYPE_ADDR will force this to be used even with older WIRELESS_EXT versions.

• added detection for interrupt delivery problems (enabled only for
  • hostap_cs.o)
• added PCI suspend/resume support to hostap_pci.o (patch from
  • Gerald Britton)
• added support for changing MAC address (also BSSID in Host AP mode)

  • with 'ifconfig wlan0 hw ether <new addr>'

• added WDS support for non-Host AP modes and IEEE 802.11 compliant
  • 4 address frame - removed PRISM2_STA_HAS_NO_HOSTAP_WDS_BUG define and include code
    • for both IEEE 802.11 standard compliant WDS frame with 4 addresses and "bogus" format with 3 addresses in the header and 4th after payload
    - RX of both WDS formats seems to work in all modes - Host AP mode cannot send standard compliant WDS frames so it uses
    • own format; other modes try to send standard compiliant WDS frames
    - some station firmware versions seems to be able to send valid WDS
    • frames in pseudo ad-hoc mode, but some versions zero addr3 (= DA)
    - setting porttype to WDS seems to allow sending correct addr3 - started to use 'Repeater' mode as WDS (i.e., 'iwconfig wlan0 mode
    • Repeater'); this seems to be the best choice for WDS links needing standard compliant frame format
• modularized encryption/decryption support
  • - redesigned WEP code to allow easy addition of other algorithms as
    • loadable kernel modules; new module, hostap_crypt.o is used to register these modules and it will be used by hostap_{cs,plx,pci}.o; modprobe should be able to load this automatically after depmod has been run; use 'make crypt' to build encryption related modules (they will be installed with 'make install_{pccard,plx,pci}')
    - moved WEP implementation from hostap_{cs,plx,pci}.o into
    • hostap_crypt_wep.o; this is _not_ loaded automatically and it will need to be loaded before WEP can be used (e.g., from the script that sets the keys)
    - added support for key mappings, i.e., individual keys for each
    • station
    - added new prism2_param 'bcrx_sta_key' for selecting whether
    • individual is used also for broadcast frames (IEEE 802.11 specifies that it is not used and this is the default)
    - added a tool, utils/hostap_crypt_conf, for setting encryption
    • algorithms and individual keys (iwconfig can still be used to setup default WEP keys)
    - fixed host_decrypt to not accept unencrypted frames unless open_wep
    • is set
• module structure reorganization
  • - moved prism2_ap.c, prism2_ioctl.c, prism2_proc.c, and some
    • functions from prism2.c into new hostap.o module that exports symbols shared by hostap_{cs,plx,pci}.o; more will probably follow later so that hostap_{cs,plx,pci}.o will end up having only code that is hardware model dependent
    - renamed all exported functions to use hostap_ prefix in their names
• renamed /proc/net/prism2 directory to /proc/net/hostap and fixed
  • concurrent use of different hostap_{cs,plx,pci}.o modules to use the same directory instead of making two directories with the same name
• renamed driver/prism2.mk to driver/hostap.mk, driver/modules/prism2_*
  • to driver/modules/hostap_*, and driver/modules/prism2.c to driver/modules/hostap_hw.c, i.e., use 'hostap' prefix with all file names
• redesigned command completion waiting
  • - do not use busy waiting - use a driver queue for pending commands to guarantee string order
    • and serialization of the commands; if command queue is empty, new commands will be issued immediately, otherwise the pending commands will be issued from command completion event of the previous command
    - use command completion event (interrupt) for all commands
    • (previously this was only used for transmit command)
    - remove PRISM2_USE_CMD_COMPL_INTERRUPT definition (there is no
    • alternative version for busy waiting to keep the code cleaner)
    - hfa384x_cmd() can from now on only be called from user context;
    • it will sleep (instead of busy waiting) for the command completion event (wake up from interrupt handler); same limit applies to get_rid/set_rid
    - hfa384x_callback() is a new method for performing commands, both
    • from user and interrupt context; it registers a callback function that will be called when the command has finished; this cleans up transmit and bus mastering code a lot
    - HW reset (prism2_hw_reset) cannot be called from interrupt context
    • anymore (these calls are replaced with scheduled task that calls prism2_hw_reset() from user context
    - AP's TIM setting has been replaced with scheduled task and a queue
    • of entries to be set to avoid using set_rid from interrupt context
• modified (kernel driver) AP code to send management frames using
  • netif queue to make sure that TX operations are not used concurrently; this should fix some problems with high load cases; this also means, that management frames are _not_ anymore sent unless device is UP (i.e., no auth/assoc happens before device is set up; however, beacons and probe responses are sent if the device is enabled)
• added support for TMD7160-based National Datacomm NCP130
  • (PCI ID 15e8:0131) to hostap_plx.o
• fixed iwpriv readmif and writemif on big endian platforms
• added IEEE 802.1X support:
  • - Port access entity (in the kernel driver) control authorized/
    • unauthorized port access
    - Authenticator in hostapd user space daemon (kernel driver needs
    • to be compiled with EXTRA_CFLAGS=-DPRISM2_HOSTAPD)
    - minimal authentication server included in hostapd for test use
    • (does not check any keys etc.)
    - support for external authentication server using RADIUS (e.g.,

    • FreeRadius and EAP/TLS)

    - automatic WEP key setting for default/broadcast and individual
    • unicast keys

• changed TXEXC RetryErr debug logging to be configurable (default:

  • do not print); this can be set with bit2 (= 4) of prism2_param 'dump'
• improved ordering of debug printing in auth/assoc frame handlers to
  • avoid spending too much time before replying the message and causing

    failed auth/assoc (TXEXC RetryErr)

2002-05-19

• fixed dev_name setting for Linux 2.2 systems using hostap_cs.o
• fixed odd length BAP transfer with hostap_cs.o and hostap_plx.o
• added initial version of experimental firmware download support.
  • This is not included in default compilation (enabled by defining PRISM2_DOWNLOAD_SUPPORT in prism2_config.h): - /proc/net/prism2/wlan#/pda for accessing PDA - volatile (i.e., RAM) download is implemented and can be used to
    • load tertiary firmware image into the card
    - non-volatile (i.e., flash) download is not yet implemented - user space tool (utils/prism2_srec) for downloading images
• removed old packet injection code and inject utility (it did not
  • support more than one interface and wlan0ap can be used for injecting packets)

2002-05-16

• fixed a kernel crash with hostap_cs.o if no valid cftable entries
  • were found
• fixed a kernel panic with hostap_cs.o if PC Card was removed when
  • netdevice was UP (there were two problems, one new and one quite old); from now on, if the netdevice is UP when PC Card is removed (or 'cardctl eject' is run), the driver will not finish shutdown routines before the netdevice is set down
• fixed 104-bit WEP key setup for firmware-based encryption
  • (firmware seems to require that all keys must be set to the same keylength, from now on, the keylength of default TX key is used; host driver based WEP does not have this kind of limitation)
• cleaned up BAP setup and copy functions
• changed baplock to use spin_lock_irqsave() instead of spin_lock_bh()
  • and take baplock also during BAP1 setup to prevent some concurrency problems and packet corruption/card timeouts
• added experimental support for PCI bus mastering (hostap_pci.o)
  • - this code is very experimental and may not work on all platforms
    • (Intersil does not support bus mastering in current hardware/ firmware version and this implementation is based on guesses and experiments)
    - initial tests seems to indicate that host CPU load drops from
    • about 40-45% to 5-10% when using bus mastering while sending or receiving data at about maximum throughput (6 Mbps)
    - bus mastering is not enabled on default compilation; it can be
    • enabled by defining PRISM2_BUS_MASTER in driver/modules/prism2_config.h
    - RX path seems to work quite fine, but TX path has problems for
    • which there is a workaround (PRISM2_ENABLE_BEFORE_TX_BUS_MASTER); in addition, TX side does not yet implement full locking for BAP0 (e.g., configuration changes during packet transmit can cause packet corruption, etc. problems)
    - new prism2_param values 'bus_master_threshold_rx' and
    • 'bus_master_threshold_tx' can be used to control which frames are copied using bus mastering (if frame payload is equal to or larger than threshold, bus mastering will be used; if threshold is set to larger than maximum packet length, e.g., 5000, no frames will use bus mastering)
• added support for Bridge-Tunnel encapsulation and clarified
  • snap_header usage (RFC1042) based on IEEE 802.1H (mainly for IPX support)

