kernel_optimize_test/net
Jouni Malinen 9c1c98a3bb mac80211: Send EAPOL frames at lowest rate
The current minstrel_ht rate control behavior is somewhat optimistic in
trying to find optimum TX rate. While this is usually fine for normal
Data frames, there are cases where a more conservative set of retry
parameters would be beneficial to make the connection more robust.

EAPOL frames are critical to the authentication and especially the
EAPOL-Key message 4/4 (the last message in the 4-way handshake) is
important to get through to the AP. If that message is lost, the only
recovery mechanism in many cases is to reassociate with the AP and start
from scratch. This can often be avoided by trying to send the frame with
more conservative rate and/or with more link layer retries.

In most cases, minstrel_ht is currently using the initial EAPOL-Key
frames for probing higher rates and this results in only five link layer
transmission attempts (one at high(ish) MCS and four at MCS0). While
this works with most APs, it looks like there are some deployed APs that
may have issues with the EAPOL frames using HT MCS immediately after
association. Similarly, there may be issues in cases where the signal
strength or radio environment is not good enough to be able to get
frames through even at couple of MCS 0 tries.

The best approach for this would likely to be to reduce the TX rate for
the last rate (3rd rate parameter in the set) to a low basic rate (say,
6 Mbps on 5 GHz and 2 or 5.5 Mbps on 2.4 GHz), but doing that cleanly
requires some more effort. For now, we can start with a simple one-liner
that forces the minimum rate to be used for EAPOL frames similarly how
the TX rate is selected for the IEEE 802.11 Management frames. This does
result in a small extra latency added to the cases where the AP would be
able to receive the higher rate, but taken into account how small number
of EAPOL frames are used, this is likely to be insignificant. A future
optimization in the minstrel_ht design can also allow this patch to be
reverted to get back to the more optimized initial TX rate.

It should also be noted that many drivers that do not use minstrel as
the rate control algorithm are already doing similar workarounds by
forcing the lowest TX rate to be used for EAPOL frames.

Cc: stable@vger.kernel.org
Reported-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
Tested-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Jouni Malinen <jouni@qca.qualcomm.com>
Signed-off-by: Johannes Berg <johannes.berg@intel.com>
2015-02-26 21:03:06 +01:00
..
6lowpan
9p
802
8021q vlan: advertise link netns via netlink 2015-01-23 17:51:15 -08:00
appletalk
atm
ax25
batman-adv batman-adv: Kconfig, Add missing DEBUG_FS dependency 2015-01-07 22:17:11 +01:00
bluetooth Bluetooth: Fix potential NULL dereference 2015-02-03 09:02:12 +01:00
bridge bridge: netfilter: Move sysctl-specific error code inside #ifdef 2015-02-12 08:44:46 -08:00
caif caif: fix a signedness bug in cfpkt_iterate() 2015-02-20 17:35:14 -05:00
can netlink: make nlmsg_end() and genlmsg_end() void 2015-01-18 01:03:45 -05:00
ceph mm: gup: use get_user_pages_unlocked 2015-02-11 17:06:05 -08:00
core net: pktgen: disable xmit_clone on virtual devices 2015-02-22 22:43:20 -05:00
dcb
dccp
decnet netlink: Fix bugs in nlmsg_end() conversions. 2015-01-18 23:36:08 -05:00
dns_resolver
dsa net: dsa: Set valid phy interface type 2015-02-17 10:37:39 -08:00
ethernet net: Add Transparent Ethernet Bridging GRO support. 2015-01-02 15:46:41 -05:00
hsr
ieee802154 netlink: make nlmsg_end() and genlmsg_end() void 2015-01-18 01:03:45 -05:00
ipv4 tcp: fix tcp_should_expand_sndbuf() to use tcp_packets_in_flight() 2015-02-22 23:07:11 -05:00
ipv6 ipv6: fix ipv6_cow_metrics for non DST_HOST case 2015-02-14 20:26:16 -08:00
ipx
irda irda: use msecs_to_jiffies for conversions 2015-01-30 18:08:25 -08:00
iucv
key
l2tp netlink: make nlmsg_end() and genlmsg_end() void 2015-01-18 01:03:45 -05:00
lapb
llc net: llc: use correct size for sysctl timeout entries 2015-01-25 00:23:21 -08:00
mac80211 mac80211: Send EAPOL frames at lowest rate 2015-02-26 21:03:06 +01:00
mac802154 mac802154: fix kbuild test robot warning 2015-01-03 01:51:51 +01:00
mpls net: mark some potential candidates __read_mostly 2015-01-30 17:58:39 -08:00
netfilter Merge git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/pablo/nf 2015-02-20 17:36:20 -05:00
netlabel Merge branch 'next' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/jmorris/linux-security 2015-02-11 20:25:11 -08:00
netlink Merge git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/davem/net 2015-02-05 14:33:28 -08:00
netrom
nfc NFC: nci: Move NFCEE discovery logic 2015-02-04 09:15:18 +01:00
openvswitch openvswitch: Fix net exit. 2015-02-20 15:32:08 -05:00
packet af_packet: allow packets defragmentation not only for hash fanout type 2015-02-21 23:00:18 -05:00
phonet phonet netlink: allow multiple messages per skb in route dump 2015-01-19 16:20:17 -05:00
rds rds: rds_cong_queue_updates needs to defer the congestion update transmission 2015-02-11 14:35:44 -08:00
rfkill Last round of updates for net-next: 2015-02-04 14:57:45 -08:00
rose
rxrpc Merge branch 'for-davem' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/viro/vfs 2015-02-04 20:46:55 -08:00
sched ematch: Fix auto-loading of ematch modules. 2015-02-20 15:30:56 -05:00
sctp Merge git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/davem/net 2015-02-05 14:33:28 -08:00
sunrpc Merge branch 'for-3.20' of git://linux-nfs.org/~bfields/linux 2015-02-12 10:39:41 -08:00
switchdev swdevice: add new apis to set and del bridge port attributes 2015-02-01 23:16:34 -08:00
tipc tipc: remove tipc_snprintf 2015-02-09 13:20:49 -08:00
unix net: remove sock_iocb 2015-01-28 23:15:07 -08:00
vmw_vsock vmci: propagate msghdr all way down to __qp_memcpy_to_queue() 2015-02-04 01:34:14 -05:00
wimax
wireless cfg80211: calls nl80211_exit on error 2015-02-24 11:41:21 +01:00
x25
xfrm netlink: make nlmsg_end() and genlmsg_end() void 2015-01-18 01:03:45 -05:00
compat.c
Kconfig
Makefile Merge branch 'for-linus' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/viro/vfs 2014-12-16 15:53:03 -08:00
socket.c net: switch sockets to ->read_iter/->write_iter 2015-02-04 01:34:15 -05:00
sysctl_net.c