Open Source Hotspots

darthcamaro writes "Not that long ago it was a serious pain to get an 802.11b card to work on a Linux machine. [ed note: We love you Jean Tourrilhes!] Wi-Fi Planet has a story where they do an overview of a wad of open source Wi-Fi projects. Did you realize that you don't even need to spend the dough for an Access Point? - standard Linux routing is enough to create your own access point, with a few other tools like Public IP's Zone CD or the Less Networks Hotspot server, you can freely create a hotspot and manage it all in minutes. I guess all this means that both Wi-Fi and open source are literally 'everywhere'."

Comments

Jean Tourrilhes

[untermensch]

[ed note: We love you Jean Tourrilhes!]

As you may have known, or guessed from the context, Jean Tourrilhes is involved in all things Linux/Wifi. He has written a great deal of code and documentation on the subject, not to mention research papers.
See more at his page.

Re:Jean Tourrilhes

[dukeluke]

Indeed - with the vast number of open-source projects out there - there is no legitimate reason why any business should have their WiFi at a security risk.

The community is committed to quality - and most importantly, community. (yeah, yeah - play on words). We work together to make the 802.11x standards as bullet-proof and understood as possible.

Re:Jean Tourrilhes

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder why people say the french are rude. I never understood why tourists would put up with the French to see France.

Re:Jean Tourrilhes

[Minna Kirai]

We work together to make the 802.11x standards as bullet-proof and understood as possible.

There is no need to add security to 802.11x. To do so would be a waste of effort, or even counterproductive.

Adequate networking security already exists for the application-layer that runs on top of whatever physical communication mechanism you have. (It has names like SSL, SSH, VPN, and PGP).

If you extend Wifi to be "secure", then people will depend on it, and may ignore other measures that would protect them not only from radio sniffers, but also from eavesdroppers at the ISP or promiscuous PCs on the local ethernet.

Re:Jean Tourrilhes

[steve_l]

Jean does work in Palo Alto, BTW.

I only got wireless working on RH9 on my laptop (w/USB 802.11b) by taking it to his cube and refusing to leave till he sorted it out.

Re:Jean Tourrilhes

[ichimunki]

So how do SSH and PGP do any good when the security hole is this: some unknown stranger sitting outside my house with a laptop sets his own IP to match my LAN and then proceeds to use my bandwidth by tricking the NAT/firewall into forwarding his packets as though they were legitimate?

Re:Jean Tourrilhes

[silas_moeckel]

SSH might help if your hoping through some other box but VPN definatly does. 802.1x does a good job at some things it's actualy realy nice for puting people on the right vlan. But for WiFi I wouldent go with anything under a full VPN so all you get over the air is DHCP and VPN packets and you dont need DHCP packets that much.

Re:Jean Tourrilhes

[jdray]

Cool. Which cube in Palo Alto is his?

Re:Jean Tourrilhes

[cosmol]

PGP could handle authentication, SSH would keep the link encrypted. ( Of course, ssh will handle secure authentication also so there is no need for PGP, I just wanted to directly answer your question.) Your unknown stranger won't be able to steal bandwidth because he can't authenticate to your network, and he can't "spoof" or eavesdrop on your transmissions because the link is encrypted.

Re:Jean Tourrilhes

[GiMP]

As another has said.. VPN.

I have my WAP plugged into a VPN box. Wireless users must connect to the VPN to enter my network, this gains both authentication and encryption.

Re:Jean Tourrilhes

[steve_l]

HP Labs. On Page Mill, East of El Camino. HP's "building 1", and still home to the original H and P offices (not occupied by carly, thank you very much)

Go in the entrance , get past security (you need someone with HP ID with you), turn left, turn left again to the offices, go along to the end of the building, ask around. Then get into his office and ask to see some interesting demos. He does fun things with Bluetooth too :)

Its like.... magic hardware.