2002-05-02

• converted module parameters to array format (e.g., channel=1,5,9)
  • to allow multiple cards to be configured with different values; the first value is used as the default if other values are not present; this is used only with hostap_pci.o and hostap_plx.o (hostap_cs.o uses only the first value for all cards since PC Cards can be removed/added quite freely)
• added new module parameters: other_ap_policy, ap_max_inactivity,
  • ap_bridge_packets, autom_ap_wds
• added support for delayed MAC port enable (until netdev UP) and
  • automatic port disable (on netdev DOWN). These may be enabled with module parameters 'delayed_enable' and 'disable_on_close' (i.e., default: 0 = do not use)
• improved station inactivity timeout handling
  • - one timer per station instead of timer per AP (no need for
    • periodic searches through station list)
    - simplified timeout handling code - poll station with data frame (and check if it is ACKed), before
    • trying to disassociate the station (Windows 2000 and Windows XP report disassociation bit too loudly..)
• removed couple of unneeded spin locks from txfid handling (TX path
  • should be a bit faster than before)
• fixed couple of potential concurrency problems with
  • PRISM2_USE_CMD_COMPL_INTERRUPT; however, it is still not used in the default compilation due to some issues with BAP usage on SMP platforms
• added support for MAC address-based restrictions on station
  • authentication - based on patch from Benedikt 'Hunz' Heinz, Hans Freitag, and

    • Håkan Lennestal <Hakan.Lennestal@brfsodrahamn.se>

    - new iwpriv commands:

    • maccmd <val>:

      • 0 = open policy (default), 1 = allow policy, 2 = deny policy, 3 = flush MAC list, 4 = kick all authenticated stations

    • addmac <MAC addr>

    • delmac <MAC addr>

    • kickmac <MAC addr>

    - new proc file /proc/net/prism2/wlan0/ap_control
• added optional host decryption
  • - new prism2_params: host_encrypt and host_decrypt - if host_decrypt is set, station firmware is instructed not to
    • decrypt received frames and the driver takes care of that whenever it gets a frame with ISWEP flag
    - host decryption (and encryption) can be used to overcome
    • performance problems with slow WEP handling on some Prism2 cards; in addition, it may be used for 104-bit WEP even if the station firmware/card does not support it
    - host_encrypt can be used to force host encryption in other than
    • Host AP mode (Host AP mode uses host encryption regardless of this parameter)
• changed TX path to use command completion interrupt instead of busy
  • waiting after transmit command as the default compilation option (old behavior can be returned by commenting out '#define PRISM2_USE_CMD_COMPL_INTERRUPT' in driver/modules/prism2_config.h)

2002-04-24

• fixed a bug in hostap_pci.o and hostap_plx.o uninitialization
  • (incorrect order of proc entry removal could cause kernels crashes)
• fixed some compilation problems
• added optional method for compiling hostap_cs.o outside pcmcia-cs
  • tree even when not using kernel-tree PCMCIA modules (PCMCIA_PATH needs to be set in Makefile)
• fixed endianness issues with hostap_pci.o on PowerPC platforms
• fixed kernel crash on Linux 2.2 platform

2002-04-21

• added support for Prism2.5-based native PCI cards and PC Cards
  • in PLX9052-base PCI adapters - new module names (to avoid duplicates with linux-wlan-ng):
    • PC Card version: hostap_cs.o PCI version for Prism2.5: hostap_pci.o PLX version: hostap_plx.o
    - please note, that /etc/pcmcia/prism2.conf is renamed to
    • hostap_cs.conf and you may need to manually remove old prism2.conf from /etc/pcmcia
• fixed BAP setup problems (BAP0 and BAP1 cannot apparently be setup
  • correctly, even though they can be used concurrently for reading/writing) - this removes at least some corruption problems (e.g., "no SNAP?"
    • messages)
    - this fixes some card hangs (which would usually cause
    • "hfa384x_setup_bap - timeout3" messages)
• re-organized driver source code (see driver_source.txt for details)
• do not allow "Any" (i.e., zero-len) SSID to be set when in Host AP
  • mode (this seems to kill the card)
• fixed byte order bugs in SIOCSIWMODE, SIOCSIWFREQ, and SIOCSIWRATE
  • handlers (affecting big endian platforms)
• fixed WEP configuration to return valid configuration after card
  • reset

