xref: /freebsd/share/man/man9/ieee80211_node.9 (revision 0b57cec536236d46e3dba9bd041533462f33dbb7)
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2.\" Copyright (c) 2004 Bruce M. Simpson <bms@spc.org>
3.\" Copyright (c) 2004 Darron Broad <darron@kewl.org>
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27.\" $FreeBSD$
28.\"
29.Dd April 28, 2010
30.Dt IEEE80211_NODE 9
31.Os
32.Sh NAME
33.Nm ieee80211_node
34.Nd software 802.11 stack node management functions
35.Sh SYNOPSIS
36.In net80211/ieee80211_var.h
37.\"
38.Ft struct ieee80211_node *
39.Fo ieee80211_find_rxnode
40.Fa "struct ieee80211com *"
41.Fa "const struct ieee80211_frame_min *"
42.Fc
43.\"
44.Ft struct ieee80211_node *
45.Fo ieee80211_find_rxnode_withkey
46.Fa "struct ieee80211com *"
47.Fa "const struct ieee80211_frame_min *"
48.Fa "ieee80211_keyix"
49.Fc
50.\"
51.Ft struct ieee80211_node *
52.Fn ieee80211_ref_node "struct ieee80211_node *"
53.\"
54.Ft void
55.Fn ieee80211_unref_node "struct ieee80211_node *"
56.\"
57.Ft void
58.Fn ieee80211_free_node "struct ieee80211_node *"
59.\"
60.Ft void
61.Fo ieee80211_iterate_nodes
62.Fa "struct ieee80211_node_table *"
63.Fa "ieee80211_iter_func *f"
64.Fa "void *arg"
65.Fc
66.\"
67.Ft void
68.Fo ieee80211_dump_nodes
69.Fa "struct ieee80211_node_table *"
70.Fc
71.\"
72.Ft void
73.Fo ieee80211_dump_node
74.Fa "struct ieee80211_node *"
75.Fc
76.Sh DESCRIPTION
77The
78.Nm net80211
79layer that supports 802.11 device drivers maintains a database of
80peer stations called the
81.Dq node table
82in the
83.Vt ic_sta
84entry of the
85.Vt ieee80211com
86structure.
87Station mode vaps create an entry for the access point
88the station is associated to.
89AP mode vaps create entries for associated stations.
90Adhoc and mesh mode vaps create entries for neighbor stations.
91WDS mode vaps create an entry for the peer station.
92Stations for all vaps reside in the same table; each node
93entry has a
94.Vt ni_vap
95field that identifies the vap that created it.
96In some instances an entry is used by multiple vaps (e.g. for
97dynamic WDS a station associated to an ap vap may also be the peer
98of a WDS vap).
99.Pp
100Node table entries are reference counted.
101That is, there is a count of all long term references that determines
102when an entry may be reclaimed.
103References are held by every in-flight frame sent to a station to
104ensure the entry is not reclaimed while the frame is queued or otherwise
105held by a driver.
106Routines that lookup a table entry return a
107.Dq held reference
108(i.e. a pointer to a table entry with the reference count incremented).
109The
110.Fn ieee80211_ref_node
111and
112.Fn ieee80211_unref_node
113calls explicitly increment/decrement the reference count of a node,
114but are rarely used.
115Instead most callers use
116.Fn ieee80211_free_node
117to release a reference and, if the count goes to zero, reclaim the
118table entry.
119.Pp
120The station table and its entries are exposed to drivers in several ways.
121Each frame transmitted to a station includes a reference to the
122associated node in the
123.Vt m_pkthdr.rcvif
124field.
125This reference must be reclaimed by the driver when transmit processing
126is done.
127For each frame received the driver must lookup the table entry to
128use in dispatching the frame
129.Dq up the stack .
130This lookup implicitly obtains a reference to the table entry and
131the driver must reclaim the reference when frame processing is completed.
132Otherwise drivers frequently inspect the contents of the
133.Vt iv_bss
134node when handling state machine changes as important information
135is maintained in the data structure.
