= Glossary =
Terms we use throughout the wiki you should become familiar with

<<TableOfContents(1)>>

= BSS =
''BSS'' stands for ''Basic Service Set''. The coverage of an access point is called a ''BSS''.

= IBSS =
''IBSS'' stands for ''Independent Basic Service Set''. Its basically Ad-Hoc mode. See

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independent_Basic_Service_Set

= STA =
''STA'' indicates a wireless device acting in in BSS as a regular ''STAtion''.

= SSID =
''SSID'' stands for ''Service Set IDentifier''. The SSID is a code attached to all packets on a wireless network to identify each packet as part of that network. The code consists of a string of 1-32 octets (usually represented as case sensitive alphanumeric characters).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SSID

= Information Element =
An Information Element (IE) is a part of management frames in the IEEE 802.11 wireless LAN protocol. IEs are a device's way to transfer descriptive information about itself inside management frames. There are usually several IEs inside each such frame, and each is built of [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Type-length-value|Type-length-value]] (TLVs).

The common structure of an IE is as follows:

{{{
 ←  1  → ←  1   → ←     1-255     →
+-------+--------+-----------------+
| Type  | Length |     Data        |
+-------+--------+-----------------+
}}}

Whereas the vendor specific IE looks like this:

{{{
 ←  1  → ←  1   → ←        4        → ←  1-251   →
+-------+--------+-------------------+------------+
|  221  | Length |        OUI        |     Data   |
+-------+--------+-------------------+------------+
}}}
= MLME =
''MLME'' Stands for ''Media Access Control (MAC) Sublayer Management Entity''. MLME is the management entity where the Physical layer (PHY) MAC state machines reside. Examples of states a MLME may assist in reaching:

 * Authenticate
 * Deauthenticate
 * Associate
 * Disassociate
 * Reassociate
 * Beacon
 * Probe

[[en/developers/Documentation/mac80211|mac80211]]'s MLME management implementation is currently handled by net/mac80211/ieee80211_sta.c. This handles only the STA MLME

= FullMAC =
''FullMAC'' is a term used to describe a type of wireless card where the [[en/developers/Documentation/Glossary#MLME|MLME]] is managed in hardware. You would '''not''' use [[en/developers/Documentation/mac80211|mac80211]] to write a ''FullMAC'' wireless driver.

= SoftMAC =
''SoftMAC'' is a term used to describe a type of wireless card where the MLME is expected to be managed in software. [[en/developers/Documentation/mac80211|mac80211]] is a driver API for SoftMAC wireless cards, for example.

= WE =
''WE'' stands for [[en/developers/Documentation/Wireless-Extensions|Wireless-Extensions]] - the old driver API and user <–> kernel communication transport.

= CLI =
''CLI'' stands for ''Command Line Interface''. These are utilities you can run in the console or terminal emulator.

= iw =
[[en/users/Documentation/iw|iw]] is a new [[en/developers/Documentation/nl80211|nl80211]] based [[en/developers/Documentation/Glossary#CLI|CLI]] configuration utility for wireless devices.

= git-describe =
git-describe is a git command. It outputs something like this:

''<<CurrentWirelessTesting>>''

The first part is the ''tag'' for the current release. The second part is the number of patches which have been applied since the tag was applied. The last part, after the first ''g'' is the SHA1 commit ID of the last commit applied.