From owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Tue Nov 9 16:54:42 2004 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 50E4616A4CE for ; Tue, 9 Nov 2004 16:54:42 +0000 (GMT) Received: from M4.sparta.com (M4.sparta.com [157.185.61.2]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 8A6E443D1F for ; Tue, 9 Nov 2004 16:54:41 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from deker@slackdot.org) Received: from Beta5.sparta.com (beta5.sparta.com [157.185.63.21]) by M4.sparta.com (8.13.1/8.13.1) with ESMTP id iA9Gsfa4004422 for ; Tue, 9 Nov 2004 10:54:41 -0600 Received: from columbia.sparta.com ([157.185.80.32]) by Beta5.sparta.com (8.12.11/8.12.11) with ESMTP id iA9Gse0w029636 for ; Tue, 9 Nov 2004 10:54:41 -0600 Received: from [157.185.80.108] (7lyxg41.columbia.sparta.com [157.185.80.108]) iA9Gsdor020400 for ; Tue, 9 Nov 2004 11:54:39 -0500 (EST) Message-ID: <4190F64E.2090009@slackdot.org> Date: Tue, 09 Nov 2004 11:54:38 -0500 From: Rob Deker User-Agent: Mozilla Thunderbird 0.9 (Windows/20041103) X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org References: <418F9241.10609@slackdot.org> <20041108220840.GA45808@xor.obsecurity.org> In-Reply-To: <20041108220840.GA45808@xor.obsecurity.org> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Subject: Re: Porting the OpenBSD free Atheros HAL X-BeenThere: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: Technical Discussions relating to FreeBSD List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 09 Nov 2004 16:54:42 -0000 Kris Kennaway wrote: >On Mon, Nov 08, 2004 at 10:35:29AM -0500, Rob Deker wrote: > > >>Hi, >> >>I was just wondering if anybody was working on porting the new >>open-source Atheros HAL from OpenBSD to FreeBSD yet. >> >> > >Why would you want to do this? Doesn't it provide a subset of what >the FreeBSD driver already provides? > > > You're right, it does. However, myself and collegue recently presented our work in raw Atheros raw frame injection at ToorCon based on the Atheros HAL and Sam's driver/HAL wrapper. If you're familliar with these cards and their current status in the open-source world, you'll know that the only method of using them relies solely on the binary-only HAL provided by Atheros that Sam Leffler was kind enough to wrap in a FreeBSD driver shell. Given the nature of the work we've done to date, you might imagine that we were very interested to hear of a non-binary solution to communication with these wireless chipsets. Given that our current codebase is written against FreeBSD 5.2 and that the new alternative HAL is attempting to be interface compatible with the HAL from Sam/Atheros, it should be pretty close to a drop-in replacement. There will however be a minor porting effort required to bring it from OpenBSD, and we simply didn't want to duplicate any efforts that other parties may be undertaking. So, as we mentioned before, if anybody is already doing this, or would like to work on it, we're offering any assistance we can provide. Otherwise, we're willing to tackle the problem ourselves, but it will likely take us a bit longer than others who are more familliar with the FreeBSD and OpenBSD kernels (our original driver work was our first foray into the FreeBSD kernel). -d