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Date:      Wed, 27 Feb 2008 16:52:40 -0800
From:      Sam Leffler <sam@errno.com>
To:        yuri@rawbw.com
Cc:        freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: Is it possible that modern wireless card only supports WPA and not WEP or this is a bug in the driver?
Message-ID:  <47C605D8.1030106@errno.com>
In-Reply-To: <47C5F744.8020608@rawbw.com>
References:  <1204146470.47c5d1267ceee@webmail.rawbw.com>	<47C5D8F6.20608@errno.com>	<1204149622.47c5dd76995ba@webmail.rawbw.com>	<47C5F356.3000101@FreeBSD.org> <47C5F744.8020608@rawbw.com>

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Yuri wrote:
> Pietro Cerutti wrote:
>> It wouldn't make sense. Flags are used to specify capabilities of the
>>   interface, not things provided by the operating system.
>>
>>   
> This is very confusing to user.
> User is assumed to have this bit of knowledge that WEP flag actually
> means only hardware support, not support in general.
>
> On another note WEP is actually supported by interface but driver authors
> didn't bother to use it. So WEP flag doesn't represent actual 
> capabilities of
> the interface and this is again confusing.
>
> When I type 'ifconfig <iface> ...' I am mostly interested what can I 
> use from
> that side, not what is supported by hardware. Is there any way to know 
> what is
> logically supported by network interface as passed to 'ifconfig' vs. what
> is supported by hardware interface?

If you cannot use a feature you'll get an error when you try to use it.  
There simply are not enough capability bits around to waste on features 
that are always true.  If I reorg this stuff (and I intend to to split 
crypto out into a separate features word because we are out of bits) 
then I can look into expanding the status.

To be honest you're the first person that's even noticed you can list 
capabilities in the 3+ years that's been in place (or at least made 
public mention).  Hardly seems like something that's constantly confused 
people.

    Sam




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