Re: [PATCH v8 3/3] nl80211/mac80211: Report signal average

From: John W. Linville
Date: Wed Nov 24 2010 - 11:30:22 EST


On Tue, Nov 16, 2010 at 10:58:48AM +0900, Bruno Randolf wrote:
> Extend nl80211 to report an exponential weighted moving average (EWMA) of the
> signal value. Since the signal value usually fluctuates between different
> packets, an average can be more useful than the value of the last packet.
>
> This uses the recently added generic EWMA library function.
>
> Signed-off-by: Bruno Randolf <br1@xxxxxxxxxxx>
> ---
> include/linux/nl80211.h | 2 ++
> include/net/cfg80211.h | 4 ++++
> net/mac80211/Kconfig | 1 +
> net/mac80211/cfg.c | 3 ++-
> net/mac80211/rx.c | 1 +
> net/mac80211/sta_info.c | 2 ++
> net/mac80211/sta_info.h | 3 +++
> net/wireless/nl80211.c | 3 +++
> 8 files changed, 18 insertions(+), 1 deletions(-)
>
> diff --git a/include/linux/nl80211.h b/include/linux/nl80211.h
> index fb877b5..0ceb552 100644
> --- a/include/linux/nl80211.h
> +++ b/include/linux/nl80211.h
> @@ -1132,6 +1132,7 @@ enum nl80211_rate_info {
> * @__NL80211_STA_INFO_AFTER_LAST: internal
> * @NL80211_STA_INFO_MAX: highest possible station info attribute
> * @NL80211_STA_INFO_SIGNAL: signal strength of last received PPDU (u8, dBm)
> + * @NL80211_STA_INFO_SIGNAL_AVG: signal strength average (u8, dBm)
> * @NL80211_STA_INFO_TX_BITRATE: current unicast tx rate, nested attribute
> * containing info as possible, see &enum nl80211_sta_info_txrate.
> * @NL80211_STA_INFO_RX_PACKETS: total received packet (u32, from this station)
> @@ -1149,6 +1150,7 @@ enum nl80211_sta_info {
> NL80211_STA_INFO_PLID,
> NL80211_STA_INFO_PLINK_STATE,
> NL80211_STA_INFO_SIGNAL,
> + NL80211_STA_INFO_SIGNAL_AVG,
> NL80211_STA_INFO_TX_BITRATE,
> NL80211_STA_INFO_RX_PACKETS,
> NL80211_STA_INFO_TX_PACKETS,

It's been pointed-out that this breaks kernel->userland ABI.

That could be fixed rather easily, but due to the performance concerns
I'm going to just revert this one for now. Please correct the ABI
issue when submitting a new version that addresses the performance
concerns raised by Jouni.

John
--
John W. Linville Someday the world will need a hero, and you
linville@xxxxxxxxxxxxx might be all we have. Be ready.
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