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

Thu Feb 28 21:00:04 UTC 2013

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

Just FYI: I emailed them back and said that I (but not we, didn't want
to presume anything) am still interested in providing some muscle
where needed.

Will

On 02/28/2013 02:11 PM, Josh King wrote:
> 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
>>>>>>> 
>>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
> 
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________ Commotion-dev
> mailing list Commotion-dev at lists.chambana.net 
> https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/commotion-dev
> 
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.11 (GNU/Linux)
Comment: Using GnuPG with undefined - http://www.enigmail.net/

iQEcBAEBAgAGBQJRL8VUAAoJEIN2rhPI25sWNZ8H/2aEYO35eyj8U9Mt9EiZw7FE
OWKHPnEe486lVJ7l4902l+sQ821kcWopDnCesfrCcdYVaTekIVhwk1xkGituMpD8
gDpKRoMcnyZoQOeTN+Eskz436tLPOkhzG7bkLrMQ0GfjaxnbeGjerfO1TBEWaJb4
o146PB9YH3F+mTrw+dW6+IoGw/ndMNJz9Zu9cSL5trlxNvrikreG2jERwytz33t9
XxyKdBzn1y/Th4ffY97Yk8OGeBVenFW1KDmWkY11VmRkI7iE/1AUv1BMIE7Qoy9p
hnL0xLgBkDX2wSnZzbdj5Phxo+sGW2t3xRf7OxWDzweW4u/pPsuawon8aZMO8qw=
=C6h7
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----