2002-04-13

• fixed compilation on Linux 2.2 kernels
• 'iwpriv wlan0 reset 2' performs port reset
  • (disable and enable port 0)
• added support for shared key authentication (this requires WEP);
  • allowed authentication algorithms can be configured with

    'prism2_param wlan0 ap_auth_algs <val>': 0: none (no authentication will succeed), 1: only open, 2: only shared key, 3: open or shared key (default)

• added new prism2_param 'monitor_allow_fcserr' to control whether
  • frames with FCS errors are passed to user space monitor (default: FCS errors are dropped)
• fixed packet sending with WEP in non-Host AP modes

• take nick name (iwconfig wlan0 nick <name>) into use by resetting

  • the port and save it in driver for possible card resets (this is used in diagnostics programs, like ORiNOCO Client Manager's link test to identify AP)

2002-04-10

• fixed compilation with older Linux wireless extension versions
  • (at least version 9 is now required for most wireless extensions)
• kernel driver AP functionality code cleanup
• try to send broadcast deauthentication frames when shutting down
• use smaller default inactivity timeout with stations (5 min)
• send disassociation when 3/4 of inactivity timeout has passed and
  • deauthentication when full timeout has passed
• added support for WEP in Host AP mode
  • - card firmware is used to decrypt frames (it seems to work fine) - encryption is performed in host driver since firmware does not
    • seem to want to encrypt frames correctly when in Host AP mode
    - use 'restricted' as default WEP mode instead of 'open' - WEP keys are saved in driver data, so SIOCGIWENCODE is now
    • returning real values and not the bogus values firmware returned
    - 40-bit and 104-bit WEP seems to now be working properly in Host AP
    • mode (both with stations and with WDS links); (note that if 104-bit WEP is used, station firmware on AP must support 104-bit WEP in order to decrypt frames)
• fixed a bug in fake-WDS frame generation
  • - if payload len was odd, the addr4 was broken in RX frames
• drop RX packets that have ToDS flag but wrong BSSID and RX packets
  • that have FromDS flag (these frames are usually broadcast/multicast frames in other BSSes)

2002-04-07

• fixed a bug in fake-WDS frame generation
  • - if payload len was odd, the last byte was broken when adding
    • fourth address to the end of the buffer
• use 8 (was 16) pre-allocated TX buffers to free RAM on Wireless LAN
  • card
• added preliminary (not yet fully operational) version of use space
  • daemon to handle management frames instead of kernel driver; this version of the kernel driver includes code for both methods and previously used driver-based handling of management frames is the default (PRISM2_HOSTAPD definition is used to enable user space daemon); management frames are sent using new netdevice wlan#ap between kernel and user spaces; user space daemon is in new hostapd subdirectory
• implemented optimized code path for transmit command use
  • - use command completion interrupt instead of busy waiting for
    • transmit command completion; i.e., replace even 150 usec busy wait per TX frame with one interrupt
    - prism2_transmit() is devided into two parts; the first one
    • (prism2_transmit) executes transmit command and the second part (prism2_cmd_ev) consists of code that was previously run after the busy wait in prism2_transmit()
    - this code is not yet thoroughly tested, so the previous method
    • using busy waiting is still the default one; new version can be enabled by uncommenting PRISM2_USE_CMD_COMPL_INTERRUPT definition in prism2.c
• stop/wake all used netdevices (i.e., also the WDS devices) when
  • stopping a queue because there is no more room for new packets

2002-04-05

• implemented radio (both RX and TX) enable/disable to iwconfig
  • 'txpower' command ('iwconfig wlan0 txpower off' to turn radio off and 'iwconfig wlan0 txpower auto' to turn in on)

• added 'iwpriv wlan0 writemif <CR*2> <value>' command (see HFA386x

  • baseband processor datasheet (http://www.intersil.com/data/FN/FN4/ FN4856/FN4856.pdf) for information about configuration registers)

