From: Xam R. Time (xam_at_chalupa.wi2600.org)
Date: 2002-04-13 15:29:24 UTC
On Sat, 13 Apr 2002, Jouni Malinen wrote:
> On Fri, Apr 05, 2002 at 01:44:27PM +0300, Jouni Malinen wrote:
>
> > 'iwconfig wlan0 nick' changes the RID FC0E (cnfOwnName), but as far as
> > I know, it is not used for anything..
>
> Little did I know..
>
> I was testing WEP with Lucent (it sends fragmented frames at least
> with Windows drivers) and happened to notice odd packets while
> sniffing frames. Lucent WaveLAN sent data packets in which LLC had OID
> 0x00601D and Prism2 card in Host AP mode replied to these packets with
> a frame containing text "Prism I". I haven't noticed these frames
> before, since station firmware does not let them through to the
> driver.
>
> I don't know of any public documentation for those frames, but since
> they are not passed to the driver, there is not much than can be done
> with them; apart from changing that identification text. cnfOwnName is
> indeed used for that, but a port reset is required after the change. I
> fixed that and the next version of the driver can be configured to
> display different name in these diagnostics frames.
Excellent! This would explain why the Lucent site survey tool shows "Prism 1" or "unknown" depending on what firmware I have on the prism2 card in question.
Note, in FreeBSD 'wicontrol' and 'ancontrol' both have methods to display to the user the name of the AP they've associated with. I wonder if on the right cards, having the AP answer something sane would provide the data they're looking for.
> ORiNOCO Client Manager's Link Test is showing invalid signal quality
> information for the AP side when the AP is Prism2 card in Host AP
> mode. I would assume that there is some incompatibility between the
> used diagnostics frames.
I would assume so as well, and I can confirm this. In my 'walk arround' tests, I often do use the lucent site survey tool in win32 (simply becuase it rocks so), and generally I see infinitley low noise floors reported from all the AP's, but somehow the survey tool DOES seem to get the signal quality number back from the AP; is this information distributed in the AP's beacons somehow? I can't understand how the survey tool would otherwise recieve this data back from the AP.
I wonder if it would pay to sniff a few of the frames the lucent AP sends a client card. Hopefully it contains the S/N and other quality data the AP is seeing from the client. Wish I had an RG-1000 lying arround to test on, or some compliant lucent AP.
--Tk