On Thu, Feb 09, 2012 at 03:11:42PM +1100, Sridhar Dhanapalan wrote: > Hmm I am thinking that my understanding of the ad-hoc implementation > might be incorrect. > > I was under the assumption that one XO acts as the ad-hoc host, and > the others connect to it. That made me wonder whether that host could > limit how many clients connect to it.
No, that's not how ad-hoc works. I'll simplify and translate for you. In an 802.11 wireless ad-hoc network, each node has the duty and right to be the beacon, especially if there is no other beacon heard. The beacon is used for timing the transmissions, so that they occur in empty time. Transmissions that occur simultaneously would interfere with each other, and the receivers would be more likely to miss them. Always, the first node to begin an ad-hoc network begins by being the beacon. If a node cannot hear a beacon, then after a very short while it will try to become the beacon. In effect, they compete for the job, in a psuedo-random fashion. This is implemented in the wireless device firmware, not in the host, not in the CPU, not in the kernel, not in the user-space networking tools. If a cluster of XOs that have formed an ad-hoc network, are slowly spread out physically, then eventually the responsibility for beacon should tend to be in the centre of the cluster. If a cluster of XOs is split in two, and the two groups slowly moved apart from each other, then eventually two beacons will be active and there will be two networks. References: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timing_Synchronization_Function_%28TSF%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beacon_frame http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traffic_indication_map (ad-hoc is IBSS) -- James Cameron http://quozl.linux.org.au/ _______________________________________________ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel