Re: Disabling transmission of beacon frames
On Sat, 22 Oct 2016, Jan Bakuwel wrote:
> Does anyone know if it's possible to disable passive mode on an AP? It
> is possible to set the SSID to hidden but this does not stop the
> broadcasts, it just broadcasts frames with a null SSID. Stopping the
> broadcasts altogether (and as a consequence the client must use active
> mode, ie. needs to send probes) will result in no EMR when wifi is not
> in use, in other words AP will only listen not transmit in that case,
> yet wifi is available when needed.
The AP would have to switch to standard beaconning while *any* station
is associated, otherwise it could have nefarious effects on network
performance.
Also, beacon-less infrasctructure mode CANNOT work on a number of bands
where the stations are forced to operate in passive mode (i.e. they
cannot issue a probe request to a channel where they did not receive an
AP beacon). It is also likely forbidden in any channels where DSS
(weather radar detection) must be performed, as this is only performed
by APs.
So, in theory this would work provided the adapter firmware allows for
it in the first place, and it is restricted to channels where clients
are allowed to actively probe for APs -- which is information readly
available on the regdb (regulatory database). However, I see no way to
control this in /sbin/iw for infrastructure mode (but I find iw terribly
confusing, so I might have failed to notice it).
Please ask in the linux-wireless mailinglist at vger.kernel.org.
--
Henrique Holschuh
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