[Kenja]

"Did you realize that you don't even need to spend the dough for an Access Point? - standard Linux routing is enough to create your own access point"

Please explain how Linux software and transmit data via a wireless network without any hardware. While that sure would be a neat trick, I'm going to have to file this under the "you dont need to spend 90$ on a wireless acess point! Just spend 300$ on a computer, 50$ on a WAN card and install Linux for FREE!!!" brand of zealotry.

Re:Its like.... magic hardware.

[RogueProtoKol]

Not accusing you of not RTFA, you probably just overlooked this bit by accident;

Guess what? You don't always necessarily need a fixed wireless router device to create your own WLAN. You can do it with two machines that both have Wi-Fi cards, and leave more expensive APs out of the picture.

There are a number of different ways to accomplish this with freely available GNU/Linux based open source software. A typical Linux distribution will generally allow you set up a Linux box as a 'wired' router, so turning it into a wireless router isn't really that big a leap.

Re:Its like.... magic hardware.

[Seth Finklestein]

What you don't realize, ye of little clue, is that you can use existing boxen to do this task. Instead of spending $300 for a brand-new Wal-Mart computer, I can use an existing Pentium II system to make a lightweight access point.

The total cost is less than that of a so-called "commercial" access point, and is infinitely more flexible. Can you run open-source software on that crappy Microsoft router? I knew you couldn't.

Sincerely,
Seth Finklestein
Box-Maker

Re:Its like.... magic hardware.

[kunudo]

Please explain how Linux software and transmit data via a wireless network without any hardware. While that sure would be a neat trick, I'm going to have to file this under the "you dont need to spend 90$ on a wireless acess point! Just spend 300$ on a computer, 50$ on a WAN card and install Linux for FREE!!!" brand of zealotry.

I'd file it under 'get an old pc from work/take one you allready have, slap in a wifi card and voila, you have something you can play with', unlike the stupid prefab access points that just sit there... :)
I'm sure you could make custom stuff that would extend it's functionality beyond the prefab stuff...

Re:Its like.... magic hardware.

[Anonymous Coward]

The parent post needs to be moderated "Insightful."

Re:Its like.... magic hardware.

[Anonymous Coward]

real simple... if you pull you head out of your ass long enough to realize that you use a $19.00 Wifi card and a FREE junk computer (P133 or less) you get a wifi hotspot that does thing that you CAN NOT DO with a $90.00 AP.

please show me ONE AP that will allow anyone to connect but redirects them to a launch page first no matter what URL they type in the browser...

oh wait... THERE ARE NONE..

how you got modded anything but a -6 asshole I'll never know.

Re:Its like.... magic hardware.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes we get it. You are better than the author. You win.

You have two options: Use the information on this site, or don't.

Re:Its like.... magic hardware.

[m1a1]

I can't believe this got rated insightful.

The author of the parent post should really sit down and think for a minute about what he's saying. Sure the post didn't point out that you need a wireless card in the computer you plan to have act as the access point, but come on. I think most people here could figure that much out.

As far as spending $300 on a computer just to be the access point... BS. Nobody suggested such a thing. The point is that you probably already have a primary computer hardwired to some kind of WAN connection. Why not let it also be the access point. People who do this using windows aren't labelled Windows zealots. It's just being smart with your resources. If the computer is going to be on anyways it's cheaper (or at least it used to be cheaper) to grab a usb 802.11b antennae than it is to buy an access point.

Bottom line is you are looking for a reason to call someone a zealot. Especially seeing as the post was rather non-zealful. There was no pushing you to use linux or use of phrases like "M$" and "Winbloze". The author simply pointed out that wireless is no longer a problem with Linux. Oh geez, he must be a zealot.

Dumbass.

Re:Its like.... magic hardware.

[goldspider]

"unlike the stupid prefab access points that just sit there..."

If by "just sit there" you mean "do their job without wasting your time trying to get your brand new Wi-Fi card working on a 486" then I think I'll take the prefab any day.

Not that I have anything against people playing around with this kind of thing, just when they claim that it's "easy" or "free".

Re:Its like.... magic hardware.

[Anonymous Coward]

Also, stop using the word boxen for Christs sake!

BOXEN and VIRII ARE NOT WORDS!!!

