#5144 BLOC Ship.2: Marvell firmware should default to mesh off, and have controls for turning mesh on and off

[Zarro Boogs per Child]

#5144: Marvell firmware should default to mesh off, and have controls for turning
mesh on and off
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  Reporter:  jg        |       Owner:  rchokshi          
      Type:  defect    |      Status:  new               
  Priority:  blocker   |   Milestone:  Ship.2            
 Component:  wireless  |     Version:                    
Resolution:            |    Keywords:  jcardona, mbletsas
  Verified:  0         |  
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Comment(by mbletsas):

 Mesh Start/Stop Behavior

 1. Mesh Start/Stop
 This feature isolates the mesh network operation from adhoc/infra
 operation of
 the WLAN. With the help of mesh start/stop command, STA/XO can connect to
 mesh
 network and communicate over it, without connecting to any adhoc/infra
 network.
 With the help of the command, mesh operation can coexist with infra or
 adhoc
 operations, if both are on same RF channel. In mesh mode the STA/XO
 transmits
 the mesh beacon like adhoc beacon.
 The mesh beacon definition is same as adhoc beacon except the SSID and
 Mesh
 information element. In pure mesh mode (i.e. no infra or adhoc is on at
 the same time), the beacon consists of all elements of adhoc beacon with
 NULL SSID and mesh information element appended to it. Mesh information
 element is identified with Marvell vendor specific id and mainly consist
 of information mesh protocol id, metric id and mesh ID. Mesh ID is the
 mesh network name like essid. Since mesh mode can coexist with adhoc
 network, the beacon transmitted in the mode is adhoc beacon with mesh
 information element appended to it.
 There are two commands to control the mesh mode and one is for mesh status
 display.
 All of them are implemented with the help of iwpriv command. The control
 commands are
 mesh_start and mesh_stop. The mesh status command will return the status
 of the mesh.
 Mesh start takes two parameters, the channel on which user is intend to
 start the mesh and the Mesh ID.

 Below is the syntax for mesh driver API.

 iwpriv msh0 mesh_start "<channel> <mesh id>"

 Examples:
 Mesh Start:
 To start mesh on channel 6 with mesh id "olpc-mesh".
        $> iwpriv msh0 "6 olpc-mesh"

 Mesh start command without any parameter will start the mesh on channel 1
 with “olpc-mesh” as a mesh ID
        $> iwpriv msh0 mesh_start

 Mesh Stop:
 This will stop the mesh
        $> iwpriv msh0 mesh_stop

 Mesh Status:
 This will retune the status of the mesh. If mesh is on then it will
 display the channel and the mesh ID.
        $> iwpriv msh0 mesh status

 2. RF Channel Setting
 RF channel can be set, if and only if the host is not connected to any
 network. This
 default behavior is also applied to mesh mode operation. When STA/XO is
 connected to any network and channel change command is issued, then the
 STA/XO gets disconnected from the network. If the connected network is an
 adhoc or mesh then STA/XO restarts the adhoc or mesh on the new channel.
 The behavior of the commands to start/join the networks has been changed.
 Due to mesh
 start/stop command user can start mesh network along with infra or ad hoc
 network or vice versa. As mesh can co-exists with other network (ad-
 hoc/infra), STA/XO can join second network (ad-hoc/infra) only if second
 network is on same channel as the first network (mesh).
 If second network (ad-hoc/infra) channel is different from the first one
 (mesh) then second network join will fail.

 When STA/XO is part of the adhoc/mesh/infra network, user can start mesh
 /ad-hoc network on the same channel as ad-hoc/mesh/infra. But if user
 tries to start mesh/ad-hoc on different channel, then ad-hoc/mesh network
 will be started on the old channel, on which first network is started.

-- 
Ticket URL: <http://dev.laptop.org/ticket/5144#comment:2>
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