Re: Using Debian as an Access Point?
On Saturday 18 December 2004 04:27, Olle Eriksson wrote:
> On Saturday 18 December 2004 00.01, Nate Duehr wrote:
> > Joey Hess wrote:
> > >Nate Duehr wrote:
> > >>It's pretty much a roll-your-own kind of thing. Haven't seen any
> > >>Debian-specific packages for creating an AP or making it "easy"
> > >> yet, really. Of course, I'm not looking either... AP's are so
> > >> cheap it's not worth the effort unless the application is very
> > >> specialized. The PCI-based 802.11b Prism chipset cards cost
> > >> roughly twice what a discounted real AP would cost from an
> > >> online vendor.
> > >
> > >The nice thing about my linux based AP is that, unlike every
> > > proprietary AP I've used, it doesn't randomly lose settings,
> > > crash, require some crummy web interface, contain stupid backdoor
> > > security problems, etc. My AP also mails me when it sees new
> > > clients, has powerful packet filtering and andwidth throttling
> > > capailities, and can be upgraded with apt-get.
> >
> > Hmm, I wonder if you've been using the combined AP/Router things.
> > My three standard AP's (no routing capabilities and NO intelligence
> > on-board - Linksys WAP-11's) have worked fine for years... I have a
> > version 1, 1.2, and 2. Agreed that the AP/Router things are a
> > giant pain. The only one I'd consider is the new Linksys one that
> > runs Linux under the hood and lots of people have alternate flash
> > images for. (That one looks fun.)
>
> What exactly is the problem with the wireless routers? I was just
> about to buy one and would like to know more about you experiences.
> Loose settings, crash? That doesn't sound good. I was hoping to make
> it easier for myself by having all that stuff separated from my linux
> machine. Should I not?
My experience it this: Bought an Zyxel ZyAIR B-2000v2 last year around
this time. It was awful (maybe I was just unlucky and got a bad unit.
dunno). It would crash in no time when I tried forcing the external NIC
to run at a particular speed and duplex (the ZyAIR would not
auto-negotiate with the cable modem I had at that time).
Also, it would lose its configuration over and over again and return to
default/factory values. Returned it to the shop after 2 days doing
nothing but trying to get it behave properly. Since then I have been
using a small Linux machine as wireless AP, and this just makes it so
much easier to really be in control of your AP.
--
Frederik Dannemare | mailto:frederik@dannemare.net
http://qa.debian.org/developer.php?login=Frederik+Dannemare
http://frederik.dannemare.net | http://www.linuxworlddomination.dk
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