Arch Linux

johnw

Member

From: London

Registered: 2005-03-22

Posts: 13

wireless access point

Does anyone have any idea how I could conifgure ArchLinux as a wireless access point? I already have a box running as a wired router.
preferably using a 108Mbps card.

Thanks

dtw

Forum Fellow

From: UK

Registered: 2004-08-03

Posts: 4,439

Website

Re: wireless access point

woooo - that's pretty hardcore!  How ever you do it please report back on you hardware set up experineces and the apps you used

iphitus

Forum Fellow

From: Melbourne, Australia

Registered: 2004-10-09

Posts: 4,927

Re: wireless access point

It depends on if your wireless driver supports it, but afaik... you just do...

iwconfig ethX mode Master essid ESSID

add an encryption key with "key open 1234567890" on the end of that if you want one.

then you can either just use static ips with ifconfig, or run a dhcp server.

or at least, that's how it *should* work.

iphitus

johnw

Member

From: London

Registered: 2005-03-22

Posts: 13

Re: wireless access point

Thanks for the info.
I will let you know how it goes. I'd also be interested to hear if anyone has managed to get data rates above 54Mbps and what cards you were using.

cheers.

tomk

Forum Fellow

From: Ireland

Registered: 2004-07-21

Posts: 9,839

Re: wireless access point

I've just set up a linux access point - not Arch, because the hardware is an old P166 - and I've basically set it up as an ethernet bridge using bridge-utils. In other words, it operates at layer 2, and is transparent at layer 3.

AFAIK, if you want 108 Mbps, you'll need an Atheros based card that supports turbo mode.

OT - dibble, hardcore?  I guess that's one of the (many) things I love about linux - one geek's hardcore is another's meat-and-potatoes.......

freakyc

Member

Registered: 2004-03-28

Posts: 91

Re: wireless access point

How's it work for you?  I've been tempted to do this at times, but everything I kept reading suggested that hostap performance wasn't great and you'd be better off using a boxed wireless router.

tomk

Forum Fellow

From: Ireland

Registered: 2004-07-21

Posts: 9,839

Re: wireless access point

Works fine for what I do with it, which is net access (2Mb DSL) and audio/video/ssh around my LAN. I've actually set it up to replace a 3Com AP which refuses to play nice with my USB 11b adapter.

freakyc

Member

Registered: 2004-03-28

Posts: 91

Re: wireless access point

Cool.  I might have to give it a try sometime if I can find a good deal on a decent wireless adapter sometime.

Currently, I'm trying to setup the old linux router to be a voice mail/fax/dialin server using vgetty though, so it'll have to wait