• private ioctl() (used with iwpriv) reorganization:
  • - replaced separate private ioctls with one generic routine to save
    • ioctl numbers
    - some ioctl numbers were changed; from now on, PRISM2_IOCTL_*
    • definitions in prism2_wlan.h should be used

    - new command 'iwpriv wlan# prism2_param <param#> <value>' - changed 'iwpriv wlan# ...':

    • 'ptype <value>' -> 'prism2_param 1 <value>' 'txratectrl <value>' -> 'prism2_param 2 <value>' 'beacon_int <value>' -> 'prism2_param 3 <value>' 'pseudo_ibss <value>' -> 'prism2_param 4 <value>' 'alc <value>' -> 'prism2_param 5 <value>' 'txpower <value>' -> 'prism2_param 6 <value>' 'dump <value>' -> 'prism2_param 7 <value>'

    - new configurable parameters:
    • 8: other AP policy for received beacon handling:
      • 0 = skip all beacons, 1 = accept beacons with our SSID, 2 = accept beacons from all APs, 3 = accept all beacons (even from IBSS) (default 0)
      9: AP max station inactivity time in seconds
      • (default 1800 seconds = 30 minutes)
      10: AP bridge packets directly between associated stations (0 or 1)
      • (default 1=yes)
      11: DTIM period (default 1) 12: data::nullfunc ACK workaround
      • (default 1 with STA f/w 0.8.0 and 0 otherwise)
      13: max number of WDS connections (default 16) 14: automatic WDS connections for neighboring APs
      • (default 0 = do not add automatically)
    - added utils/prism2_param: a wrapper for 'iwpriv wlan# prism2_param'
    • command (shows usage information when run without any arguments; allows symbolic names to be used for setting parameters)
• new module parameters:
  • 'beacon_int': initial beacon interval (1 = 1024 usec), default 100 'dtim_period': DTIM period, i.e., number of beacon intervals between
    • successive delivery traffic identification maps (DTIMs), used for power saving and multicast/broadcast delivery, default 1 (this was previously always hardcoded to 3)
• optimizations to interrupt handling:
  • - masked TX events since they cause an extra interrupt for each TX
    • frame and Alloc event can be used to increment tx_packets counter (old behavior can be restored by defining PRISM2_USE_TX_INTERRUPT)
    - use WTERR (Wait Time-out) only if final_version is not defined - removed DTIM and Tick event handling since they were not used for
    • anything (and DTIM event would require AP f/w anyway)
    - these changes should make the interrupt handler somewhat faster
    • and reduce the number of interrupts; this should help especially on platforms with low performance and/or high interrupt latency
• fixed HW shutdown not to disable HFA384x just after sreset (it would
  • not succeed) or when the card is going to be enabled immediately (e.g., reset after timeout).
• converted workaround for data::nullfunc ACKs with stations using PS
  • mode to be run-time configurable (previously, it was set with compile time definition PRISM2_NULLFUNC_ACK); current default is to use this workaround with station firmware version 0.8.0, but rely on firmware on all other versions; 'iwpriv wlan0 prism2_param 12 1' can be used to enable this workaround with other versions
• AP now rejects nullfunc frames with no ToDS flag from not associated
  • stations to speed up re-association after AP restart (this seems to help at least when stations are using Lucent firmware; previously, these frames were silently dropped)

• fixed prism2_rx() to decrease sta->users on couple of error

  • conditions
• fixed prism2_interrupt() to first check whether hardware is ready
  • before trying to reset the card in order to avoid bogus initialization when using 'cardctl eject'
• added preliminary WDS (wireless distribution system) support
  • - this is loosely based on driver modifications done by

    • Simon Barber <simon@instant802.com> of Instant802 Networks Inc. for AP-AP mesh used in OpenAP project (http://opensource.instant802.com/)

    - the driver can now parse received beacon frames and keep records
    • about neighboring APs (similarily to associated stations)

    - 'other AP policy' ('iwpriv wlan# prism2_param 8 <val>', see above)

    • is used to select, which beacons are processed

    - WDS connections can be added with 'iwpriv wlan# wds_add <other end

    • hwaddr>' and removed with similar wds_del command. hwaddr 00:00:00:00:00:00 can be used as a special address to pre-allocate netdevices. These entries are used when adding the real WDS link, e.g., when a new AP is detected. Pre-allocated devices can be included in a bridging configuration and set into UP state before knowing the real AP address.

