Page Menu
Home
FreeBSD
Search
Configure Global Search
Log In
Files
F157383801
D56760.id177021.diff
No One
Temporary
Actions
View File
Edit File
Delete File
View Transforms
Subscribe
Mute Notifications
Flag For Later
Award Token
Size
33 KB
Referenced Files
None
Subscribers
None
D56760.id177021.diff
View Options
diff --git a/sys/net80211/DEBUG.md b/sys/net80211/DEBUG.md
new file mode 100644
--- /dev/null
+++ b/sys/net80211/DEBUG.md
@@ -0,0 +1,101 @@
+# Debugging in net80211
+
+This document describes how debugging is implemented in net80211.
+
+## Overview
+
+net80211 has run-time configurable debugging available. It is configured
+per-VAP. It is implemented as a bitmask which can be controlled via a
+sysctl at runtime.
+
+Debugging is compiled in when IEEE80211_DEBUG is defined.
+
+There is currently no global debugging API available; top-level net80211
+code is typically using printf() or some wrapper around it (eg
+net80211_printf).
+
+The debug API is defined in (ieee80211_var.h). This includes the
+debug field definitions and exported debugging API. The actual implementation
+of the debugging routines is currently in (ieee80211_input.c) - see
+(ieee80211_note) for an example.
+
+The bitmap of available debugging sections is in (ieee80211_var.h), prefixed
+with IEEE80211_MSG . See (IEEE80211_MSG_DEBUG) for an example.
+
+## Usage
+
+Calls to the debugging APIs should not include a terminating '\n' character.
+This will be added by the debug call.
+
+The simplest example is a call to IEEE80211_DPRINTF(). This takes a vap
+pointer, which debug option to log to, then the format string and optional
+arguments. For example:
+
+```
+IEEE80211_DPRINTF(vap, IEEE80211_MSG_11N, "%s: called!", __func__);
+```
+
+The debug flags can be combined together using bitwise OR so they are
+emitted if one or more debug options are set, for example:
+
+```
+IEEE80211_DPRINTF(vap, IEEE80211_MSG_11N | IEEE80211_MSG_ASSOC,
+ "%s: called!", __func__);
+```
+
+There are a number of different debugging calls that are designed to be
+used in different contexts. Although they all currently end up printing
+to the same debug output, keeping them separate allows for future
+behavioural changes whilst minimising rototilling the whole codebase (eg
+allowing non-DPRINTF to turn into event tracing.)
+
+ * Straight up debugging should be done through IEEE80211_DPRINTF() .
+ * Debugging that's related to a specific ieee80211_node (eg a state
+ change for a specific node) should be done via a call to IEEE80211_NOTE() .
+ * Debugging that's related to a specific ethernet MAC address (eg
+ scan results) should be done via a call to IEEE80211_NOTE_MAC() .
+ * Debugging that should include a frame header should be done via
+ a call to IEEE80211_NOTE_FRAME(). Note this takes a (struct ieee80211_frame \*)
+ pointer.
+ * Debugging involving discarding frames (eg invalid frames) should be
+ done via a call to IEEE80211_DISCARD() .
+ * Debugging involving discarding frames due to an invalid / bad IE should
+ be done via a call to IEEE80211_DISCARD_IE().
+ * Debugging involving discarding frames due to a MAC address (eg ACL failure)
+ should be done via a call to IEEE80211_DISCARD_MAC().
+
+## Usage Notes
+
+It's important that the debugging be compiled in/out purely by defining or not
+defining IEEE80211_DEBUG. This can often trip up unused variable warnings
+when debugging is disabled, so just double-check both configurations.
+
+It is important to ensure calls to the debugging (and any other logging API)
+do not change any state/variables. For example, do not call a function that
+updates some counter or some state variable inside a call to IEEE80211_DPRINTF().
+It won't be called at best and it will just be compiled out entirely at worst.
+
+## Configuration
+
+ * The 'vap->iv_debug' field is controlled by the OS specific module.
+ * In FreeBSD (ieee80211_freebsd.c) it is assigned a sysctl (net.wlan.X.debug)
+ during (ieee80211_sysctl_vattach).
+ * FreeBSD ships the wlandebug(8) tool to query and set this at runtime.
