Conformance Testing Mode (Superchannel)

Borage

Is there any plans to add conformance testing mode (superchannel)? This mode allows you to test wireless channels outside the default scan-list and/or regulatory domain.

jimp

That kind of feature may be dependent on the wireless card being used. There are a lot of supported cards and the number of features they support varies widely from one driver to the next.

Do you know if this works on stock FreeBSD with a well-known driver such as ath? Or any drive?

Borage

I was thinking about Atheros based cards. I have this feature enabled on one of my linux based routers.

root@00032F24CB82:/# iwlist ath0 chan
ath0 118 channels in total; available frequencies :
Channel 213 : 2.192 GHz
Channel 214 : 2.197 GHz
Channel 215 : 2.202 GHz
Channel 216 : 2.207 GHz
Channel 217 : 2.212 GHz
Channel 218 : 2.217 GHz
Channel 219 : 2.222 GHz
Channel 220 : 2.224 GHz
Channel 221 : 2.229 GHz
Channel 222 : 2.234 GHz
Channel 223 : 2.239 GHz
Channel 224 : 2.244 GHz
Channel 225 : 2.249 GHz
Channel 226 : 2.254 GHz
Channel 227 : 2.259 GHz
Channel 228 : 2.264 GHz
Channel 229 : 2.269 GHz
Channel 230 : 2.274 GHz
Channel 231 : 2.279 GHz
Channel 232 : 2.284 GHz
Channel 233 : 2.289 GHz
Channel 234 : 2.294 GHz
Channel 235 : 2.299 GHz
Channel 236 : 2.304 GHz
Channel 237 : 2.309 GHz
Channel 238 : 2.314 GHz
Channel 239 : 2.319 GHz
Channel 240 : 2.324 GHz
Channel 241 : 2.329 GHz
Channel 242 : 2.334 GHz
Channel 243 : 2.339 GHz
Channel 244 : 2.344 GHz
Current Frequency:2.312 GHz

jimp

Here's what I get with an Atheros 5413 card:

ifconfig wlan0 list chan

Channel 1 : 2412 Mhz 11g Channel 52 : 5260* Mhz 11a
Channel 2 : 2417 Mhz 11g Channel 56 : 5280* Mhz 11a
Channel 3 : 2422 Mhz 11g Channel 58 : 5290* Mhz 11a Turbo
Channel 4 : 2427 Mhz 11g Channel 60 : 5300* Mhz 11a
Channel 5 : 2432 Mhz 11g Channel 64 : 5320* Mhz 11a
Channel 6 : 2437* Mhz 11g Turbo Channel 100 : 5500* Mhz 11a
Channel 7 : 2442 Mhz 11g Channel 104 : 5520* Mhz 11a
Channel 8 : 2447 Mhz 11g Channel 108 : 5540* Mhz 11a
Channel 9 : 2452 Mhz 11g Channel 112 : 5560* Mhz 11a
Channel 10 : 2457 Mhz 11g Channel 116 : 5580* Mhz 11a
Channel 11 : 2462 Mhz 11g Channel 120 : 5600* Mhz 11a
Channel 12 : 2467* Mhz 11g Channel 124 : 5620* Mhz 11a
Channel 13 : 2472* Mhz 11g Channel 128 : 5640* Mhz 11a
Channel 14 : 2484* Mhz 11b Channel 132 : 5660* Mhz 11a
Channel 34 : 5170* Mhz 11a Channel 136 : 5680* Mhz 11a
Channel 36 : 5180* Mhz 11a Channel 140 : 5700* Mhz 11a
Channel 38 : 5190* Mhz 11a Channel 149 : 5745* Mhz 11a
Channel 40 : 5200* Mhz 11a Channel 152 : 5760* Mhz 11a Turbo
Channel 42 : 5210* Mhz 11a Turbo Channel 153 : 5765* Mhz 11a
Channel 44 : 5220* Mhz 11a Channel 157 : 5785* Mhz 11a
Channel 46 : 5230* Mhz 11a Channel 160 : 5800* Mhz 11a Turbo
Channel 48 : 5240* Mhz 11a Channel 161 : 5805* Mhz 11a
Channel 50 : 5250* Mhz 11a Turbo Channel 165 : 5825* Mhz 11a

And a 2413:

ifconfig ath0 list chan

Channel 1 : 2412 Mhz 11g Channel 7 : 2442 Mhz 11g
Channel 2 : 2417 Mhz 11g Channel 8 : 2447 Mhz 11g
Channel 3 : 2422 Mhz 11g Channel 9 : 2452 Mhz 11g
Channel 4 : 2427 Mhz 11g Channel 10 : 2457 Mhz 11g
Channel 5 : 2432 Mhz 11g Channel 11 : 2462 Mhz 11g
Channel 6 : 2437 Mhz 11g

And a 5212:

ifconfig ath1 list chan

Channel 1 : 2412 Mhz 11g Channel 7 : 2442 Mhz 11g
Channel 2 : 2417 Mhz 11g Channel 8 : 2447 Mhz 11g
Channel 3 : 2422 Mhz 11g Channel 9 : 2452 Mhz 11g
Channel 4 : 2427 Mhz 11g Channel 10 : 2457 Mhz 11g
Channel 5 : 2432 Mhz 11g Channel 11 : 2462 Mhz 11g
Channel 6 : 2437* Mhz 11g Turbo

jimp

There is supposed to be a 'debug' regdomain/country that opens up more channels, but I couldn't get it to set on the card I have in a router which can be experimented with. Not sure if it's read-only or needs to be set in a loader tunable or what.

Borage

I did not compiled the drivers by myself, but I think you need to enable superchannel at compile time.


/* Set this to 1 to disable regulatory domain restrictions */  
#define SUPERCHANNEL    0  
/* Set this to 1 to disable regulatory domain restrictions for channel tests.  
 * WARNING: This is for debuging only and has side effects (eg. scan takes too long  
 * and results timeouts). It's also illegal to tune to some of the supported frequencies  
 * in some countries, so use this at your own risk, you 've been warned. */  
#define CHAN_DEBUG    0