Re:Its like.... magic hardware.

[m1a1]

Unless the Pentium II system is going to be running anyways then you'll make up the difference in energy bills.

Re:Its like.... magic hardware.

[nchip]

The total cost is less than that of a so-called "commercial" access point, and is infinitely more flexible. Can you run open-source software on that crappy Microsoft router? I knew you couldn't.

Did you count _electricity_ of having a fully blown pc with a pentium cpu and spinning disks into the TCO compared to the electricity taken by a MIPS cpu booted from flash?

Linkys And almost everyone else in the market uses Linux in their access points. If that isn't enough flexibility I do not know what is.

Re:Its like.... magic hardware.

[Roland Piquepaille]

Please explain how Linux software and transmit data via a wireless network without any hardware.

There: RFC1149/CPIP

By the way, WAN has nothing to do with wireless, it means "wide area network". I seem to recall the official wireless acronym/hip term is "WiFi" (which is a bitch because it always reminds me of my divorce. That's why I call them "802.11b", or *gasp* "wireless" cards).

Re:Its like.... magic hardware.

[Anonymous Coward]

Boxen and virii are used often enough on the worldweb to make them into words. See boxen and virii.

Re:Its like.... magic hardware.

[jtownatpunk.net]

Let's see. $50 WAP/router = 10 watts. Free P2 = 150 watts. Which one do I want running 24/7?

Of course I don't live in my parents' basement. ;)

Re:Its like.... magic hardware.

[Anonymous Coward]

I have eight boxen at my apartment, and each one costs me about $3 a month for electricity. Is it worth $3 to have industry-standard components and near-universal Linux support for my architecture?

I don't just think so. I know so, Nathan.

Re:Its like.... magic hardware.

[Kenja]

So we're now calling two computers that can talk via WiFi a "hot spot"?

Re:Its like.... magic hardware.

[Kenja]

The author said you "you don't even need to spend the dough for an Access Point". This is wrong. Even if you allready have a computer you can use, it still cost "dough". Just because your running Linux does not make the rest of the computer free. If people where saying that you could run an access point off of Windows without buying any hardware, they would in fact be insane zellots.

Re:Its like.... magic hardware.

[Anonymous Coward]

(which is a bitch because it always reminds me of my divorce. That's why I call them "802.11b", or *gasp* "wireless" cards)

I'm just curious why people feel the need to constantly refer to the women in their lives in these /. posts. Do you have some sort of fetish with convincing people you'll never even meet that you have, at some point in your life, gotten your dick wet? I mean, it's not even close enough to the topic to be called a tangent. This is mental masturbation, and I request that you stop treating this community as your cumrag. Thank you for your time.

Re:Its like.... magic hardware.

[Anonymous Coward]

Boxen and virii are used often enough on the worldweb to make them into words. See boxen and virii.

And people that use these words will just be lumped into the same people that use motherfucker as a noun, pronoun, and verb, ain't, and double negatives. That's right, ignorant, uneducated trash doomed to menial jobs like janitors and spooge moppers.

Re:Its like.... magic hardware.

[Anonymous Coward]

Never mind the fact that having to buy the PCI WiFi card is generally more expensive than buying an access point. There is little economic incentive not to get an access point.

Re:Its like.... magic hardware.

[Anonymous Coward]

And people that use these words will just be lumped into the same people that use motherfucker as a noun, pronoun, and verb, ain't, and double negatives.

What about "people who don't know how to compose a sentence containing a list?"

[no And] People who use these words will just fall into the same category of people that use "motherfucker" as a noun, pronoun, and verb; the word "ain't;" and double negatives.

Re:Its like.... magic hardware.

[Micro$will]

It seems a lot of people are overlooking the fact that not all cards can be a true access point. I have an Admtek 8211 based card that will only work in Ad-Hoc or managed mode, and I'm sure there are others.

If I set my laptop to the same channel as the card in my router it will work, I can run a DHCP server on the router to automate the network layer, but there is no way to set the PCI card in the router so that the laptop automagically picks up the channel and establishes a link.

Re:Its like.... magic hardware.

