Query regarding nl80211 support in hostapd

[Jouni Malinen]

On Fri, Jun 10, 2011 at 11:56:36AM +0530, amit karwar wrote:
> We are planning to add AP support in open source mwifiex driver and use
> hostapd application.
> We want the compilation flag "NEED_AP_MLME" in hostapd to be disabled
> because our FW takes care of MLME.

This needs to be done at run time, not compile time.. In other words,
the driver will somehow need to advertise over nl80211 that is implement
MLME/SME for AP mode.

> I observed that "NEED_AP_MLME" flag is by default getting enabled when we
> say “CONFIG_DRIVER_NL80211=y” in configuration file.
> Can we use NL80211 support in hostapd with "NEED_AP_MLME" flag disabled?

Currently, nl80211 implementation in hostapd assumes that the driver
does not implement MLME/SME. This needs to be extended to check driver
capabilities (the information mentioned above) and make hostapd decide
at run time whether to use the internal MLME/SME or not.

-- 
Jouni Malinen                                            PGP id EFC895FA