xref: /dragonfly/share/man/man9/ieee80211_bmiss.9 (revision ef2b2b9d)
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26.\" $FreeBSD: head/share/man/man9/ieee80211_bmiss.9 233648 2012-03-29 05:02:12Z eadler $
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28.Dd April 28, 2010
29.Dt IEEE80211_BMISS 9
30.Os
31.Sh NAME
32.Nm ieee80211_bmiss
33.Nd 802.11 beacon miss support
34.Sh SYNOPSIS
35.In net/if.h
36.In net/if_media.h
37.In netproto/802_11/ieee80211_var.h
38.Pp
39.Ft void
40.Fn ieee80211_beacon_miss "struct ieee80211com *"
41.Sh DESCRIPTION
42The
43.Nm net80211
44software layer provides a support framework for drivers that includes
45handling beacon miss events in station mode.
46Drivers can dispatch beacon miss events that are recognized in hardware or
47.Nm net80211
48can detect beacon miss if the driver dispatches received beacon frames
49through the normal receive path.
50Software beacon miss support is especially useful when multiple vaps
51are operating and any hardware beacon miss support is not available
52(e.g. operating as an access point together with one or more station
53mode vaps).
54.Pp
55Drivers should dispatch beacon miss events recognized in the driver with
56.Fn ieee80211_beacon_miss .
57This causes some number of ProbeRequest frames to be sent to the
58access point to check if the association is still alive.
59If no response is received and roaming mode is set to
60.Dv IEEE80211_ROAMING_AUTO
61then
62.Nm net80211
63will try to re-associate and if that fails
64trigger a scan to look for the access point or another suitable AP.
65When the
66.Nm net80211
67state machine is being operated manually, e.g. by
68.Xr wpa_supplicant 8 ,
69then applications are notified of the state change and are responsible
70for handling the work of scanning for a new access point.
71The number of beacon miss events (without a ProbeResponse) is user
72settable with the
73.Dv IEEE80211_IOC_BMISSTHRESHOLD
74request.
75.Pp
76Software beacon miss detection is enabled per-vap by setting the
77.Dv IEEE80211_FEXT_SWBMISS
78flag.
79Typically this is done when a vap is setup
80when the
81.Dv IEEE80211_CLONE_NOBEACONS
82option is supplied to the clone operation.
83But drivers may also force this when they know they need help detecting
84beacon miss.
85When beacon miss is detected in software the event is dispatched without
86driver involvement.
87Note that software beacon miss handling is not limited to station mode;
88it can be used in any operating mode where beacons from a peer station
89are received.
90.Sh SEE ALSO
91.Xr wpa_supplicant 8 ,
92.Xr ieee80211 9 ,
93.Xr ieee80211_vap 9
94