[Satan Dumpling]

Heck I just got a wireless router on sale for $45 with a $35 rebate last week. :) But if I already had both a wired and wireless card in my good WinXP desktop, I wouldn't mind running an extra program on that 24x7 machine to talk to my laptop...

Re:Its like.... magic hardware.

[maximilln]

It's a pretty safe bet that if the user is reading /. they already have a computer. Plug the cable modem into the computer, purchase a wifi NIC, and they're set to supply the internet to anyone who drives by within broadcast distance.

I had thought about doing this but I still needed to buy another wifi NIC for my second system. The choice was $40 for the wifi NIC or $80 for the wireless AP. I currently use the wireless AP as a hub. Certainly iptables can do everything that it can do but it gives me a little extra down-the-road flexibility and, when I get around to plugging the crossover cable into the WAN port, will allow me to play around with another subnet configuration.

_NEVER_, _EVER_, _EVER_, upon pain of lifelong worldly ridicule, should you ever plug a wireless AP directly into your high-speed connection.

If you're setting up the home network for one of those friends that thinks that a cheap beer and some cold chicken is payment enough for cleaning their systems and setting up their home network then, absolutely, plug the high-speed ethernet directly into the wireless AP. Can you imagine trying to tutor them on iptables or even Windows 98 ICS? Heaven forbid their IP or the IP of the DNS servers would ever change. I hear that Win2k/Me ICS is a _little_ better.

Re:Its like.... magic hardware.

[petecarlson]

Can you run open-source software on that crappy Microsoft router? I knew you couldn't.

No, but I can run OS software on This crappy USR router. His point, I think, was that it takes more then the card to make a "hotspot".

Re:Its like.... magic hardware.

[peteforsyth]

But if you do that (use your primary computer as an access point), you're opening yourself up to lots of potential security holes. I'll be the first to admit I haven't RTFA yet, but it seems to me that the main benefit of using a Linux box for routing is increased security and more flexibility in your routing rules. If you're not going to dedicate a separate computer to the task, it's much more secure to have a separate piece of hardware (available brand new for more like $50, not $90) to handle it for you. Even if the router is not quite as flexible, you can rest assured that the only security holes you could have on your workstation are the ports you keep open.

Re:Its like.... magic hardware.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd rather have the P2 running, because it's _already_ running as my router/firewall to the DSL company.

Re:Its like.... magic hardware.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Did you count _electricity_ of having a fully blown pc with a pentium cpu and spinning disks into the TCO compared ..."

Sure... Since the PC (my current router/firewall) is already running 24x7 connected to the DSL line, it has zero incremental cost.

This other thingy has some.

Free (in more ways than one) beats some.

Re:Its like.... magic hardware.

[k12linux]

Let's see. $50 WAP/router = 10 watts. Free P2 = 150 watts. Which one do I want running 24/7?

Ok, lets say for the sake of argument that they both did the job and you wouldn't have the P2 running anyhow. And we'll even assume the P2 is really drawing the full 150 watts at all times (it won't be) while it is on.

150-10=140 Watts
*24 hours = 3360 watt-hours = (about) 3.4KWH/day.
*365 Days = 1241 KWH/year
*$0.06/KWH = $74/year difference.

That is significant, but not very accurate. I just hooked a 333MHz gateway 2000 to a meter and it is drawing 40 watts (without monitor) not the full amount the power supply is rated for. We'll assume adding a WiFi card will increase the draw by roughly the draw of a dedicated access point. In that case we don't really need to know how much power a Linksys really uses.

At 40 watts, our calculations now come out to just over $1.75/month. Well worth it to me to be able to do things like monitor usage, do authentication or log access.

Compared to $99 for a Linksys, you should be able to run a system like this for a couple of years and still be cheaper (assuming you already have the PC and only need to buy a NIC.) After that time, the recurring power costs may make it slightly more expensive, but the additional capabilities make it worth the small expense.

Of course if you are planning to network a couple of existing PCs they would probably be turned on when you wanted to use them anyhow. That makes the cost of a dedicated access point 100% overhead with little benefit.

