Date: Thu, 2 May 2002 18:30:58 +0930 From: Greg 'groggy' Lehey <grog@FreeBSD.org> To: Daniel O'Connor <doconnor@gsoft.com.au> Cc: freebsd-mobile@freebsd.org, Wes Peters <wes@softweyr.com>, Jerry Dunham <dunham@dunham.org>, Jerry Dunham <jdunham@m3designinc.com>, jdunham@texas.net Subject: Re: Ad-Hoc with Windows? Message-ID: <20020502183058.A52284@wantadilla.lemis.com> In-Reply-To: <1020327165.442.165.camel@chowder.gsoft.com.au> References: <1020327165.442.165.camel@chowder.gsoft.com.au>
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On Thursday, 2 May 2002 at 17:42:45 +0930, Daniel O'Connor wrote: > Hi, > I am trying to get my DWL-650 (in a FreeBSD machine) to talk to a Lucent > Silver card (in a Windows 95 box). I can get it to work, but only for > short periods of time. I have to keep resetting the connection type to > ad-hoc. Eg.. > [chowder 17:31] /usr/src/crypto/openssh >sudo wicontrol -p 3 ; ping > 10.0.2.2 > PING 10.0.2.2 (10.0.2.2): 56 data bytes > 64 bytes from 10.0.2.2: icmp_seq=1 ttl=32 time=2.421 ms > 64 bytes from 10.0.2.2: icmp_seq=2 ttl=32 time=2.548 ms > 64 bytes from 10.0.2.2: icmp_seq=3 ttl=32 time=2.616 ms > 64 bytes from 10.0.2.2: icmp_seq=4 ttl=32 time=2.519 ms > 64 bytes from 10.0.2.2: icmp_seq=5 ttl=32 time=2.609 ms > 64 bytes from 10.0.2.2: icmp_seq=6 ttl=32 time=2.371 ms > 64 bytes from 10.0.2.2: icmp_seq=7 ttl=32 time=2.708 ms > 64 bytes from 10.0.2.2: icmp_seq=8 ttl=32 time=2.373 ms > ^C > --- 10.0.2.2 ping statistics --- > 11 packets transmitted, 8 packets received, 27% packet loss > round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 2.371/2.521/2.708/0.116 ms > > ie it just stops working after 8 seconds. If I rerun 'wicontrol -p 3' it > works again. That's because you're not running in ad-hoc mode, for some definition of ad-hoc. > I also have another Lucent card and if I try that in the fbsd box I get > no communication between them at all :( Yes, that doesn't surprise me. > If I reboot the windows machine into FreeBSD the two lucents work fine > (no repeated wicontrol -p 3 necessary). > > If I use the DWL-650 card against the lucent with both machines in > FreeBSD it works fine also. Interesting. The real issue here is that you're using the Lucent "demo ad-hoc" mode instead of the "ad-hoc" mode that the 802.11 standard claims is a slang term for IBSS mode. I've just (hopefully) completed a protracted discussion with Wes Peters and Jerry Dunham (copied) on the subject. Basically, IBSS mode (the IEEE 802.11 sanctioned peer-to-peer mode) is the only one which works generally. That's why we couldn't get any connectivity with the Linux people on 27 December last year (http://www.lemis.com/~grog/xmas-bbq-2001.html for those of you who weren't there). We were running in demo ad-hoc mode, while Chris and Rusty were trying to connect in IBSS mode, so it couldn't work. Since then (at the LCA in February) we clarified the situation. The results: - The BSDs are doing it wrong. We should be using IBSS mode, not demo ad-hoc. - IBSS mode works with all systems I've tried it with. - To set IBSS mode with Lucent cards, use -p 1 (just like managed mode or whatever we'll call it this time). - At least one interface must also do -c 1 (create IBSS). Note that it says in the man page that it doesn't work. The man page lies. - In all cases we've seen, the resultant BSSID is the MAC address of the IBSS interface with the first octet xored with 0x02. I'd be interested to hear if anybody finds another value. The standard just says the BSSID will be random. - On the Lucent cards, you don't get a signal strength indication. One of the details about which Wes and I couldn't agree was whether an IBSS can route to the outside world. I say yes, because any system in the IBSS can have other interfaces as well. This isn't covered in the 802.11 standard, of course. Wes says no, because the 802.11 standard (available for free from http://standards.ieee.org/getieee802/download/802.11-1999.pdf, which is nevertheless a web page) says that interconnection only works with BSS (i.e. managed) mode. I claim that this just refers to link-level interconnection, and that IP routing has nothing to do with 802.11. Comments welcome. Greg -- See complete headers for address and phone numbers To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-mobile" in the body of the message
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