+
+## Implementation Details
+
+* The debug API goes out of its way to do the debug flag check before evaluating
+ function parameters and potentially assembling the logging output. See
+ (IEEE80211_DPRINTF) for an example.
+
+## Future work
+
+ * Top-level net80211 debugging APIs and control would be nice (for things
+ that are not specific to a VAP.)
+ * Drivers end up having to implement their own debugging API; it may be nice
+ to provide drivers a net80211 API to do their own driver specific logging.
+ * The debug macros should likely be refactored out to a new header file,
+ separate from ieee80211_var.h, so they can be more easily referenced.
+ * The debug fields should likely be refactored out into a new separate header
+ file that is designed to be consumed both by the kernel and by userland
+ utilities wishing to query/set the debug bitmask.
diff --git a/sys/net80211/PROTOCOL.md b/sys/net80211/PROTOCOL.md
new file mode 100644
--- /dev/null
+++ b/sys/net80211/PROTOCOL.md
@@ -0,0 +1,563 @@
+# 802.11 protocol overview
+
+This is a quick overview of the 802.11 protocol and where it intersects with
+net80211. It is not intended as a comprehensive deep dive into all of 802.11.
+
+TODO: link to appropriate sections in 802.11-2016 / 802.11-2020 depending upon
+which PDF is freely available.
+
+## 802.11 overview
+
+The 802.11 protocol / specification is a very large document which covers
+everything from the raw signals going out over the air up to how devices
+need to behave in different operating modes.
+
+The IEEE specification documents and amendments describe what devices should
+and must do in order to interoperate. It's important to note that the
+intersection of "what the standard says" and "what devices do" is not always
+fully aligned. The 802.11 specification has evolved over twenty-five years
+and for the most part this allows interoperability between the original 802.11b
+hardware and modern multi-band 802.11ax devices.
+
+It's also important to note that 802.11 is not just limited to the IEEE
+specifications. 802.11 devices are almost exclusively RF devices (if you
+read the specification you may find the old infrared / IR protocol definition!)
+and so need to operate inside of the radio regulatory rules defined by each
+country. These define a wide variety of RF environmental behaviours
+including frequencies can be used, when devices can transmit, what transmit
+power is allowed, interoperability with other devices (802.11 and non-802.11)
+and radar interoperability. For the purposes of this document these will
+be called "regulatory concerns" and will be covered elsewhere.
+
+The 802.11 specification breaks things up into a handful of top level areas:
+
+ * the PHY layer - how the device interfaces with the RF environment and
+ encodes/decodes RF transmissions into data streams.
+ * the MAC layer - defines how data is packetized into individual data frames,
+ exchanged with the upper layer (ethernet/bridge), deciding when and what
+ to transmit via the PHY layer.
+ * MLME - (MAC layer management entities) - defines all of the state methods
+ and transitions that underpin the 802.11 MAC state machine.
+ * Security - the cipher and key management components.
+ * PHY specifications - the specific implementations of PHYs - 2GHz DSSS
+ (spread spectrum), 2GHZ CCK, OFDM, ERP, 802.11n / HT, 802.11ac / VHT, etc.
+
+Most 802.11 implementations do not implement a 1:1 definition of each of these
+layers - notably implementing every single MLME state would be a huge amount
+of work.
+
+## 802.11 revisions
+
+There have been many revisions of the 802.11 specification. The specifications
+can be found online at https://www.ieee802.org/11/.
+
+The latest specification being implemented in net80211 is 802.11-2020, however
+net80211 is far from completely compliant. Generally new code which implements
+802.11 features / protocol handling should identify the specification and
+section which it is referencing.
+
+## 802.11 protocol and frame definitions
+
+net80211 keeps most 802.11 frame and protocol definitions in a single location
+(ieee80211.h).
+This contains descriptions of the 802.11 frame and field definitions, ranging
+from the lowest definition of the frame itself up through frame types/subtypes,
+individual field definitions, information elements, action frames, and
+anything else that can be found in the 802.11 specifications.
+
+The PHY definitions can be found in (ieee80211_phy.c) and (ieee80211_phy.h).
+Notably those include the frame timing information useful for rate control
+and frame duration calculations.
