mac80211: document client powersave

With the addition of uAPSD and driver buffering
the powersave handling has gotten quite complex.
Add a section to the documentation to explain it
for anyone wanting to implement it.

Signed-off-by: Johannes Berg <johannes.berg@intel.com>
Signed-off-by: John W. Linville <linville@tuxdriver.com>
This commit is contained in:
Johannes Berg 2011-09-29 16:04:40 +02:00 коммит произвёл John W. Linville
Родитель 37fbd90800
Коммит 4b801bc969
2 изменённых файлов: 99 добавлений и 1 удалений

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@ -433,8 +433,18 @@
Insert notes about VLAN interfaces with hw crypto here or
in the hw crypto chapter.
</para>
<section id="ps-client">
<title>support for powersaving clients</title>
!Pinclude/net/mac80211.h AP support for powersaving clients
</section>
!Finclude/net/mac80211.h ieee80211_get_buffered_bc
!Finclude/net/mac80211.h ieee80211_beacon_get
!Finclude/net/mac80211.h ieee80211_sta_eosp_irqsafe
!Finclude/net/mac80211.h ieee80211_frame_release_type
!Finclude/net/mac80211.h ieee80211_sta_ps_transition
!Finclude/net/mac80211.h ieee80211_sta_ps_transition_ni
!Finclude/net/mac80211.h ieee80211_sta_set_buffered
!Finclude/net/mac80211.h ieee80211_sta_block_awake
</chapter>
<chapter id="multi-iface">
@ -460,7 +470,6 @@
!Finclude/net/mac80211.h sta_notify_cmd
!Finclude/net/mac80211.h ieee80211_find_sta
!Finclude/net/mac80211.h ieee80211_find_sta_by_ifaddr
!Finclude/net/mac80211.h ieee80211_sta_block_awake
</chapter>
<chapter id="hardware-scan-offload">

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@ -1538,6 +1538,95 @@ ieee80211_get_alt_retry_rate(const struct ieee80211_hw *hw,
* This rule applies to all other FIF flags as well.
*/
/**
* DOC: AP support for powersaving clients
*
* In order to implement AP and P2P GO modes, mac80211 has support for
* client powersaving, both "legacy" PS (PS-Poll/null data) and uAPSD.
* There currently is no support for sAPSD.
*
* There is one assumption that mac80211 makes, namely that a client
* will not poll with PS-Poll and trigger with uAPSD at the same time.
* Both are supported, and both can be used by the same client, but
* they can't be used concurrently by the same client. This simplifies
* the driver code.
*
* The first thing to keep in mind is that there is a flag for complete
* driver implementation: %IEEE80211_HW_AP_LINK_PS. If this flag is set,
* mac80211 expects the driver to handle most of the state machine for
* powersaving clients and will ignore the PM bit in incoming frames.
* Drivers then use ieee80211_sta_ps_transition() to inform mac80211 of
* stations' powersave transitions. In this mode, mac80211 also doesn't
* handle PS-Poll/uAPSD.
*
* In the mode without %IEEE80211_HW_AP_LINK_PS, mac80211 will check the
* PM bit in incoming frames for client powersave transitions. When a
* station goes to sleep, we will stop transmitting to it. There is,
* however, a race condition: a station might go to sleep while there is
* data buffered on hardware queues. If the device has support for this
* it will reject frames, and the driver should give the frames back to
* mac80211 with the %IEEE80211_TX_STAT_TX_FILTERED flag set which will
* cause mac80211 to retry the frame when the station wakes up. The
* driver is also notified of powersave transitions by calling its
* @sta_notify callback.
*
* When the station is asleep, it has three choices: it can wake up,
* it can PS-Poll, or it can possibly start a uAPSD service period.
* Waking up is implemented by simply transmitting all buffered (and
* filtered) frames to the station. This is the easiest case. When
* the station sends a PS-Poll or a uAPSD trigger frame, mac80211
* will inform the driver of this with the @allow_buffered_frames
* callback; this callback is optional. mac80211 will then transmit
* the frames as usual and set the %IEEE80211_TX_CTL_POLL_RESPONSE
* on each frame. The last frame in the service period (or the only
* response to a PS-Poll) also has %IEEE80211_TX_STATUS_EOSP set to
* indicate that it ends the service period; as this frame must have
* TX status report it also sets %IEEE80211_TX_CTL_REQ_TX_STATUS.
* When TX status is reported for this frame, the service period is
* marked has having ended and a new one can be started by the peer.
*
* Another race condition can happen on some devices like iwlwifi
* when there are frames queued for the station and it wakes up
* or polls; the frames that are already queued could end up being
* transmitted first instead, causing reordering and/or wrong
* processing of the EOSP. The cause is that allowing frames to be
* transmitted to a certain station is out-of-band communication to
* the device. To allow this problem to be solved, the driver can
* call ieee80211_sta_block_awake() if frames are buffered when it
* is notified that the station went to sleep. When all these frames
* have been filtered (see above), it must call the function again
* to indicate that the station is no longer blocked.
*
* If the driver buffers frames in the driver for aggregation in any
* way, it must use the ieee80211_sta_set_buffered() call when it is
* notified of the station going to sleep to inform mac80211 of any
* TIDs that have frames buffered. Note that when a station wakes up
* this information is reset (hence the requirement to call it when
* informed of the station going to sleep). Then, when a service
* period starts for any reason, @release_buffered_frames is called
* with the number of frames to be released and which TIDs they are
* to come from. In this case, the driver is responsible for setting
* the EOSP (for uAPSD) and MORE_DATA bits in the released frames,
* to help the @more_data paramter is passed to tell the driver if
* there is more data on other TIDs -- the TIDs to release frames
* from are ignored since mac80211 doesn't know how many frames the
* buffers for those TIDs contain.
*
* If the driver also implement GO mode, where absence periods may
* shorten service periods (or abort PS-Poll responses), it must
* filter those response frames except in the case of frames that
* are buffered in the driver -- those must remain buffered to avoid
* reordering. Because it is possible that no frames are released
* in this case, the driver must call ieee80211_sta_eosp_irqsafe()
* to indicate to mac80211 that the service period ended anyway.
*
* Finally, if frames from multiple TIDs are released from mac80211
* but the driver might reorder them, it must clear & set the flags
* appropriately (only the last frame may have %IEEE80211_TX_STATUS_EOSP)
* and also take care of the EOSP and MORE_DATA bits in the frame.
* The driver may also use ieee80211_sta_eosp_irqsafe() in this case.
*/
/**
* enum ieee80211_filter_flags - hardware filter flags
*