    - each WDS connection creates a new netdevice (wlan0wds0,
    • wlan0wds1, ..) and every frame received from that WDS connection is seen coming from that device and not wlan0; all frames destined to the WDS connection, are to be sent to the corresponding netdevice (either by using a proper routing table entry or bridging configuration)
    - /proc/net/prism2/wlan#/wds lists configured WDS connections
    • (device name and remote end hwaddr)
    - WDS frames use 4-address 802.11 frames which allow the original
    • source and destination hwaddresses to be preserved over the connection; Note! Due to a bug in Prism2 station firmware real IEEE 802.11 frame format cannot be used in Host AP mode. This version of the driver uses a bit different (i.e., incompatible) format in which the fourth address is sent after the frame payload to overcome this problem. In other words, this works only if the other end knows how to use this kind of frames. The frame format should be identical to one used in OpenAP project. ode for using real format is present in prism2.c, but it is commented out since there is no working version of the station firmware available.
    - new prism2_param parameter 13 is used to set maximum number of
    • allowed WDS connections (i.e., it can be set during normal operations)
    - new prism2_param parameter 14 is used to control whether WDS
    • connections are automatically established for neighboring APs (removing these entries automatically when AP information expires does not work in this version, i.e., the entries need to be

      removed manually with 'iwpriv wlan0 wds_del <addr>')

• added support for setting retry limit manually, e.g., with
  • 'iwconfig wlan0 retry 3'); initially, driver uses firmware defaults and this mode can be restored by setting retry value to -1; value 0 means that packets are sent only once (i.e., 0 retries)

2002-03-27

• use larger command and BAP busy timeouts (some cards seemed to
  • timeout these even though operation would have succeeded a bit later)
• fixed various byte order bugs (problems on big endian machines)
  • in iwpriv command handlers
• fixed four address (WDS) data frame handling in 'iwpriv wlan0
  • monitor 2' mode
• fixed a bug in 'iwpriv wlan0 monitor' changed: ether_setup() changes
  • various netdevice fields and these were not restored correctly; this could, among other things, cause module use counter to remain

    >0, i.e., the module could not be unloaded after this

• /proc/net/prism2/wlan*/rids:
  • - do not show RIDs that could not be read - show RID number for each entry - updated RID lists - added /proc/net/prism2/wlan*/unknown_rids for unknown new rids;
    • please let me know if you know what the UNKNOWN# rids in 'rids' are or if you can find new rids from 'unknown_rids' (lists should be quite complete for station firmwares upto 1.3.4)
• added 'dump_mmi_dev0_status' shell script for parsing BBP control
  • registers (from 'iwpriv wlan* readmif' values)

2002-02-13

• small optimizations into interrupt handler
• enable interrupts only after setting hw_ready = 1 to avoid interrupt
  • handler from catching possible interrupts too early
• fixed a bug in station authentication handling after an explicit
  • deauthentication
• optimized version of hfa384x_{from,to}_bap() (use insw()/outsw())

• separated sta->last_rxtx into last_rx and last_tx

• reorganized distribution tarball structure: get rid of
  • prism2-0.0.0.tar.gz and "double-tarring"; root directory Makefile can now be used to build kernel-tree version and the contents of 'driver' subdirectory can be copied for external pcmcia-cs compilation
• send disassociation frame to stations that are removed due to
  • inactivity (this will allow stations to automatically reassociate if they are still within the AP's range)
• added support for new wireless extensions: SIOCGIWRETRY,
  • SIOCSIWRTS, SIOCSIWFRAG, and following for non-AP modes: SIOCSIWPOWER, SIOCGIWPOWER, SIOCSIWRATE, SIOCGIWRATE
• added channel list verification (i.e., do not accept illegal
  • channels)
• added channel frequency list into SIOCGIWRANGE
• prism2_ioctl() cleanup: moved all non-trivial ioctl handlers into
  • separate functions

