It occurred to me that David Young wrote in gmane.os.netbsd.devel.network:
> It *is* very important that adapter A does not choose a bitrate, or any
> other parameter, that adapter B does not support.  net80211, if it is
> used correctly by ral, will choose the bitrates and other parameters
> that both adapters support.  You can view that information with wlanctl.

Is it normal for that information to be asymetrical, as in "The AP knows
itself and the clients, but the clients only know the AP" ?

My AP (with mac 00:50:18:42:0e:8d) lists:

atlas# wlanctl -a
ral0: mac 00:50:18:42:0e:8d bss 00:50:18:42:0e:8d
        node flags 0003<bss,sta>
        ess <pienjo>
        chan 3 freq 2422MHz flags 04e0<cck,ofdm,2.4GHz,dynamic cck-ofdm>
        capabilities 0010<privacy>
        beacon-interval 100 TU tsft 0 us
        rates *1.0 *2.0 5.5 [11.0]
        assoc-id 0 assoc-failed 0 inactivity 300s
        rssi 46 txseq 215 rxseq 240
ral0: mac 00:0c:f6:14:40:89 bss 00:50:18:42:0e:8d
        node flags 0002<sta>
        ess <>
        chan 3 freq 2422MHz flags 04e0<cck,ofdm,2.4GHz,dynamic cck-ofdm>
        capabilities 0031<ess,privacy,short preamble>
        beacon-interval 100 TU tsft 0 us
        rates *1.0 *2.0 5.5 [11.0]
        assoc-id 49153 assoc-failed 0 inactivity 180s
        rssi 45 txseq 487 rxseq 8960

However, my client (with mac 00:0c:f6:14:40:89) reads:

balthasar# wlanctl -a
ral0: mac 00:50:18:42:0e:8d bss 00:50:18:42:0e:8d
        node flags 0005<bss>
        ess <pienjo>
        chan 3 freq 2422MHz flags 04e0<cck,ofdm,2.4GHz,dynamic cck-ofdm>
        capabilities 0031<ess,privacy,short preamble>
        beacon-interval 100 TU tsft 10305741483 us
        rates 1.0 2.0 5.5 [11.0]
        assoc-id 49153 assoc-failed 1 inactivity 300s
        rssi 49 txseq 1262 rxseq 0

I'm having some problems making sense of this.

For the record: the ifconfig of the AP reads:

ral0: flags=8843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> mtu 1500
        ssid pienjo nwkey 0xaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
        powersave off
        bssid 00:50:18:42:0e:8d chan 3
        address: 00:50:18:42:0e:8d
        media: IEEE802.11 autoselect mode 11b hostap
        status: active
        inet 192.168.64.129 netmask 0xffffff80 broadcast 192.168.64.255
        inet6 fe80::250:18ff:fe42:e8d%ral0 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x2
        inet6 2001:610:1108:5220::1 prefixlen 65

The client (my laptop) reads:

balthasar# ifconfig ral0
ral0: flags=8843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> mtu 1500
        ssid pienjo nwkey 0xaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
        powersave off
        bssid 00:50:18:42:0e:8d chan 3
        address: 00:0c:f6:14:40:89
        media: IEEE802.11 autoselect (DS11 mode 11g)
        status: active
        inet 192.168.64.251 netmask 0xffffff80 broadcast 192.168.64.255
        inet6 fe80::20c:f6ff:fe14:4089%ral0 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x3
        inet6 2001:610:1108:5220::2 prefixlen 65

> Maybe rssadapt is getting mal-adapted to conditions at your
> home, and causing your ral woes? 

Well, I was having problems at my old home as well (but didn't have time to
look after it back then), and there's not in common between them; my
old place was a 1920-ish house with wooden floors and brick walls, in an
area where most people had already left, and therefore with no other networks
I could detect, while my new place is an appartment on the 8th floor in
a busy area, with a lot of concrete. So if I was having some freak 
condition in my old house, I managed to reproduce it quite successfully..

> There are debug knobs that can show you what rates it is selecting.

I'll try to enable them and see if that sheds any light.


-- 
    Martijn van Buul - pino@dohd.org - http://www.stack.nl/~martijnb/
	 Geek code: G--  - Visit OuterSpace: mud.stack.nl 3333
 The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new
discoveries, is not 'Eureka!' (I found it!) but 'That's funny ...' Isaac Asimov