+
+## 802.11 Revisions
+
+(TBD)
+
+### Legacy 802.11
+
+The earliest 802.11 devices implement 1Mbit/s and 2Mbit/s direct spread spectrum
+frames. These include the earliest Wavelan devices. These are grandfathered
+into 802.11b. The PHY specification can be found in 802.11-2020 Section 15.)
+
+### 802.11b
+
+802.11b devices implement Section 15 (1Mbit/2Mbit) PHYs as well as the high
+rate DSSS specification (802.11-2020 Section 16) to provide 5.5Mbit and 11Mbit
+CCK rates. They interoperate with legacy 802.11 devices by using compatible
+PHY encodings and will limit their performance if said legacy devices are
+detected.
+
+### 802.11a
+
+802.11a devices implement OFDM rates from 6Mbit/s to 54Mbit/s on the 5GHz
+band. Among other features, it also defines 5MHz and 10MHz wide channel
+behaviour. This is covered in the OFDM PHY specification (802.11-2020
+Section 17.)
+
+### 802.11g
+
+802.11g devices implement OFDM rates from 802.11a, the CCK rates from 802.11b
+and the DSSS rates from legacy 802.11. These are covered in the ERP
+specification (802.11-2020 Section 18.) There are some MAC extensions for
+negotiating 802.11b / 802.11g interoperability and these are documented
+throughout the MAC specification. This also specifies support for 5MHz and
+10MHz wide channels.
+
+### 802.11n (HT)
+
+802.11n introduced a variety of high throughput rates and feature support
+(hence why it's called HT - high throughput). It introduces higher density
+OFDM rate encodings, 20 and 40MHz wide channels with interoperability for
+earlier devices, packet aggregation via A-MPDU and A-MSDU, MIMO (multiple input,
+multiple output spatial streams), some initial beamforming support, power
+saving extensions and more.
+
+The physical layer support is covered in the HT PHY specification (802.11-2020
+Section 19.) The rest of the MAC extensions are documented throughout the
+rest of the specification.
+
+### 802.11ac (VHT)
+
+802.11ac extends the 802.11n specification (hence why it's VHT - Very
+High Throughput) and boosts performance by adding higher density OFDM QAM
+encoding (256-QAM), wider channels (80MHz, 160MHz), split 80+80MHz channel
+support, much larger A-MSDU / A-MPDU frame sizes, support for MU-MIMO
+(multi-user MIMO) allowing APs to transmit to multiple STAs at the same time
+and various other extensions.
+
+It builds on top of the 802.11n MAC and PHY specification, so a lot of
+802.11n feature and MAC negotiation happens as part of 802.11ac negotiation.
+
+The PHY layer is covered in the VHT PHY Specification (802.11-2020 Section
+21.) Again, the rest of the MAC extensions are documented throughout the
+rest of the specification.
+
+### Greenfield versus backwards compatibility
+
+The various protocols supported by 802.11 build on top of earlier protocols.
+So typically you're not building a single implementation for each protocol -
+for example, you can't handle 802.11ac support without implementing a large
+amount of 802.11n support.
+
+(As a side note, the 802.11 frame has a protocol version field, and
+that actually changed in 802.11ah (900MHz and longer distance bands) -
+which changes a lot of what the fields do. No, net80211 currently does not
+support 802.11ah and will drop frames whose 802.11 protocol ID is not
+supported.)
+
+At the PHY layer, later model hardware can transmit data encodings which
+earlier model hardware just won't recognise. All they'll see is an increase
+in RF power on the channel at best and signals that will confuse the
+RX decoder / cause hardware issues at worst.)
+
+So each of the PHY specifications will lay out a few things:
+
+ * How frames should be encoded in the air in a way that earlier
+ hardware can decode them enough to know it's not for them;
+ * How devices can identify that earlier protocol devices are around and
+ change the configuration (eg STA changing its own configuration,
+ AP changing the configuration of the network it controls, etc)
+ to provide backwards compatibility.
+
+These come at a performance cost. For example, an 802.11g AP which
+supports 802.11b and 802.11 devices needs to notice that an 802.11b
+device wishes to associate, and when it sees this, change some of
+its configuration (notably "long preamble" so 802.11b devices can
+decode frames that are being transmitted, whether destined to it or not.)