2002-01-03

• fixed a bug in STA list traversal (ap_handle_timer()) that could
  • cause kernel panics when stations were expired
• fixed a bug in STA counter (it was not decremented when stations
  • were expired)
• fixed hardware reset to maintain channel configuration (previously
  • the channel was always set to the default given when module was loaded even if it was changed with iwconfig)
• added new module parameter 'iw_mode' for setting initial
  • operation mode (master/managed/adhoc)
• added new module parameter 'ignore_cis_vcc' to ignore broken Vcc
  • configuration some wireless LAN cards (mainly D-Link)
• added experimental support for manual TX power controlling:
  • SIOCSIWTXPOW, SIOCGIWTXPOW: 'iwconfig wlan0 txpower' command, current mapping: minimum power with 'iwconfig wlan0 txpower -43' and maximum with 'iwconfig wlan0 txpower 20'

2001-12-18

• fixed multiple reads of pointers to 32/16-bit value
• added example program and brief instructions for injecting arbitrary
  • 802.11 frames ('inject' directory)
• added support for additional Linux Wireless Extension ioctls:
  • SIOCGIWSENS, SIOCSIWSENS (get/set AP density)

2001-12-10

• added SMP definitions when using kernel-tree pcmcia-cs and
  • CONFIG_SMP is set
• added new iwpriv command 'reset' for manual card resetting;
  • 'iwpriv wlan0 reset 0': disable and re-initialize card firmware 'iwpriv wlan0 reset 1': reset card using COR sreset

• replaced CardServices ResetCard call with own function that performs

  • COR sreset since ResetCard cannot be called from hard IRQ handler

• improved HFA384x operation completion waiting: added separate timeout
  • values for different operations and use small udelay()s instead of flooding I/O registers in busy wait loops
• modified prism2_rx() to queue packets through a local queue before
  • passing them to dev_queue_xmit(). This is apparently needed since prism2_rx() is running in hard IRQ context and dev_queue_xmit()

    seems to call prism2_tx() (dev->hard_start_xmit) directly. Local queue is handled after hard IRQ handler has exited. (this should fix problems that seem to occur with high-load between two stations associated to the same AP or from multicast/ broadcast flood)

• fixed prism2_rx() to use dev_kfree_skb_irq() instead of
  • dev_kfree_skb() in hard IRQ context.

2001-11-10

• fixed Host AP mode setting when the driver is loaded/reseted
• fixed compilation for kernels that use CONFIG_MODVERSIONS and
  • kernel-tree pcmcia modules

2001-11-05

• fixed a bug in AP's station list handling that may have resulted in
  • kernel crashes
• added RX rate statistics to AP's station information
• disabled WEP in Host AP mode since it does not work without
  • host driver implementation
• re-reset port when initializing card to fix some problems
  • with, e.g., D-Link DWL-650 with STA f/w 0.7.6 that did not start Host AP mode correctly
• removed spin_lock for BAP1 since it is not really needed
• added code to support Linux kernel 2.2.x versions
• improved card reseting (it now uses COR software reset and
  • sets up proper port type after reset); this time I have even tested

    reset code once

• added debug code to check BAP usage; I have seen odd error
  • scenarios with Compaq WL200 under high load (BAP becoming busy in the middle of read sequence, read returning 0x8000 all the time even though offset register is not busy, etc.); this debug code seems to fix some problems and in addition it provides more debugging info

2001-09-27

• fixed bugs in AP resource releasing when card configuration fails
• fixed SIOCGIWESSID length setting for Managed and Ad-hoc modes
• fixed a bug in SIOCSIWFREQ ('iwconfig wlan0 freq' did not work)
• try to reset card on timeout situations
• added support for SIOCSIWNICKN and SIOCGIWNICKN
• added support for dumping RX/TX frame headers

  • ('iwpriv wlan0 dump <bitfield>')

• added host-based TX rate control for Host AP mode
  • (STA f/w (at least v0.8.0) does not seem to handle TX rates properly, so now the driver has an optional host-based mechanism for setting TX rate for packets from DS to STAs.
• added preliminary support for IWSPY when in Host AP mode
• added (very) preliminary implementation of SIOCGIWRANGE
• added example tools for handling monitored packets (sniff directory)
• added support for ARPHDR_IEEE80211 type netdevice (e.g., for real
  • time 802.11 layer packet sniffing with Ethereal)
• added support for systems using kernel tree PCMCIA

2001-07-11

• First public release of the driver