Re: [PATCH] wifi: mac80211: reject station association if AP is not started

[Johannes Berg]

On Thu, 2026-07-23 at 08:11 +0000, syzbot wrote:
> From: Slawomir Stepien <sst@xxxxxxxxx>

I'm a bit confused? Did syzbot just pick up another patch?

> dereferences the NULL chanctx_conf, triggering a WARN_ON:

That can't be right?

> Fix this by rejecting the addition or modification of a station to the
> associated state if the AP has not been started (chanctx_conf is NULL).

That's a proxy for "AP is started", but not a good one, I think we
actually have a flag or so somewhere? Maybe even reject it in cfg80211?

> Exempt Multi-Link Operation (MLO) interfaces from this check, as they
> handle chanctx_conf per-link rather than globally on the VIF.

Feels like that's only necessary because the proxy is bad.

Also maybe a similar issue arises if an MLO AP is only half-started, and
stations are added to all links, or so?

johannes