+
+Various devices allow backwards compatbility to be configured.
+For example, an 802.11n AP may be configured to deny non-802.11n clients.
+This may improve performance but then earlier clients can't connect.
+
+In 802.11n deployments this was known as a "greenfield deployment".
+This typically disables any and all pre-11n interoperability at both
+a MAC and PHY layer. net80211 has some flags for this to specifically
+inform devices that they can configure the hardware for such a setup.
+Not all drivers implement it however, and in a lot of cases they will
+still handle pre-11n framing, even if the net80211 code will deny
+association.
+
+There are other components to backwards compatibility which are worth
+keeping in mind when reading through the 802.11 specification and
+net80211 stack / driver code. These include:
+
+ * short/long preamble - (vap_update_preamble)
+ * short/long slot time configuration - (vap_update_slot)
+ * 802.11g protection mode (vap_update_erp_protmode) -
+ whether to use CTS-to-self around each transmission
+ * 802.11n protection mode (vap_update_ht_protmode) -
+ whether to use RTS/CTS around each transmission
+ * 802.11n 20/40MHz BSS operation (whether an 802.11n AP sees other APs that
+ overlap its frequency range and need to reconfigure how to protect
+ transmissions)
+
+## How 802.11 (very briefly) works over the air
+
+This is a very brief and not at all comprehensive overview of how 802.11
+works over the air. The goal of this section is to provide enough background
+information to help de-mystify reading the net80211 stack and wireless
+driver source.
+
+### Why there's timing requirements in the first place
+
+Each of the PHY sections in the 802.11 specification describe what
+the PHY needs to do in order to transmit and receive data. It's not
+anywhere as easy as "toggle some bits on a wire".
+
+An important thing to understand is that hardware isn't immediate.
+All the state machines in your 802.11 devices take non-zero time
+to make decisions about when to transmit, when to receive, locking
+onto a signal, deciding it can be decoded, getting reset for the next
+frame, etc.
+
+So a lot of what you'll see in 802.11 negotiation and feature support
+is linked to the underlying hardware implementations and limitations
+of the time. For example the 802.11b specification defines the slot time
+as 20uS, but the 802.11g specification lowers it to 9uS. The "slot time"
+value defines the unit of time used for contention management / backoff, and
+it's defined partly by what the speed of light dictates (ie how big
+of a physical area you want to be able to "hear" in determining if the
+area is busy) and how quickly the hardware can guarantee to respond.
+It dropped to 9uS because hardware got better, but to interoperate
+with older devices without starting to transmit before they're
+ready to react, 802.11g devices will fall back to 20uS slot time when
+they detect an 802.11b device.
+
+This carries through everywhere in odd places that you're not necessarily
+aware of. For example, the 802.11n A-MPDU definition includes negotiated
+padding between frames and limits encryption ciphers (typically CCMP or
+GCMP.) This is due to hardware support - the MAC may be able to support
+much less padding when no encryption is used, but setting up / resetting
+the encryption / decryption blocks may take more time and thus larger
+A-MPDU padding values are negotiated.
+
+### Wait, the speed of light?
+
+Yes. The speed of light is roughly 300 metres for each microsecond of
+travel time.
+
+### Preambles, SIGs, PLCP, sending actual data and waiting / slot times
+
+There are a few things that are worth understanding at a high level.
+
+ * The first thing that a device needs to do is determine
+ whether the air is busy or free. There'll be some hardware
+ to determine the signal level versus noise floor and provide
+ a signal to the transmit hardware that the air is free,
+ and to the receiver that it may want to try start decoding
+ something.
+
+ * The receiver needs to get in synchronisation with the transmitter.
+ This is a one way operation - the transmitter needs to transmit
+ enough of a signal that the receiver can "lock onto" and get itself
+ ready for further data. This is called the "preamble" - it's
+ typically a low bitrate repeating pattern of data that gives
+ the receiver hardware time to lock onto, figure out the signal
+ level and be ready for the next phase.
+
+ * Note that the receiver may pick up the preamble at any point in its
+ transmission so it can't guarantee it will see exactly "x" bits of some
+ repeating pattern.
