[Commotion-dev] other potential approaches to adhoc on Android 4.x

Thu Feb 28 19:11:18 UTC 2013

Hey Hans,

Thanks for forwarding that along, that's very interesting and way more
positive than I expected. Do you know what the best avenue is to get
involved with the effort to 'bring engineering muscle to the problem'?

On 02/28/2013 02:03 PM, Hans-Christoph Steiner wrote:
> 
> I was checking in with the Google crew about official Adhoc support in
> Android, and got this trove of interesting information, which Lucas said I
> could forward:
> 
> -------- Original Message --------
> Subject: Re: Android Ad-Hoc
> Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2013 09:24:30 -0800
> From: Lucas Dixon <ldixon at google.com>
> 
> Hi!
> Sorry for the delay in replying. We've had some success at getting adhoc
> wifi to work on Android 4.x. here's my notes...
> 
> Note that there are several Motorola devices that do ship with working ad-
> hoc, and their GUI includes some UX for ad hoc. e.g. Motorola Droid 4. In
> the list ofWiFI networks, it lists ad hoc networks with a separate icon.
> When clicking "Add Network", there is a tick box that states it is a "Peer
> to peer (Ad-hoc) network.". In advanced settings there is an option to
> specify the wifi channel for ad hoc networks. We're exploring proposing
> this as UX for having ad-hoc wifi more generally supported.
> 
> We've ben wondering about virtual interfaces and if they could be used to
> allow Ad-Hoc WiFi at the same time as normal wifi-connections. That way a
> WiFi hotspot can both act as a P2P node and as an uplink, both on WiFi.
> Cool.
> 
> Bringing IBSS support to Android (the long standing Issue
> 82<https://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=82> and
> some old hacks to work around it<http://szym.net/2010/12/adhoc-wifi-in-android/>
> ):
> 
> No changes need to the kernel are necessary for 4.X. It's just a matter of
> how the Wifi service talks to wpa_supplicant. Szymon knows all the details.
> 
> Some changes to drivers are sometimes needed, e.g.
> https://android.googlesource.com/kernel/omap.git/+/96034c20069fe841f4be741755f94671a328702e
> This is a change to bcmdhd in cfg80211 for our Galaxy Nexus devices, and
> some other devices. Most Nexus devices use bcmdhd (but Nexus 4 is using
> something else).
> 
> So the change to Android framework is as basic as:
> https://android-review.googlesource.com/#/c/43070/
> (I think it will be necessary to add |frequency| parameter, because some
> drivers refuse to form/join IBSS without that.)
> 
> Some drivers explicitly disable IBSS, but that also can be often fixed with
> a one line change in the driver module code.
> 
> Szymon has been writing some benchmarks for AdHoc, WiFi Direct, and
> Bluetooth. Hoping to have some more stats on that in the not too distant
> future.
> 
> I'll have a chat with the interested people and we'll try and make a plan
> to leverage your ability to bring engineering muscle to the problem. :)
> 
> Thanks!
> lucas
> 
> 
> On Thu, Feb 21, 2013 at 2:59 PM, Hans-Christoph Steiner <
> hans at guardianproject.info> wrote:
> 
>>
>> Hey All,
>>
>> I guess wanted to check in on this issue, since it seems that the situation
>> has gotten worse for adhoc in Android 4.x.  If dev resources are an issue,
>> I'm
>> sure some of us can find time to work on this.
>>
>> I still believe there is a ton of potential for mesh networking on
>> Android, so
>> I'd love to help make this happen!
>>
>> .hc
>>
>> On 08/02/2012 08:14 PM, Hans-Christoph Steiner wrote:
>>>
>>> Also, I just realized, it might work without a static IP if there is a
>>> working DHCP server on the adhoc network.  For the work I'm doing now,
>>> it requires a static IP, so I've only tested the adhoc with a static IP.
>>>
>>> As for how I did this, its part of the Commotion MeshTether app I'm
>>> working on.  Starting at line 361 is the adhoc config stuff.  Szymon,
>>> this code should look somewhat familiar to you since this app started as
>>> a fork of Barnacle :)
>>>
>>>
>> https://code.commotionwireless.net/projects/commotion-android/repository/revisions/master/entry/src/net/commotionwireless/meshtether/MeshService.java
>>>
>>> .hc
>>>
>>> On 08/02/2012 06:59 PM, Szymon Jakubczak wrote:
>>>> Hi Hans-Christoph,
>>>>
>>>> That's some good news! Could you explain how you tested this? Does it
>>>> seem to work on all phones with a particular version of Android?
>>>>
>>>> I've managed to find a Nexus S and build a working image. I'll try to
>>>> combine the patch from havlenapetr and see if I can make it create
>>>> ad-hoc networks.
>>>>
>>>> --Szymon
>>>>
>>>> On Thu, Aug 2, 2012 at 11:29 AM, Hans-Christoph Steiner
>>>> <hans at guardianproject.info> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> Hey Lally,
>>>>>
>>>>> Glad to here of any progress! :)  Sounds good to me.  I've recently
>>>>> discovered that Android already supports connecting to Adhoc networks
>>>>> with certain conditions:
>>>>>
>>>>> 1) some other device has created the network
>>>>> 2) you know the SSID and/or BSSID of the network
>>>>> 3) you set a static IP
>>>>>
>>>>> Using WifiManager and System.Settings, I can associate to an existing
>>>>> adhoc network and use it fine.  This is good to know, since it means
>>>>> that we can do some mesh stuff with existing Android installs, but the
>>>>> lack of ability to create the adhoc network definitely limits the
>>>>> possibilities.
>>>>>
>>>>> .hc
>>>>>
>>>>> On 07/31/2012 04:29 PM, Lally Singh wrote:
>>>>>> Hi everyone.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Sorry for the huge delay.  So, at
>>>>>> https://github.com/lally/adhoc-frameworks_base I've got a copy of
>>>>>> frameworks_base, ready for us to hack on.  Additionally, I've got a
>> PandaBoard
>>>>>> ES <http://pandaboard.org/content/platform> to test on.  So, if it's
>>>>>> acceptable for everyone, I'm happy to be a guinea pig/tester/worker
>> elf for
>>>>>> us to get the patches tested, running, cleaned up, and on their way to
>>>>>> submission into android proper.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> So, while I figure out how to get the pandaboard configured over its
>> serial
>>>>>> link (srsly), shall we start putting the appropriate patches together?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Also, if anyone objects to this way of doing things, or has a better
>> idea,
>>>>>> or suggestions, or comments, by all means, speak up!  I'm just trying
>> to
>>>>>> get the ball rolling, but I don't want to roll over anyone in the
>> process.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Cheers,
>>>>>> $ ls
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Lally Singh | Software Engineer |  lally at google.com |  646-707-2716
>>>>>>
>>
> 
> 
> 

-- 
Josh King

"I am an Anarchist not because I believe Anarchism is the final goal,
but because there is no such thing as a final goal." -Rudolf Rocker

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