linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH] ath9k: make driver usable standalone

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Message-ID: <1313695217.23920.4.camel@dcbw.foobar.com>
Date:	Thu, 18 Aug 2011 14:20:15 -0500
From:	Dan Williams <dcbw@...hat.com>
To:	Pavel Ivanov <paivanof@...il.com>
Cc:	Gábor Stefanik <netrolller.3d@...il.com>,
	"Luis R. Rodriguez" <lrodriguez@...eros.com>,
	Jouni Malinen <jmalinen@...eros.com>,
	Vasanthakumar Thiagarajan <vasanth@...eros.com>,
	Senthil Balasubramanian <senthilkumar@...eros.com>,
	linux-wireless@...r.kernel.org, ath9k-devel@...ema.h4ckr.net,
	linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org
Subject: Re: [PATCH] ath9k: make driver usable standalone

On Thu, 2011-08-18 at 00:01 -0400, Pavel Ivanov wrote:
> > Iwconfig and iwlist are themselves deprecated. Iw is the new wireless
> > configuration tool.
> 
> I've just tried to use iw and it didn't quite work for me. Maybe it's
> interfering with something installed in Ubuntu by default but

Ubuntu installs NetworkManager by default, so if you want to manually
control the wifi card you'll have to tell NM to ignore the wifi device,
or turn NM off temporarily.

> connect/disconnect commands didn't seem to do anything. And why these
> commands can be executed only as root?

Because poking and configuring hardware is a privileged operation; tools
like NetworkManager selectively poke holes through that wall and often
require administrator passwords to do it, but at the end of the day its
an operation that can affect security and stability, and that means it
needs to be privileged.

In the end, you probably want to be using wpa_supplicant instead of
trying to configure stuff with iw directly.

Dan

> Well, maybe in Ubuntu 11.10 it will work better.
> 
> 
> Pavel
> 
> 
> 2011/8/17 Gábor Stefanik <netrolller.3d@...il.com>:
> > 2011/8/17 Pavel Ivanov <paivanof@...il.com>:
> >>> WIRELESS_EXT is not required for configuring wireless on recent
> >>> kernels - in fact, the WEXT API is deprecated in favor of nl80211 now.
> >>
> >> Since what version it's deprecated? Do user-space tools know about this new API?
> >>
> >> Neither iwconfig nor iwlist worked for me without WIRELESS_EXT.
> >>
> >>
> >> Pavel
> >>
> >
> > Iwconfig and iwlist are themselves deprecated. Iw is the new wireless
> > configuration tool.
> >
> >>
> >> 2011/8/17 Gábor Stefanik <netrolller.3d@...il.com>:
> >>> On Wed, Aug 17, 2011 at 5:28 AM, Pavel Ivanov <paivanof@...il.com> wrote:
> >>>> When ath9k is the only wireless driver included in the build
> >>>> WIRELESS_EXT configuration option becomes undefined. Because of that
> >>>> driver becomes essentially unusable as you can't actually connect to
> >>>> any WiFi network. By including WIRELESS_EXT into Kconfig we ensure
> >>>> that build with ath9k and without other drivers (having WIRELESS_EXT
> >>>> selected in their Kconfig) is actually usable.
> >>>
> >>> WIRELESS_EXT is not required for configuring wireless on recent
> >>> kernels - in fact, the WEXT API is deprecated in favor of nl80211 now.
> >>>
> >>>>
> >>>> Signed-off-by: Pavel Ivanov <paivanof@...il.com>
> >>>> ---
> >>>>
> >>>> diff --git a/drivers/net/wireless/ath/ath9k/Kconfig
> >>>> b/drivers/net/wireless/ath/ath9k/Kconfig
> >>>> index d9c08c6..2573f77 100644
> >>>> --- a/drivers/net/wireless/ath/ath9k/Kconfig
> >>>> +++ b/drivers/net/wireless/ath/ath9k/Kconfig
> >>>> @@ -11,6 +11,7 @@ config ATH9K
> >>>>        select LEDS_CLASS
> >>>>        select NEW_LEDS
> >>>>        select ATH9K_COMMON
> >>>> +       select WIRELESS_EXT
> >>>>        ---help---
> >>>>          This module adds support for wireless adapters based on
> >>>>          Atheros IEEE 802.11n AR5008, AR9001 and AR9002 family
> --
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