[Madwifi-devel] RE: Why does ath0 need to be UP to associate with an AP?

[Stephane L. <ste...@co...>]

This little patch below should cause a disassociate when the interface 
is put down.

As an added bonus, the ath_pci module now detaches properly when it is 
removed (it used to hang the system before).

Stephane

--- driver/if_ath.c	Fri Aug 22 10:17:24 2003
+++ driver-new/if_ath.c	Fri Aug 22 12:13:54 2003
@@ -231,6 +231,7 @@

  	ether_setup(dev);
  	dev->open = ath_init;
+	dev->stop = ath_stop;
  	dev->hard_start_xmit = ath_hardstart;
  	dev->tx_timeout = ath_tx_timeout;
  	dev->watchdog_timeo = 5 * HZ;			/* XXX */


> From: William S. Kish <wskish@ya...>
> I guess this depends on one's interpretation of what it means for a network
>  interface to be 'UP'. I think a purist might argue than an interface
>  shouldn't be doing anything until it is 'UP'.
>  
>  One advantage of only associating in the 'UP' state is that it allows user
>  control over the association -- for example 'ifconfig ath0 down && ifconfig
>  ath0 up' can be used to force a reassociation.  Aside from consistent
>  behavior with other wireless drivers, are there other benefits from having
>  an interface associate before it is up?  
>  
>  (My example actually exposes an apparent inconsistency in the current code:
>  'ifconfig down' doesn't seem to force a disassociation; only when followed
>  by 'ifconfig up' does it cause a reassocation. Still useful but not quite
>  the semantics I would expect.)
>  
>  -Bill
>