[Ns-developers] Code review request for multiple virtual BSSIDs support

[Pei, Guangyu]

Hi,

I would like to ask for review of adding a new capability in current wifi model. It is about supporting multiple Virtual Access Points (each AP has a different BSSID) on the same physical hardware device. The model follows VAP model in MadWifi driver. We use nqap-wifi-mac.cc as example for now. It can be moved to wifi-mac.cc after the upcoming consolidation of upper MAC layer. There is a test program that demonstrates one AP node that supports two wireless LANs on the same physical device. Since this patch requires some changes at mac-low, AP MACs and some implicit 1-to-1 assumptions in current model, we would like your comments for these changes.    

Code review location:
--------------------------------------------------------------
http://codereview.appspot.com/2104052/

Architecture diagram:
----------------------
To facilitate your review, we prepared an architecture diagram to illustrate the ideas for this patch. The diagram can be found in http://www.nsnam.org/~pei/vap/WifiVirtualAP.png. 

Plans for the next steps:
------------------------------------

1) Plan to integrate with consolidated upper MAC if this approach is acceptable.
2) Make maximum number of VAPs and type of AP (QoS or non-QoS) as configurable attributes.
3) Potential other rules that are implemented in MadWifi (e.g., "Only one station VAP can exist on a device. If the station VAP is the first VAP created, then no other VAPs are allowed to be created. If the first VAP created is in AP (Master) mode, then one station VAP is allowed to be created. In this case, other AP VAPs can also be created after the station VAP. When AP and station VAPs coexist, the nosbeacon flag must be used when creating the station.") 

Thanks,

Gary