AdHoc [FreeBSD WIKI]

This page is read only. You can view the source, but not change it. Ask your administrator if you think this is wrong.
====== 802.11 adhoc / IBSS support ======

There's IBSS / Adhoc support in net80211 and a variety of drivers.

===== Overview =====

TBD

===== Examples =====

TBD

===== Encryption =====

WPA-NONE encryption works at the moment:

<code>
ap_scan=2

network={
ssid="CACHEBOY_IBSS_ENCRYPT"
psk="xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx"
# set ibss
mode=1
proto=WPA
key_mgmt=WPA-NONE
pairwise=NONE
group=CCMP
}
</code>

WPA-RSN encryption is not yet implemented.

===== Capabilities negotiation / 802.11n support =====

One of the pesky corner cases in 802.11 IBSS is negotiating capabilities between IBSS nodes. Traditionally it wasn't done - you just expected that the remote node supported mostly the same capabilities as you. This is a problem when things like 802.11b versus 802.11bg support - the 802.11bg node may just default / expect that 802.11bg rates are available for all nodes, even the 802.11b node.

How this is supposed to happen is:

  * Nodes discover each other through hearing beacons, broadcast traffic, and such
  * Nodes exchange probe request/responses to negotiate a subset of full 802.11 functionality
  * Nodes then use OPEN authentication frames to reset each others' state (eg encryption IV state, sequence number state, etc) so reassociation is reliable.

%%FreeBSD%% doesn't do all of this (it only learns through beacons, broadcast traffic, and receiving probe requests.) This makes various kinds of negotiation difficult.

There's also interoperability with other devices - for example, it looks like the broadcom firmware only treats an IBSS node as 11n enabled if the probe request received by it contains 802.11n IEs.