+
+ * Then there's other bits and pieces - eg look for L-SIG, HT-SIG
+ in the PHY documentation - which is used to further synchronise
+ what's about to happen.
+
+ * Finally it will start transmitting the PHY framing bits needed to
+ identify what the upcoming transmit rate and configuration is
+ (all the stuff leading up to the PLCP header, then the PLCP header.)
+
+Things get more complicated with MIMO, MU-MIMO, 802.11ax OFDM-A, etc but
+don't worry about those for now - they build on top of all of these
+ideas.
+
+Once the data is transmitted, there's some quiet time between frames
+before the receiver can ACK (and then a period of time where an ACK
+is expected.) The transmitter needs to finish transmitting, then
+reset its internal state back to idle to be ready to receive - and
+there's the pesky speed of light speed of 300m per microsecond -
+so there's some MAC (interframe spacing) and PHY (slot time) enforcing
+quiet so everyone has a chance to receive the frame and the reciver
+gets ready to receive. Then if there's an ACK, the ACK happens.
+
+### PLCP header
+
+Once all of the preamble, SIG/training stuff is done, the transmitter
+will send a PLCP header with information about the transmitter
+type and rate (and that's very handwaving it.) net80211 has definitions
+for the plcp header (ieee80211_plcp_hdr) but it's highly unlikely it will
+be relevant or available in modern devices.
+
+### How data is encoded - encoding rates, symbols, guard intervals
+
+Now, once the transmitter has sent all of that, it will start to send
+actual data encoded at the desired transmit rate. The data bits
+that you're transmitting go through a variety of encoding schemes
+before they're turned into bits that are clocked out at the 802.11
+physical layer (think "forward error correction" as an example),
+but they're turned into what are known as "symbols".
+
+A symbol can be thought of as a group of bits encoded in one specific
+RF representation. Explaining all the details isn't in scope of this
+document (and I encourage interested parties to do a quick dive
+into information theory!) but there are a couple of important higher
+level concepts to understand here that influence what happens
+later on in packet delivery.
+
+For OFDM encoding:
+
+ * Each symbol is preceded by a quiet time called a guard interval, to make
+ sure any reflections don't interfere with the upcoming symbol;
+ * Each symbol is then transmitted for a specific length of time to make sure
+ it's received by everyone inside the desired area (again light = 300m/sec
+ per microsecond);
+ * All symbols for a given 802.11 MPDU are sent at the exact same rate;
+ * This is repeated until all the symbols are transmitted.
+
+The higher the data rate used, the higher the signal level needs to be
+and lower the tolerance it has to interference. Forward error correction
+can only do so much, and the higher throughput rate encodings sacrifice
+FEC for throughput.
+
+Once an uncorrectable error occurs and the frame fails CRC, the whole MPDU is
+dropped by the receiver.
+
+Part of why A-MPDU is so important for high throughput is that the
+errors are limited to a single MPDU in the burst of MPDUs. Ie, if
+the transmitter sends ten MPDUs in a single A-MPDU, and five of them
+have uncorrectable errors, then five .. well, didn't. This means
+the receiver can ACK some but not all of the MPDUs, and the transmitter
+can re-send those with new MPDUs.
+
+The default guard interval is 800ns. 802.11n allows for negotiating
+shorter guard interval (400ns) which can be done per device in a BSS.
+An 800ns guard interval is a little short of 300 metres, and 400ns is
+a little short of 150 metres - so using short guard interval means
+you trade increased performance for potential decreased performance
+if you have reflections or stations more than 150 metres away.
+
+802.11ax adds support for 1.6us and 3.2us guard intervals for physically
+larger deployments.
+
+### MAC layer framing
+
+The MAC layer handles data that is encapsulated in the given transmit
+rate that was established in the PHY (PLCP) header. This includes
+the 802.11 MAC header, CRC trailer, any of the cipher processing that
+happens in between. In the case of 802.11n, it can encapsulate
+multiple frames being sent back to back in a single transmission.
+
+Devices which do partial / no offload will typically produce and
+consume 802.11 MAC layer frames to the driver and net80211.
+It's thus important to understand MAC framing and frame types.
