Re: hidden essids and atheros.

[Dan Williams <dcbw redhat com>]

On Tue, 2005-11-08 at 15:57 -0500, Robert Love wrote:
> Team NM,
> 
> Hidden essids (essids of AP's that do not broadcast) and the Atheros
> (madwifi) driver do not get along.
> 
> Always or almost always, the user fails to connect.
> 
> Investigation has led me long and it has led me far.  I have gone west
> and east, up and down.
> 
> The problem is that Atheros takes considerable (and unpredictable) time
> to determine the MAC address of the a non-broadcasting AP.

Here's my take.  Since the card _has_ to know the BSSID (MAC) of the
base station it's attempting to associate with, which gets sent in the
Association Request frame of the 802.11 protocol, the card must know
what base station it's talking to.  Otherwise it would be impossible to
associate using 802.11 protocol.  Therefore, the driver must know that
as well.  If the driver's broken, we have to make sure the driver gets
fixed.

Dan