mac80211: debugfs option to force TX status frames

At Technical University of Munich we use MAC 802.11 TX status frames to
perform several measurements in MAC 802.11 setups.

With ath based drivers this was possible until commit d94a461d7a7df6
("ath9k: use ieee80211_tx_status_noskb where possible") as the driver
ignored the IEEE80211_TX_CTL_REQ_TX_STATUS flag and always delivered
tx_status frames. Since that commit, this behavior was changed and the
driver now adheres to IEEE80211_TX_CTL_REQ_TX_STATUS.

Due to performance reasons, IEEE80211_TX_CTL_REQ_TX_STATUS is not set for
data frames from interfaces in managed mode. Hence, frames that are sent
from a managed mode interface do never deliver tx_status frames. This
remains true even if a monitor mode interface (the measurement interface)
is added to the same ieee80211 physical device. Thus, there is no
possibility for receiving tx_status frames for frames sent on an interface
in managed mode, if the driver adheres to IEEE80211_TX_CTL_REQ_TX_STATUS.

In order to force delivery of tx_status frames for research and debugging
purposes, implement a debugfs option force_tx_status for ieee80211 physical
devices. When this option is set for a physical device,
IEEE80211_TX_CTL_REQ_TX_STATUS is enabled in all packets sent from that
device. This option can be set via
/sys/kernel/debug/ieee80211/<dev>/force_tx_status. The default is disabled.

Co-developed-by: Charlie Groh <ga58taw@mytum.de>
Signed-off-by: Charlie Groh <ga58taw@mytum.de>
Signed-off-by: Julius Niedworok <julius.n@gmx.net>
Signed-off-by: Johannes Berg <johannes.berg@intel.com>

1 files changed, 1 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/net/mac80211/ieee80211_i.h b/net/mac80211/ieee80211_i.h
index 32094e2ac0cb..5a0dedd31266 100644
--- a/net/mac80211/ieee80211_i.h
+++ b/net/mac80211/ieee80211_i.h
@@ -1384,6 +1384,7 @@ struct ieee80211_local {
 		struct dentry *rcdir;
 		struct dentry *keys;
 	} debugfs;
+	bool force_tx_status;
 #endif
 
 	/*