+
+### MPDU versus MSDU
+
+An MSDU (MAC service data unit) is an individual frame (think "802.2/802.3
+ethernet") passed from the network stack into net80211.
+
+An MPDU (MAC protocol data unit) is one or more MSDU frames wrapped by an
+(ieee80211_frame) header and CRC trailer. It is what is eventually
+encapsulated inside the PHY framing (preambles, training symbols, PLCP
+header, etc) and sent over the air.
+
+Notably an 802.11 MPDU isn't just an IPv4/IPv6 frame with an 802.11
+header/trailer - it is a full ethernet frame that is being wrapped
+by 802.11 framing.
+
+### Tracking airtime with NAV
+
+802.11 devices have to interoperate in a shared medium. Earlier protocol
+definitions require one transmitter at a time. Later specification
+devices (MU-MIMO with 802.11ac, OFDM-A with 802.11ax, etc) introduce the
+ability for devices to transmit and receive simultaneously.
+
+The simplest way to track this is with NAV (network access vector.)
+The NAV implementation in pre-11ax devices is a single counter which
+counts down to zero. Once it is zero, the air is considered "available"
+to attempt to check to transmit on. The transmitter will also check
+whether the air is busy (ie can it detect any signals present) before
+it transmits - this is called CCA (clear channel access) and is
+typically implemented in hardware.
+
+The duration field in (ieee80211_frame) is a microsecond field which
+covers the whole duration of the frame being transmitted. Receivers
+that decode the frame - even if it's not destined to them! - will listen
+to the NAV and add it to their own NAV.
+
+All 802.11 frames have a duration field.
+
+### Fragmented frames
+
+(TBD)
+
+### Sequence counters and duplication detection
+
+(TBD)
+
+### EDCA and QoS
+
+(TBD)
+
+### Inter-frame spacing (IFS)
+
+(TBD)
+
+## 802.11 frame layout
+
+An individual 802.11 frame contains frame control (version, type, subtype),
+duration, addressing, sequence number and optional QoS information.
+The basic definition is available at (ieee80211_frame) but other definitions
+are also possible - (ieee80211_qosframe), (ieee80211_frame_addr4),
+(ieee80211_qosframe_addr4).
+
+It then has a 4 byte CRC32 trailer appended at the end.
+
+### Addressing types and traffic direction
+
+(TBD - 3addr, 4addr, each of the fields, etc)
+
+### QoS versus non-QoS frames
+
+(TBD)
+
+### RTS/CTS exchange and airtime
+
+(TBD)
+
+### CTS-to-self / OFDM protection
+
+CTS to self is a concept introduced in 802.11g. The general idea is that a
+transmitter can send a CTS to its own MAC address for the duration that it
+wishes to transmit for. Since the CTS frame is transmitted at a slower
+legacy rate, it both reserves airtime in any receiver in earshot, and
+it is understood by older 11b only devices which do not understand 11g.
+
+This ends up also being useful for 11n, 11ac etc to interoperate with
+earlier devices, but they typically rely on a normal RTS exchange.
+
+### Data frames
+
+(TBD)
+
+### Management frames
+
+(TBD)
+
+### Control frames
+
+(TBD)
+
+Notably, control frames do not have a sequence number and so can't be
+de-duplicated.
+
+### Action frames
+
+(TBD)
+
+## Frame combinations
+
+There are various ways that 802.11 frames are combined together to improve
+performance.
+
+### ACK, Delayed Block-ACK, Immediate Block-ACK
+
+(TBD)
+
+### Atheros Fast Frames
+
+(TBD)
+
+### A-MSDU
+
+(TBD)
+
+### A-MPDU
+
+(TBD)
+
+## Security / Encryption
+
+This is a much larger topic, however it's worth touching on the basics here to
+understand how frames are redirected into the security/encryption paths in
+net80211 and what devices may do with said frames.
+
+### WEP, IV header and keys
+
+WEP is an obsolete encryption method dating back to the earliest 802.11b
+specifications. It involves a 4 byte header which includes
+
+ * a 24 bit IV (initialisation vector);
+ * a 2 bit field indication which of four keys to use;
+ * A CRC at the end.
