[wplug] [OT] - Wireless network

[Christopher DeMarco]

On Fri, Oct 22, 2004 at 09:13:17AM -0400, Chris Romano wrote:


> will not work.  The easy solution to this  problem would be to buy a
> Wireless NIC for  my desktop, but  I don't want to  have to do that.
> Two reasons are I am build a second machine and I  want to play with
> other OSes on my current once the  new one is  done.  Some OSes such
> as OpenBSD  really don't  have  good Wireless support  (if  any).  I
> would prefer to have a wired net in there.  So how do I tie them in?

FWIW, I was  under the impression that drivers  for many WiFi chipsets
were actually  better in *BSD  than in  Linux.  Can anyone  confirm or
deny this?

If you have the space and the budget (time more than money) to setup a
barebones dedicated Linux bridge, you can pop in  a cheap Ethernet and
a cheap WiFi card  (or a USB dongle) to  translate media for you.  The
technical requirement  that will  drive  the  hardware specs   is  the
ability  to use your preferred  Ethernet and WiFi  NICs (i.e.  USB and
PCI), so think PII.   The *real* driver  for the  system is how  loud,
hot, ugly and big of a box you (and your family) can tolerate.

For software,  the LEAF  project  (http://leaf.sourceforge.net) should
serve nicely - but I haven't specifically looked for WiFi support.  It
*seems* like an ultra-common use  so I'd expect it to  be there.  LEAF
is nice and modular, but it  can be a  tad overwhelming in the breadth
of its generality.

I can't  guesstimate a price for  this since I've been   out of the US
market for a couple  years, but add a  Ethernet and a WiFi  adapter to
the cost of a hand-me-down PII and  you're certainly not talking about
much cost.


> Am I  going to have to buy  a WAP/Router/Switch combo, and not setup
> the external  interface?   I am  not   that familiar with   wireless
> products so forgive the ignorance.

If you have the budget for it, this  is potentially the most-expedient
way to bridge  the two  media.  I can  imagine all  sorts of  horrible
vendor documentation packages which obscure what you have to do to set
up the  bridge, but  in reality  it's pretty simple   and is the basic
functionality that these things have  builtin.  Do of course make sure
that you can  use the same network on  both sides of the  bridge; i.e.
that the product doesn't require you to do NAT between the "broadband"
side and  the "LAN" side.   And  of course  research the functionality
because vendors  have   been  known  to reserve    exceedingly  useful
functionality for the "enterprise"  products.  If you have doubts then
I'm sure this list  can help you narrow down  the choices if  you list
some candidates.  Vendors' websites  typically make  manuals available
for download if you need to verify exactly what these boxen can do.

Blah blah blah.  Drowning in prose yet?

-- 
% You are in a maze of twisty passages, all alike.
Christopher DeMarco <cdemarco at fastmail.fm>          
PGP public key ID 0x2E76CF5C @ pgp.mit.edu
+6012 232 2106
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