On Lu, 28 iun 10, 19:54:49, lee wrote:
> Hi,
>
> can someone point me to a good documentation about what's needed to
> make it so that computers can connect to my computer wirelessly?
>
> I've got a wireless network card which I'm thinking of putting back
> into my computer so that I can use the router as a modem only and have
> my computer do the firewalling/routing for the LAN via the wireless
> network card.

I've done this on lenny, but that machine is currently down so I'm
writing from memory:

- install hostapd and configure it. The config file is very well
commented, just don't touch anything but the few parameters you need
(ssid, psk, ...)
- depending on your wireless chipset get a newer kernel from backports
and don't forget the firmware if needed
- configure your routing. I did it with shorewall, since the machine
needed a firewall anyway
- you might want to install dnsmasq which is a caching DNS server and
DHCP server
- if you also have wired clients you will need a second wired card and
bridge-utils with some tweaks to /etc/network/interfaces and
hostapd.conf

If you have specific issues I might be able to help.

Regards,
Andrei
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On 28/06/10 01:54 PM, lee wrote:
> Hi,
>
> can someone point me to a good documentation about what's needed to
> make it so that computers can connect to my computer wirelessly?
>
> I've got a wireless network card which I'm thinking of putting back
> into my computer so that I can use the router as a modem only and have
> my computer do the firewalling/routing for the LAN via the wireless
> network card.

First you need to make sure that your wireless card has the ability to
act as an access point. Next, you need to find which Linux driver
supports that card (madwifi or hostapd are my best bet). Then the final
step is just configure that card using the relevant driver.

As an example, I have DLink DWL-G520 card working as an AP in my linux
router machine (running Debian). I am using hostapd as the driver.


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Dne, 28. 06. 2010 20:53:58 je Mark Allums napisal(a):


The short answer is most "92-function-in-one" home WiFi routers will
act as an access point,


I think that configuring your router as an access point is your best
bet too: you'll hardly get the same signal range and stability from
your add-in card -- even if it has an external antenna.


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Klistvud
Certifiable Loonix User #481801
http://bufferoverflow.tiddlyspot.com


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On Tue, Jun 29, 2010 at 09:35:38AM +0200, Klistvud wrote:
> Dne, 28. 06. 2010 20:53:58 je Mark Allums napisal(a):
> >
> >The short answer is most "92-function-in-one" home WiFi routers
> >will act as an access point,
>
> I think that configuring your router as an access point is your best
> bet too: you'll hardly get the same signal range and stability from
> your add-in card -- even if it has an external antenna.

Hm, I was hoping I might see better results than from the router. Even
when the computer connecting wirelessly is only about 4--5 meters
away, the connection comes and goes. Changing the channel in the
router manually sometimes helps --- I figure that the network card
they put into that Mac is of extremely poor quality. Due to the
retarded design they come with, it's even impossible to put in the
card I have instead ... Macs suck, they didn't even provide a half-way
useable keyboard, and a mouse with only one button is completely
useless ...

Anyway, the other thing is that the router I have doesn't allow me to
set up a transparent proxy because it's not possible to reroute
traffic from computers on the LAN to another computer on the LAN.


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On Mon, Jun 28, 2010 at 03:26:25PM -0400, H.S. wrote:

> First you need to make sure that your wireless card has the ability to
> act as an access point. Next, you need to find which Linux driver
> supports that card (madwifi or hostapd are my best bet). Then the final
> step is just configure that card using the relevant driver.

It's a Dlink card; I used it for a while to connect my computer to a
router, but I switched to a wired connection because wireless sucks.

> As an example, I have DLink DWL-G520 card working as an AP in my linux
> router machine (running Debian). I am using hostapd as the driver.

Cool --- sounds easy enough then. I'm just not sure yet if it's
actually worthwhile and wanted see if there's much work involved.


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On 01/07/10 01:53 PM, lee wrote:
> On Mon, Jun 28, 2010 at 03:26:25PM -0400, H.S. wrote:
>
>> First you need to make sure that your wireless card has the ability to
>> act as an access point. Next, you need to find which Linux driver
>> supports that card (madwifi or hostapd are my best bet). Then the final
>> step is just configure that card using the relevant driver.
>
> It's a Dlink card; I used it for a while to connect my computer to a

Which one? Can it be used as an AP?

> router, but I switched to a wired connection because wireless sucks.

I have a Windows 7 machine running only on wireless. The worst case is
that I have to restart hostapd on my wireless AP machine. For the most
part it appears to be working fine, though I am not getting my wireless
connection at the max rates speed of 54 mbps (usually get around 1mbps).
But wired lan is more stable any time compared to a wireless lan.


>
>> As an example, I have DLink DWL-G520 card working as an AP in my linux
>> router machine (running Debian). I am using hostapd as the driver.
>
> Cool --- sounds easy enough then. I'm just not sure yet if it's
> actually worthwhile and wanted see if there's much work involved.
>
>

Install Hostapd and configure its file in /etc/ for wireless
configuration. Further, I have the following in my
/etc/network/interfaces file for the wireless card:
auto wlan0
iface wlan0 inet static
address 192.168.5.1
netmask 255.255.255.0
network 192.168.5.0
broadcast 192.168.5.255
And some of the most important options from my hostapd.conf are:
interface=wlan0
driver=nl80211
ctrl_interface=/var/run/hostapd
ctrl_interface_group=0
ssid=HSWirelessAP
hw_mode=g
channel=6



Put the wireless card on its own subnet. My wired lan is 192.168.0.x and
wireless lan on 192.168.5.x.

Install dnsmasq (or any other dhcp server), makes it easy to give IP
addresses to WLAN clients.

Allow forwarding for proper flow of network traffic, and allow traffic
between different subnets if you have a firewall running (I do this with
my iptables script, but other tools are equally good, shorewall?)

Just post here if you are stuck on any of the above steps.



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ever having been read.


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On Thu, Jul 01, 2010 at 07:50:53PM +0200, lee wrote:
> On Tue, Jun 29, 2010 at 09:35:38AM +0200, Klistvud wrote:
> > Dne, 28. 06. 2010 20:53:58 je Mark Allums napisal(a):
> > >
> > >The short answer is most "92-function-in-one" home WiFi routers
> > >will act as an access point,
> >
> > I think that configuring your router as an access point is your best
> > bet too: you'll hardly get the same signal range and stability from
> > your add-in card -- even if it has an external antenna.
>
> Hm, I was hoping I might see better results than from the router. Even
> when the computer connecting wirelessly is only about 4--5 meters
> away, the connection comes and goes. Changing the channel in the
> router manually sometimes helps --- I figure that the network card
> they put into that Mac is of extremely poor quality. Due to the
> retarded design they come with, it's even impossible to put in the
> card I have instead ... Macs suck, they didn't even provide a half-way
> useable keyboard, and a mouse with only one button is completely
> useless ...
>
> Anyway, the other thing is that the router I have doesn't allow me to
> set up a transparent proxy because it's not possible to reroute
> traffic from computers on the LAN to another computer on the LAN.
>
I set up a Debian-based firewall/router recently. It doesn't have a
wireless card in it, but if you need help with the firewall rules I
might be able to help. I used fwbuilder to create it. I had lots of
trouble with it when I used one of the built-in templates to create my
firewall. (Maybe a bug, maybe my mistakes).

When I created a firewall from scratch, it worked great. I used some of
the templates as examples, but I did not build my firewall from a
template.

-Rob


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