ORBIT-USER: BSSID/CELL issues in ad-hoc mode

[chris at orderonenetworks.com]

Einar,

I have. Apparently some people can use it to force the BSSID, but that
does not look like its supported with the current driver version :(

Thanks for the tip though!
Chris

>
> ..and as a further thing to try (desperate times, etc..): Have you
> had a look at what commands iwpriv gives you on the
> devices? Maybe there's something exposed there?
>
> Cheers,
>
> Einar
>
>
> On Aug 23, 2006, at 5:39 PM, Einar Vollset wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> How quickly are you bringing up each node? I had the same problems
>> with only 5 nodes on the grid
>> when configuring them all at the same time, like so:
>>
>> for x in `echo $xcoords`
>> do
>> for y in `echo $ycoords`
>> do
>>   ssh root at node$x-$y modprobe ath_pci &
>>   ssh root at node$x-$y ifconfig ath0 down  &
>>   ssh root at node$x-$y wlanconfig ath0 destroy &
>>   ssh root at node$x-$y wlanconfig ath0 create wlandev wifi0 wlanmode
>> adhoc &
>>   ssh root at node$x-$y iwconfig ath0 essid einarnet &
>>   ssh root at node$x-$y iwconfig ath0 rate 5.5M &
>>   ssh root at node$x-$y ifconfig ath0 192.168.$x.$y up &
>>   echo "Configured node$x-$y"
>> done
>> done
>>
>> ..but bringing them up one by one worked (so far anyways):
>>
>> for x in `echo $xcoords`
>> do
>> for y in `echo $ycoords`
>> do
>>   ssh root at node$x-$y modprobe ath_pci &&
>>   ssh root at node$x-$y ifconfig ath0 down  &&
>>   ssh root at node$x-$y wlanconfig ath0 destroy &&
>>   ssh root at node$x-$y wlanconfig ath0 create wlandev wifi0 wlanmode
>> adhoc &&
>>   ssh root at node$x-$y iwconfig ath0 essid einarnet &&
>>   ssh root at node$x-$y iwconfig ath0 rate 5.5M &&
>>   ssh root at node$x-$y ifconfig ath0 192.168.$x.$y up &&
>>   echo "Configured node$x-$y"
>> done
>> done
>>
>> ..This is with madwifi-0.9.2 (which may or may not be what's on by
>> default. Easy to install though)
>>
>>
>> The only way I found to set BSSIDs (this is for madwifi drivers),
>> is with the devices in AP mode:
>> iwconfig ath0 ap 00:00:00:00:00:00, etc. Perhaps you could do
>> something like setup one AP, bring up everyone
>> else as a STA, Destroy the AP and then switch to Ad-Hoc? Pretty
>> hacky, and probably wouldn't work..
>>
>> As an aside - it's interesting how little google knows about this -
>> suggests that large scale ad-hoc network
>> experimentation is rather uncommon.. :-)
>>
>>
>> p.s. I'd like to take a look at your tools if you wouldn't mind?
>>
>> Cheers,
>>
>> Einar
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Aug 23, 2006, at 5:22 PM, Sachin Ganu wrote:
>>
>>> Hi Chris,
>>> I believe this functionality for Atheros is embedded in the HAL
>>> somewhere. In other words, this now gets us into the wireless driver
>>> domain (outside of ORBIT's control, unfortunately :-)
>>>
>>> If you are using ad-hoc mode, depending on how it is implemented, the
>>> responsibility of cell formation and maintenance is distributed and
>>> clearly there are some synchronization problems when the number of
>>> nodes goes up.. Hence, some of them start to create their own BSSID's
>>> for the same ESSID.
>>>
>>> .no solution yet...hence only commiserations. :-)
>>>
>>> -Sachin
>>>
>>> On 8/23/06, chris at orderonenetworks.com
>>> <chris at orderonenetworks.com> wrote:
>>>> I'm hoping someone can help.
>>>>
>>>> I've got most of the grid fired up and have huge problems with
>>>> the radio's
>>>> coming up with their own CELL/BSSID numbers and then changing
>>>> them about
>>>> every 5 secs or so. This means that I am basically unable to build a
>>>> network in the grid. Sandbox nodes have no such problems - most
>>>> likely
>>>> this is a size related issue.
>>>>
>>>> Is there anyway to manually set the CELL/BSSID, or have the cards
>>>> ignore
>>>> this value so it doesn't matter?
>>>>
>>>> Thanks,
>>>> Chris
>>>>
>>>>
>>
>
>