| =============================== |
| IEEE 802.15.4 Developer's Guide |
| =============================== |
| |
| Introduction |
| ============ |
| The IEEE 802.15.4 working group focuses on standardization of the bottom |
| two layers: Medium Access Control (MAC) and Physical access (PHY). And there |
| are mainly two options available for upper layers: |
| |
| - ZigBee - proprietary protocol from the ZigBee Alliance |
| - 6LoWPAN - IPv6 networking over low rate personal area networks |
| |
| The goal of the Linux-wpan is to provide a complete implementation |
| of the IEEE 802.15.4 and 6LoWPAN protocols. IEEE 802.15.4 is a stack |
| of protocols for organizing Low-Rate Wireless Personal Area Networks. |
| |
| The stack is composed of three main parts: |
| |
| - IEEE 802.15.4 layer; We have chosen to use plain Berkeley socket API, |
| the generic Linux networking stack to transfer IEEE 802.15.4 data |
| messages and a special protocol over netlink for configuration/management |
| - MAC - provides access to shared channel and reliable data delivery |
| - PHY - represents device drivers |
| |
| Socket API |
| ========== |
| |
| .. c:function:: int sd = socket(PF_IEEE802154, SOCK_DGRAM, 0); |
| |
| The address family, socket addresses etc. are defined in the |
| include/net/af_ieee802154.h header or in the special header |
| in the userspace package (see either http://wpan.cakelab.org/ or the |
| git tree at https://github.com/linux-wpan/wpan-tools). |
| |
| 6LoWPAN Linux implementation |
| ============================ |
| |
| The IEEE 802.15.4 standard specifies an MTU of 127 bytes, yielding about 80 |
| octets of actual MAC payload once security is turned on, on a wireless link |
| with a link throughput of 250 kbps or less. The 6LoWPAN adaptation format |
| [RFC4944] was specified to carry IPv6 datagrams over such constrained links, |
| taking into account limited bandwidth, memory, or energy resources that are |
| expected in applications such as wireless Sensor Networks. [RFC4944] defines |
| a Mesh Addressing header to support sub-IP forwarding, a Fragmentation header |
| to support the IPv6 minimum MTU requirement [RFC2460], and stateless header |
| compression for IPv6 datagrams (LOWPAN_HC1 and LOWPAN_HC2) to reduce the |
| relatively large IPv6 and UDP headers down to (in the best case) several bytes. |
| |
| In September 2011 the standard update was published - [RFC6282]. |
| It deprecates HC1 and HC2 compression and defines IPHC encoding format which is |
| used in this Linux implementation. |
| |
| All the code related to 6lowpan you may find in files: net/6lowpan/* |
| and net/ieee802154/6lowpan/* |
| |
| To setup a 6LoWPAN interface you need: |
| 1. Add IEEE802.15.4 interface and set channel and PAN ID; |
| 2. Add 6lowpan interface by command like: |
| # ip link add link wpan0 name lowpan0 type lowpan |
| 3. Bring up 'lowpan0' interface |
| |
| Drivers |
| ======= |
| |
| Like with WiFi, there are several types of devices implementing IEEE 802.15.4. |
| 1) 'HardMAC'. The MAC layer is implemented in the device itself, the device |
| exports a management (e.g. MLME) and data API. |
| 2) 'SoftMAC' or just radio. These types of devices are just radio transceivers |
| possibly with some kinds of acceleration like automatic CRC computation and |
| comparation, automagic ACK handling, address matching, etc. |
| |
| Those types of devices require different approach to be hooked into Linux kernel. |
| |
| HardMAC |
| ------- |
| |
| See the header include/net/ieee802154_netdev.h. You have to implement Linux |
| net_device, with .type = ARPHRD_IEEE802154. Data is exchanged with socket family |
| code via plain sk_buffs. On skb reception skb->cb must contain additional |
| info as described in the struct ieee802154_mac_cb. During packet transmission |
