Adrian Chadd <adrian <at> freebsd.org> writes: > > On 7 April 2013 13:40, Andrew Connell <andrew.connell <at> gmail.com> wrote: > > Hi, > > I'm interested in modifying the firmware so as to increase the number of > > stations that can be connected when an ath9k device is in AP mode. > > Currently, after 7 devices are connected, whenever another device tries to > > connect, hostapd shows "Could not add STA to kernel driver". I understand > > this is a firmware issue and I've been told that I can modify the firmware > > to get around this -- is this the case? I can't imagine why there'd be such > > a low limit without good reason. > > I managed to build and install the 1.4 firmware but it suffers from the same > > issue, if someone could give me a pointer on where to find the appropriate > > part so I can increase the limit (if it's indeed possible), it'd be much > > appreciated. > > Well, the firmware is open so you can go and take a look at exactly > what kind of state is being kept in the firmware. > > Right now the state includes rate control and TX retransmission, so > it's quite plausible you'll hit memory exhaustion limits there. > > Felix (and I, increasingly) are thinking of evolving the firmware to > not keep that kind of state in the firmware and leave it up to the > host. That way we can run much more than 7 stations in AP mode as all > the firmware will be doing is the acting as a data pipe. I think we > may still want to do retransmission in firmware to get around some > latency issues, but only very simple retransmission. Anything else > gets complicated when you want to do any kind of fair queuing.) > > But, yes, you have the source. I encourage people to go look at it and > document what they find. > > adrian >
Dear List, sorry about digging up such an old thread but this limitation caused me some serious trouble in a project I've been working on recently and just wanted to make a note about it for other people. I'm not sure if all ath9k based chipsets are involved but I can confirm that the limitation still exists, at least for wifi dongles using the AR9271 chipset. Moreover, I noticed that once the 7th station is associated, no more stations can connect even if all the others disassociate until the interface is brought down and then back up. I love Atheros-based devices as they still are amongst the best quality wireless chips on the market but this limitation drove me pretty mad as I got to know about it after the project went live. Do you have any plans to fix this as it was suggested by Adrian? Regards, Gergely _______________________________________________ ath9k-devel mailing list ath9k-devel@lists.ath9k.org https://lists.ath9k.org/mailman/listinfo/ath9k-devel
