cfg80211: Allow BSS hint to be provided for connect

This clarifies the expected driver behavior on the older
NL80211_ATTR_MAC and NL80211_ATTR_WIPHY_FREQ attributes and adds a new
set of similar attributes with _HINT postfix to enable use of a
recommendation of the initial BSS to choose. This can be helpful for
some drivers that can avoid an additional full scan on connection
request if the information is provided to them (user space tools like
wpa_supplicant already has that information available based on earlier
scans).

In addition, this can be used to get more expected behavior for cases
where a specific BSS should be picked first based on operations like
Interworking network selection or WPS. These cases were already easily
addressed with drivers that leave BSS selection to user space, but there
was no convenient way to do this with drivers that take care of BSS
selection internally without using the NL80211_ATTR_MAC which is not
really desired since it is needed for other purposes to force the
association to remain with the same BSS.

Signed-off-by: Jouni Malinen <j@w1.fi>
[add const, fix policy]
Signed-off-by: Johannes Berg <johannes.berg@intel.com>

1 files changed, 18 insertions, 2 deletions

diff --git a/include/uapi/linux/nl80211.h b/include/uapi/linux/nl80211.h
index 91054fd660e0..e57de3318068 100644
--- a/include/uapi/linux/nl80211.h
+++ b/include/uapi/linux/nl80211.h
@@ -418,8 +418,18 @@
  *      %NL80211_ATTR_SSID attribute, and can optionally specify the association
  *      IEs in %NL80211_ATTR_IE, %NL80211_ATTR_AUTH_TYPE, %NL80211_ATTR_USE_MFP,
  *      %NL80211_ATTR_MAC, %NL80211_ATTR_WIPHY_FREQ, %NL80211_ATTR_CONTROL_PORT,
- *      %NL80211_ATTR_CONTROL_PORT_ETHERTYPE and
- *      %NL80211_ATTR_CONTROL_PORT_NO_ENCRYPT.
+ *      %NL80211_ATTR_CONTROL_PORT_ETHERTYPE,
+ *      %NL80211_ATTR_CONTROL_PORT_NO_ENCRYPT, %NL80211_ATTR_MAC_HINT, and
+ *      %NL80211_ATTR_WIPHY_FREQ_HINT.
+ *      If included, %NL80211_ATTR_MAC and %NL80211_ATTR_WIPHY_FREQ are
+ *      restrictions on BSS selection, i.e., they effectively prevent roaming
+ *      within the ESS. %NL80211_ATTR_MAC_HINT and %NL80211_ATTR_WIPHY_FREQ_HINT
+ *      can be included to provide a recommendation of the initial BSS while
+ *      allowing the driver to roam to other BSSes within the ESS and also to
+ *      ignore this recommendation if the indicated BSS is not ideal. Only one
+ *      set of BSSID,frequency parameters is used (i.e., either the enforcing
+ *      %NL80211_ATTR_MAC,%NL80211_ATTR_WIPHY_FREQ or the less strict
+ *      %NL80211_ATTR_MAC_HINT and %NL80211_ATTR_WIPHY_FREQ_HINT).
  *      Background scan period can optionally be
  *      specified in %NL80211_ATTR_BG_SCAN_PERIOD,
  *      if not specified default background scan configuration
@@ -1555,6 +1565,9 @@ enum nl80211_commands {
  *      data is in the format defined for the payload of the QoS Map Set element
  *      in IEEE Std 802.11-2012, 8.4.2.97.
  *
+ * @NL80211_ATTR_MAC_HINT: MAC address recommendation as initial BSS
+ * @NL80211_ATTR_WIPHY_FREQ_HINT: frequency of the recommended initial BSS
+ *
  * @NL80211_ATTR_MAX: highest attribute number currently defined
  * @__NL80211_ATTR_AFTER_LAST: internal use
  */
@@ -1883,6 +1896,9 @@ enum nl80211_attrs {
 
         NL80211_ATTR_QOS_MAP,
 
+        NL80211_ATTR_MAC_HINT,
+        NL80211_ATTR_WIPHY_FREQ_HINT,
+
         /* add attributes here, update the policy in nl80211.c */
 
         __NL80211_ATTR_AFTER_LAST,