STRUCT IEEE80211_KEY_SEQ(9)

📦 version 7.3.1, in nixpkgs unstable

💖 struct ieee80211_key_seq — key sequence counter ✨

okay so bestie, we're in the Kernel API Manual, section 9, and today's main character is struct ieee80211_key_seq — the little struct that holds a key sequence counter. that's it, that's the vibe 🎀

🌸 SYNOPSIS

struct ieee80211_key_seq {
    union {
      struct {
        u32 iv32;
        u16 iv16;
      } tkip;
      struct {
        u8 pn[6];
      } ccmp;
      struct {
        u8 pn[6];
      } aes_cmac;
      struct {
        u8 pn[6];
      } aes_gmac;
      struct {
        u8 pn[6];
      } gcmp;
      struct {
        u8 seq[IEEE80211_MAX_PN_LEN];
        u8 seq_len;
      } hw;
    };
 };

like, look at her. one anonymous union, six members, zero notes. she's serving structural elegance and honestly? ate 💅

🦋 Members

  • {unnamed_union} — it's anonymous 🙈 no name, no problem, she simply exists
  • tkip — TKIP data, containing IV32 and IV16 in host byte order 🍓
  • ccmp — PN data, most significant byte first (big endian, reverse order than in packet) 🔥
  • aes_cmac — PN data, most significant byte first (big endian, reverse order than in packet) 🔥
  • aes_gmac — PN data, most significant byte first (big endian, reverse order than in packet) 🔥
  • gcmp — PN data, most significant byte first (big endian, reverse order than in packet) 🔥
  • hw — data for HW-only (e.g. cipher scheme) keys ⚡
ngl bestie, the byte order thing is the whole ballgame — the pn fields are big endian and reverse order than in packet, so don't go flipping them around and acting surprised later 😭

💅 SEE ALSO

Kernel file ./include/net/mac80211.h — and literally the entire extended universe, fr fr:

ok that's the whole friend group 😭 every single one of them, no one left out, we don't do that here 🫶

✨ and that's the page bestie ✨ this one lives in ./include/net, dated October 2026, and it's struct ieee80211_key_seq(9) all day every day. go forth and byte-order correctly, ily 💜🦋

📦 where this page comes from