+
+It's relevant today because later cipher frame formats still use the IV
+header - they're just extended to include more information. Notably, the
+four key indexes are typically implemented and used in hardware, and have
+different meanings depending upon the kind of traffic being handled.
+
+### WPA/WPA2 management
+
+This is handled in userland. The 802.11 specification covers everything
+involved in key exchange and management but it's out of scope for this 802.11
+overview documentation.
+
+### CCMP, GCMP, TKIP frames
+
+These later ciphers still use the WEP header, but they then add extra bytes
+to it to include the larger sequence number space, other options needed
+for said ciphers, and a larger trailer for CRC and TKIP MIC.
+
+### IV duplication / tracking
+
+net80211 tracks the received IV / sequence number for each station indexed
+by QoS TID. Anything with an earlier IV is discarded as a stale packet or
+potential replay attack. See the ni_txseqs[] and ni_rxseqs[] field in
+(ieee80211_node).
+
+Note that the 802.11 layer sequence number field will apply /first/. Traffic
+which the 802.11 input layer thinks is old or retransmits will be discarded
+before handed to the net80211 crypto routines.
+
+### Unicast vs Group Keys
+
+WEP has four global keys which are shared between all devices wishing to
+communicate. The keys are provided in the WEP header.
+
+However for later ciphers the four key indexes start taking on new meanings.
+Notably key index 0 is the "unicast key" which handles traffic for a given
+station and is unique for that station, and keys 2 and 3 are used for
+group keys - shared keys for broadcast traffic that all stations need to be
+able to decrypt.
+
+(key 1 is also used for unicast station traffic for seamless station key
+updating, but net80211 currently doesn't support this extension/feature.)
+
+There's also upcoming work for encrypted management traffic and encrypted
+beacons which reuse the key indexes for their traffic, but then don't treat
+them as "global keys" - they start being treated as "global keys but only
+for this traffic type."
+
+It's important to understand the difference between global keys (WEP) versus
+group and unicast keys (everything else) when looking through the net80211
+data and encryption handling paths.
+
+## 802.11 Operating Modes
+
+(TBD)
+
+### Station
+
+(TBD)
+
+### Access Point
+
+(TBD)
+
+### IBSS / Ad-Hoc
+
+(TBD)
+
+### Mesh / 802.11s
+
+(TBD)
diff --git a/sys/net80211/README.md b/sys/net80211/README.md
new file mode 100644
--- /dev/null
+++ b/sys/net80211/README.md
@@ -0,0 +1,139 @@
+# net80211
+
+This is the 802.11 wireless stack for FreeBSD.
+
+## Introduction
+
+The net80211 subsystem implements the 802.11 protocol and support infrastructure.
+It supports a variety of device types, 802.11 protocols, operating modes and
+security extensions.
+
+net80211 handles the 802.11 state machine, interface management, node management,
+virtual interfaces, packet encapsulation and de-encapsulation and basic
+security key management.
+
+The userland ioctl() API provides control mechanisms for the above and is how
+management tooling (ifconfig, libifconfig) and management services (hostapd,
+wpa_supplicant) interfaces with the net80211 stack.
+
+The security state machine and key management (802.1x, WPA, etc) are handled
+by management services.
+
+Drivers can implement as much or as little of the 802.11 infrastructure as
+needed. net80211 support drivers from full-offload (ie, supplying ethernet
+encapsulated/de-encapsulated frames with management control via driver
+methods) down to fully software controlled devices (ie, the hardware
+is minimal and all 802.11 packet handling, state machine, reordering, security,
+etc is handled by net80211.)
+
+## Overview
+
+net80211 consists of a few top level design modules:
+
+ * The 802.11 device representation and functions (ieee80211com), used
+ in conjunction with an 802.11 device driver to represent the physical device.
+
+ * The 802.11 virtual interface representation and functions (ieee80211vap),
+ used to represent instances of virtual interfaces.
+
+ * A representation of 802.11 stations/nodes (ieee80211_node), which
+ keep the state of each 802.11 station/node that the stack knows about.
+
+ * Encryption handling (ieee80211_crypto), handling 802.11 frame encryption,
+ decryption and session/state tracking.
+
+ * Regulatory domain (ieee80211_regdomain), which implements the 802.11
+ regulatory domains, allowed frequencies, operating modes and transmit power.
+
+ * Radar detection (ieee80211_dfs.c), tracking the state of radar detection and
+ interoperability in the 5GHz frequency range.
+
+ * Transmit rate control (ieee80211_ratectl.c) implements software and
+ firmware based rate control for devices that don't implement full rate control
+ offload.
+
+ * Power save support (ieee82011_power.c) implements various power saving
+ mode features and support for devices which do not fully implement offloaded
+ power management.
+
+ * Operating system specific interfaces (ieee80211_freebsd.c) which implement
+ the bulk of the operating system specific glue (logging, memory allocation,
+ network interfaces, etc.)
+
+ * The configuration interface (ieee80211_ioctl.c) which implements the ioctl
+ API used by userland to configure and monitor the state of the 802.11 stack
+ and devices.
+
+In addition, each operating mode (adhoc, station, AP, WDS, mesh) have their own
+modules that implement the state machines and functionality required for 802.11.
+
+## Portability
+
+Although net80211 attempts to keep most OS specific components in a single file
+(ieee80211_freebsd.c), it is not currently perfect.
+
+Notably:
+
+ * There are still plenty of FreeBSD-isms located throughout the source code,
+ including BSD specific includes, network APIs, etc.
+
+ * The interface and networking model is still very BSD, including using the
+ system implementation of mbufs.
+
+When developing for net80211 please keep in mind that other operating systems
+(such as DragonflyBSD) and third parties do leverage this codebase.
+Try to keep all FreeBSD specific components in ieee80211_freebsd.[ch].
+
+## Protocol Overview
+
+A basic protocol overview is available at (@ref md_net80211_PROTOCOL).
+
+The most comprehensive overview is the 802.11 protocol document itself,
+but it is very large and implementations do not always correspond 1:1
+with the protocol definitions.
+
+## Functional Overview
+
+(TODO)
+
+ * Module layout
+ * Logging
+ * Debugging - (@ref md_net80211_DEBUG)
+ * Top-level device layout (ieee80211com)
+ * Data / Control Path Overview
+ * Deferred work
+ * Regulatory
+ * Virtual interfaces
+ * Operating Modes
+ * Nodes
+ * Node tables, node table iteration
+ * Device and VAP states
+ * Node states
+ * Operating modes
+ * Cipher management
+ * Radar detection
+ * ioctl interface
+ * ACL support
+ * Scanning, Scan Modules
+ * Power Management
+ * Transmit Path
+ * Receive Path
+ * A-MSDU Fast Frames
+ * A-MPDU
+ * Radiotap
+ * Monitor Mode
+
+## Driver Overview
+
+(TODO)
+
+ * Introduction
+ * Driver Structure
+ * Setup and Attach
+ * Virtual Interfaces
+ * Control Path
+ * Data Path
+ * VAP state
+ * Device State
+ * Suspend and Resume
+
diff --git a/tools/kerneldoc/subsys/Doxyfile-net80211 b/tools/kerneldoc/subsys/Doxyfile-net80211
--- a/tools/kerneldoc/subsys/Doxyfile-net80211
+++ b/tools/kerneldoc/subsys/Doxyfile-net80211
@@ -9,7 +9,8 @@
#--------------------------------------------------------------------------
# configuration options related to the input files
#---------------------------------------------------------------------------
-INPUT = $(DOXYGEN_SRC_PATH)/net80211/ $(NOTREVIEWED)
+INPUT = $(DOXYGEN_SRC_PATH)/net80211/
+USE_MDFILE_AS_MAINPAGE = $(DOXYGEN_SRC_PATH)/net80211/README.md
GENERATE_TAGFILE = net80211/net80211.tag
File Metadata
Details
Attached
Mime Type
text/plain
Expires
Thu, May 21, 8:49 PM (8 h, 40 m)
Storage Engine
blob
Storage Format
Raw Data
Storage Handle
33404705
Default Alt Text
D56760.id177021.diff (33 KB)
Attached To
Mode
D56760: net80211: add initial README.md and PROTOCOL.md
Attached
Detach File
Event Timeline
Log In to Comment