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A while ago, I decided to read through the 802.11r spec. That was not fun. I ended up with a whole bunch of post-it notes and a zillion questions. After going through the whole thing a second time, it became a lot clearer. I then found some pretty good resources after the fact [ wish I???¡é?¡é?????¡é???¡éd found them the first time around !! ] and thought I???¡é?¡é?????¡é???¡éd share them.

For anyone who does not want to go through the pain I went through, a couple of suggestions:

1. There is a lot of stuff in there that you don???¡é?¡é?????¡é???¡ét need to know to get a basic understanding of the protocol: all the MLME and state machine stuff for example. Once you ???¡é?¡é?????¡­?¡°cut out ???¡é?¡é?????¡­?¡° that stuff as well as the table of contents etc, the 126 pages are reduced down to something a little less intimidating.

1 http://www.cs.umd.edu/~clancy/docs/wlan-wcm08.pdf

This is a rather nice little paper giving a good brief summary of 802.11r with some good diagrams. Makes a good starting point. I???¡é?¡é?????¡é???¡éd suggest printing out the diagram on large scale and keep it beside you whilst looking over the spec. Once you have a grip on R0KH and R1KH that gives you a good solid footing. Had problems at times opening that link. If so, you can put ???¡é?¡é?????¡­?¡°Secure Handover in Enterprise WLAN???¡é?¡é?????¡é???¡és: CAPWAP, HOKEY and IEEE802.11r???¡é?¡é???????? into Google.

2. Secure Roaming in 802.11 Networks by Goransson and Greenlaw.
http://www.amazon.com/Secure-Roaming-Networks-Communications-Engineering/dp/0750682116

This is a very readable book that gives you a good overall view of the protocol, roaming in general and some basic 802.11 info. By reading chapters 3 and 9 you can get a good heads up view of the protocol.It???¡é?¡é?????¡é???¡és a handy reference to have by your desk. There are a few technical details I wasn???¡é?¡é?????¡é???¡ét too happy with and will contact the authors. Considering both the authors are PhD???¡é?¡é?????¡é???¡és, the readability factor is extremely high !!

The next one, I wouldn???¡é?¡é?????¡é???¡ét bother with. Dated and mainly contains info about .11F. A few good notes about .11 in general but not really much in the way of mobility:

http://www.amazon.com/802-11-WLANs-IP-Networking-Security/dp/1580537898

3. Don???¡é?¡é?????¡é???¡ét know what???¡é?¡é?????¡é???¡és inside the new CWSP book, but I would bet there is some good stuff on .11r.

4. A pretty readable application note from Cisco containg some good general information about their Fast Secure Roaming system.:
http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/hw/wireless/ps430/prod_technical_reference09186a00801c5223.html

5. Haven???¡é?¡é?????¡é???¡ét read this one:

http://www.springerlink.com/content/jr1u55l3r66h5442/

Anybody ?....anybody ?........

6. If anyone else has links to any useful stuff on .11r or roaming in general, please add it here.



Now if I can just get all those bl..dy key associations out of my head???¡é?¡é???????|.

Cheers

Dave