Re: [PATCH wireless-next v4 03/21] wifi: nl80211: add SMD BSS Transition sub-state STA flags

[Johannes Berg <johannes@sipsolutions.net>]

On Fri, 2026-11-06 at 13:28 +0530, Pooventhiran G wrote:
> IEEE P802.11bn/D2.0, Aug 2026, subclause 11.3.1, defines three new MLD
> state sub-states (4a, 4b, 4c) that apply when a non-AP MLD and its
> associated SMD-ME are in state 4 and an SMD BSS Transition is
> in progress.
> 
> Add the corresponding nl80211 STA flags to track the state changes:
>  - NL80211_STA_FLAG_SMD_PREP_TARGET - State 4a: non-AP MLD is prepared
>    with target AP MLD
>  - NL80211_STA_FLAG_SMD_EXEC_CURRENT - State 4b: ST execution active on
>    current AP MLD
> 
I think the current/target nomenclature here is strange - this API
pertains only to a single AP MLD, so it's never involved with the
target?

What you need to know is 4a on the target, and 4b/4c on the current AP
MLD. But the nomenclature doesn't really translate to that since we only
look at one of them, only know implicitly which whether a given
interface is the current or target?

>  - NL80211_STA_FLAG_SMD_DL_DRAIN - State 4c: DL draining period


I'd also get rid of the "SMD" part here - it's less about the SMD but
about SMD Transition (i.e. ST), so I think I'd rather call this
ST_PREPARED, ST_EXECUTING and ST_DL_DRAIN.

I'm also not sure why you need to distinguish between the latter two at
all, hostapd is going to send the ST execution response and immediately
transition to DL drain (4c) or back to 4 anyway?

johannes