136.Pp
137The node table is opaque to drivers.
138Entries may be looked up using one of the pre-defined API's or the
139.Fn ieee80211_iterate_nodes
140call may be used to iterate through all entries to do per-node
141processing or implement some non-standard search mechanism.
142Note that
143.Fn ieee80211_iterate_nodes
144is single-threaded per-device
145and the effort processing involved is fairly
146substantial so it should be used carefully.
147.Pp
148Two routines are provided to print the contents of nodes to the console
149for debugging:
150.Fn ieee80211_dump_node
151displays the contents of a single node while
152.Fn ieee80211_dump_nodes
153displays the contents of the specified node table.
154Nodes may also be displayed using
155.Xr ddb 4
156with the
157.Dq show node
158directive and the station node table can be displayed with
159.Dq show statab .
160.Sh DRIVER PRIVATE STATE
161Node data structures may be extended by the driver to include
162driver-private state.
163This is done by overriding the
164.Vt ic_node_alloc
165method used to allocate a node table entry.
166The driver method must allocate a structure that is an extension
167of the
168.Vt ieee80211_node
169structure.
170For example the
171.Xr iwi 4
172driver defines a private node structure as:
173.Bd -literal -offset indent
174struct iwi_node {
175        struct ieee80211_node   in_node;
176	int                     in_station;
177};
178.Ed
179.Pp
180and then provides a private allocation routine that does this:
181.Bd -literal -offset indent
182static struct ieee80211_node *
183iwi_node_alloc(struct ieee80211vap *vap,
184    const uint8_t mac[IEEE80211_ADDR_LEN])
185{
186        struct iwi_node *in;
187
188        in = malloc(sizeof(struct iwi_node), M_80211_NODE,
189		M_NOWAIT | M_ZERO);
190        if (in == NULL)
191                return NULL;
192        in->in_station = -1;
193        return &in->in_node;
194}
195.Ed
196.Pp
197Note that when reclaiming a node allocated by the driver the
198.Dq parent method
199must be called to ensure
200.Nm net80211
201state is reclaimed; for example:
202.Bd -literal -offset indent
203static void
204iwi_node_free(struct ieee80211_node *ni)
205{
206        struct ieee80211com *ic = ni->ni_ic;
207        struct iwi_softc *sc = ic->ic_ifp->if_softc;
208        struct iwi_node *in = (struct iwi_node *)ni;
209
210        if (in->in_station != -1)
211                free_unr(sc->sc_unr, in->in_station);
212        sc->sc_node_free(ni);	/* invoke net80211 free handler */
213}
214.Ed
215.Pp
216Beware that care must be taken to avoid holding references that
217might cause nodes from being reclaimed.
218.Nm net80211
219will reclaim a node when the last reference is reclaimed in
220its data structures.
221However if a driver holds additional references then
222.Nm net80211
223will not recognize this and table entries will not be reclaimed.
224Such references should not be needed if the driver overrides the
225.Vt ic_node_cleanup
226and/or
227.Vt ic_node_free
228methods.
229.Sh KEY TABLE SUPPORT
230Node table lookups are typically done using a hash of the stations'
231mac address.
232When receiving frames this is sufficient to find the node table entry
233for the transmitter.
234But some devices also identify the sending station in the device
235state received with each frame and this data can be used to optimize
236lookups on receive using a companion table called the
237.Dq keytab .
238This table records a separate node table reference that can be fetched
239without any locking using the table index.
240This logic is handled with the
241.Fn ieee80211_find_rxnode_withkey
242call: if a keytab entry is found using the specified index then it is
243returned directly; otherwise a normal lookup is done and the keytab
244entry is written using the specified index.
245If the specified index is
246.Dv IEEE80211_KEYIX_NONE
247then a normal lookup is done without a table update.
248.Sh SEE ALSO
249.Xr ddb 4 ,
250.Xr ieee80211 9 ,
251.Xr ieee80211_proto 9
252