| the skb->cb is used to provide additional data to device's header_ops->create |
| function. Be aware that this data can be overridden later (when socket code |
| submits skb to qdisc), so if you need something from that cb later, you should |
| store info in the skb->data on your own. |
| |
| To hook the MLME interface you have to populate the ml_priv field of your |
| net_device with a pointer to struct ieee802154_mlme_ops instance. The fields |
| assoc_req, assoc_resp, disassoc_req, start_req, and scan_req are optional. |
| All other fields are required. |
| |
| SoftMAC |
| ------- |
| |
| The MAC is the middle layer in the IEEE 802.15.4 Linux stack. This moment it |
| provides interface for drivers registration and management of slave interfaces. |
| |
| NOTE: Currently the only monitor device type is supported - it's IEEE 802.15.4 |
| stack interface for network sniffers (e.g. WireShark). |
| |
| This layer is going to be extended soon. |
| |
| See header include/net/mac802154.h and several drivers in |
| drivers/net/ieee802154/. |
| |
| Fake drivers |
| ------------ |
| |
| In addition there is a driver available which simulates a real device with |
| SoftMAC (fakelb - IEEE 802.15.4 loopback driver) interface. This option |
| provides a possibility to test and debug the stack without usage of real hardware. |
| |
| Device drivers API |
| ================== |
| |
| The include/net/mac802154.h defines following functions: |
| |
| .. c:function:: struct ieee802154_dev *ieee802154_alloc_device (size_t priv_size, struct ieee802154_ops *ops) |
| |
| Allocation of IEEE 802.15.4 compatible device. |
| |
| .. c:function:: void ieee802154_free_device(struct ieee802154_dev *dev) |
| |
| Freeing allocated device. |
| |
| .. c:function:: int ieee802154_register_device(struct ieee802154_dev *dev) |
| |
| Register PHY in the system. |
| |
| .. c:function:: void ieee802154_unregister_device(struct ieee802154_dev *dev) |
| |
| Freeing registered PHY. |
| |
| .. c:function:: void ieee802154_rx_irqsafe(struct ieee802154_hw *hw, struct sk_buff *skb, u8 lqi): |
| |
| Telling 802.15.4 module there is a new received frame in the skb with |
| the RF Link Quality Indicator (LQI) from the hardware device. |
| |
| .. c:function:: void ieee802154_xmit_complete(struct ieee802154_hw *hw, struct sk_buff *skb, bool ifs_handling): |
| |
| Telling 802.15.4 module the frame in the skb is or going to be |
| transmitted through the hardware device |
| |
| The device driver must implement the following callbacks in the IEEE 802.15.4 |
| operations structure at least:: |
| |
| struct ieee802154_ops { |
| ... |
| int (*start)(struct ieee802154_hw *hw); |
| void (*stop)(struct ieee802154_hw *hw); |
| ... |
| int (*xmit_async)(struct ieee802154_hw *hw, struct sk_buff *skb); |
| int (*ed)(struct ieee802154_hw *hw, u8 *level); |
| int (*set_channel)(struct ieee802154_hw *hw, u8 page, u8 channel); |
| ... |
| }; |
| |
| .. c:function:: int start(struct ieee802154_hw *hw): |
| |
| Handler that 802.15.4 module calls for the hardware device initialization. |
| |
| .. c:function:: void stop(struct ieee802154_hw *hw): |
| |
| Handler that 802.15.4 module calls for the hardware device cleanup. |
| |
| .. c:function:: int xmit_async(struct ieee802154_hw *hw, struct sk_buff *skb): |
| |
| Handler that 802.15.4 module calls for each frame in the skb going to be |
| transmitted through the hardware device. |
| |
| .. c:function:: int ed(struct ieee802154_hw *hw, u8 *level): |
| |
| Handler that 802.15.4 module calls for Energy Detection from the hardware |
| device. |
| |
| .. c:function:: int set_channel(struct ieee802154_hw *hw, u8 page, u8 channel): |
| |
| Set radio for listening on specific channel of the hardware device. |
| |
| Moreover IEEE 802.15.4 device operations structure should be filled. |