Protected control frames
Certain aspects of the present disclosure generally relate to wireless communications and, more particularly, to protecting control frames with power-related subfields. One example apparatus for wireless communications generally includes a processing system configured to generate a control frame comprising one or more power-related subfields and an integrity check value calculated based, at least in part, on the one or more power-related subfields and a transmitter configured to transmit the control frame. In aspects, a power management (PM) subfield, an end-of-service-period (EOSP) subfield, a more data (MD) subfield, or a traffic identifier (TID) subfield can be added to a group of additional authentication data (AAD) and the integrity check value is calculated based on the group of AAD.
1. An apparatus for wireless communications, comprising:
a processing system configured to generate a control frame comprising one or more power-related subfields, an integrity check value calculated based, at least in part, on the one or more power-related subfields, and a frame check sequence; and
an interface configured to output the control frame for transmission.
2. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the one or more power-related subfields comprise at least one of a power management (PM) subfield, an end-of-service-period (EOSP) subfield, a more data (MD) subfield, or a traffic identifier (TID) subfield.
3. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the processing system is configured to add the one or more power-related subfields to a group of additional authentication data (AAD) and wherein the integrity check value is calculated based on the group of AAD.
4. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the control frame comprises a frame control (FC) field that includes the one or more power-related subfields.
5. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the control frame comprises a null request frame.
6. The apparatus of claim 5 , wherein the null request frame comprises a signal (SIG) field, wherein an acknowledgment (ACK) type subfield in the SIG field indicates a normal ACK, and wherein an aggregation subfield in the SIG field indicates media access control (MAC) protocol data unit (MPDU) aggregation or no MPDU aggregation.
7. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the integrity check value protects at least a portion of the control frame.
8. A method for wireless communications, comprising:
generating a control frame comprising one or more power-related subfields, and an integrity check value calculated based, at least in part, on the one or more power-related subfields, and a frame check sequence; and
transmitting the control frame.
9. The method of claim 8 , wherein the one or more power-related subfields comprise at least one of a power management (PM) subfield, an end-of-service-period (EOSP) subfield, a more data (MD) subfield, or a traffic identifier (TID) subfield.
10. The method of claim 8 , further comprising adding the one or more power-related subfields to a group of additional authentication data (AAD), wherein the integrity check value is calculated based on the group of AAD.
11. The method of claim 8 , wherein the control frame comprises a null request frame, and wherein the null request frame comprises a signal (SIG) field, and wherein an acknowledgment (ACK) type subfield in the SIG field indicates a normal ACK, and wherein an aggregation subfield in the SIG field indicates media access control (MAC) protocol data unit (MPDU) aggregation or no MPDU.
12. The method of claim 8 , wherein the control frame comprises a frame control (FC) field that includes the one or more power-related subfields.
13. The method of claim 8 , wherein the integrity check value protects at least a portion of the control frame.
14. An access point, comprising:
at least one antenna;
a processing system configured to generate a control frame comprising one or more power-related subfields, an integrity check value calculated based, at least in part, on the one or more power-related subfields, and a frame check sequence; and
a transmitter configured to transmit the control frame via the at least one antenna.