On Wed, Jan 18, 2006 at 09:18:26AM +0100, Feyd wrote:

> With fullmac devices the master interface makes no sense, it cannot be
> used for neither the sniffing or QoS. The design where the master device
> is something else than net_device is cleaner, it treats both soft/fullmac
> devices equaly, without need to special-case one of them.

This may be the case with designs that do not provide anything else
than a simple interface for delivering and receiving frames. However,
the benefits--and I would be prepared to say even requirements--of
having a master device are extensive enough to use it with many wlan
designs. If a generic design is desired for both types, even fullmac
devices would need to keep the master netdev even if it is not really
needed. Other option would be to make it optional to add the master
netdev and have something else presenting the wlan device.

In addition, even fullmac devices may have uses for master netdev. For
example, in AP mode with dynamic VLAN configuration (RADIUS
authentication server selecting which VLAN to use), there may be
benefits of being able to use multiple virtual interfaces (netdevs) that
would logically be collected into master netdev for scheduling and
transmission.

-- 
Jouni Malinen                                            PGP id EFC895FA
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