linux/netbsd wireless interoperability

[David Gibson]

On Wed, Oct 15, 2003 at 10:06:33AM +0930, Brett Lymn wrote:
> On Tue, Oct 14, 2003 at 12:47:22PM +1000, David Gibson wrote:
> > 
> > Chances are the problem is that the NetBSD box is using the old "demo"
> > ad-hoc mode, wheras the Linux box is using the 802.11 standardised
> > IBSS ad-hoc mode - they're not interoperable.
> > 
> 
> This was exactly the problem.  For what it is worth NetBSD-current's
> wi driver actually defaults to infrastructure mode, for some reason
> when I made the changes to put my cards into ad-hoc mode I chose to
> use the old "demo" ad-hoc mode, probably due to one of my machines
> being on an older kernel that only supported that mode at the time.

Ok.

> One thing I did notice was that Linux & NetBSD would not play nice
> with WEP enabled unless the WEP key was long enough to fill all the
> bits - must be a difference in what the left over bits are set to.  In
> my NetBSD to NetBSD setup I was not too worried about the WEP key
> length because I run ipsec over the top of the wireless, the WEP is
> only there to keep the casual prodders out :)

Hmm.. ok.  Should probably look into that.

> > I think you need to set port_type to 1 and createibss to 1 with witool
> > to switch NetBSD to IBSS mode.
> 
> For the record, wiconfig is pretty much deprecated in NetBSD.  All the
> wireless config is done using ifconfig, the working command line (with
> IP's adjusted to protect the not so innocent) is:

Ok.  I was just working on the basis of what we did several years ago
when Greg Lehey and I figured out how to get Linux and FreeBSD
interoperating properly.
 
> BTW: is it my imagination or is the ieee adhoc mode faster than the
> old "demo" mode?

Don't know, never done any tests.

-- 
David Gibson			| For every complex problem there is a
david at gibson.dropbear.id.au	| solution which is simple, neat and
				| wrong.
http://www.ozlabs.org/people/dgibson