Re:Its like.... magic hardware.

[Anonymous Coward]

Nobody cares about misuse of the English language. As long as the point is made, it was used correctly.

Re:Its like.... magic hardware.

[darthcamaro]

Find an old 486 with a working CD in the trash. Boot up LiveLINUX CD Router and voila - you've got an access point without spending any dough.

Re:Its like.... magic hardware.

[Anonymous Coward]

Good god you're dumb. Just...go away. Really. No, I'm serious. You have nothing to contribute to Slashdot.

Re:Its like.... magic hardware.

[Anonymous Coward]

Christ, are you still here? GO AWAY.

Re:Its like.... magic hardware.

[Anonymous Coward]

Let me guess, when you see a cool piece of gadgetry, you're one of the people who go 'oh, sweet, how can i not hack that?

Re:Its like.... magic hardware.

[Anonymous Coward]

Personally, I have a home network with 4 computers on it. One of them is a pentium II 300 with 256mb of ram (running Linux) that is just used occasionally for surfing or checking email.

That box would be the perfect candidate for setting up as a wi-fi access point.

In my case, it would cost $60 for access point and another $40 for the card. Why not save myself the $60 and just get the card? Linux has wonderful routing and firewall capabilities (arguably better than some cheap $60 d-link box).

Re:Its like.... magic hardware.

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple, Buffalo, and many other hotspots are basically WiFi cards in a fancy package, if you're lucky the antenna might be better. The only advantage a buffalo Wifi hotspot has vs a buffalo Wifi card (which are real pieces of shit btw, I've had the misfortune to support an office using these), is that you have more freedom in where you place it. There's no magic sauce, it's exactly the same shite you plug into your laptop except in a plastic container.

Re:Its like.... magic hardware.

[rawg]

Yeah, don't buy a $900 Cisco AP. Just use an old Linux system with some WIFI cards in it. Then watch it as it crashes and burns when some Windows XP user put their wifi card into Power Save Mode.

I even switched to FreeBSD, and it also has the bug. I have read that FreeBSD 5.x has a fix for it. But still, I would have saved a bunch of head aches if I just spend $300/ea more and bought Cisco equipment, but I wanted to save $900 total and went with Linux/FBSD on Soekris boxes.

(HostAP mode only. PTP works fine because it does not use the Power Save Mode stuff)

Re:Its like.... magic hardware.

[Donny Smith]

Bullshit.

1) I pay rent and the loss in usable space would cost me abut 7 dollars a month.
2) I can't stand the noise of my new PC, not to mention of an old 486 box. It probably also releases sizable amount of heat (no ACPI) and requires some extra air-conditioning.
3) As someone already mentioned on this page, the extra box is about 1-2 dollars a month.

All in all, it's about 10 bucks a month in extra expenses. Screw that.

Re:Its like.... magic hardware.

[Rasputin]

Yes, like this: Linux Access Point

IMHO, PersonalTelco rocks.

Re:Its like.... magic hardware.

[Anonymous Coward]

How do you keep getting modded up? You're a fucking IDIOT. What is with people. Why are you still here?!

Re:Its like.... magic hardware.

[throwaway18]

My understanding is that an access point tells associated devices to transmit one at a time, in an ad-hoc network devices can transmitt over each other.

As far as I'm aware, you can only do host mode with a linux box using hostAP and a prism card. Is there support for any other cards?

I can run a DHCP server on the router to automate the network layer, but there is no way to set the PCI card in the router so that the laptop automagically picks up the channel and establishes a link.

I have the opposite problem, my linux router box in ad-hoc mode somtimes jumps to whatever channel my windows laptop has descided to use, paticularly if the laptop is turned on first. I want it to stay on a fixed channel. The windows laptop has no option to set a channel in ad-hoc mode (orinoco card) and finds the router on any channel.

Re:Its like.... magic hardware.

[goldspider]

Let's just say I'm not one of those people who see a toaster and go "Oh sweet, installing Linux on that toaster would make it a better, more useful gadget!"

Re:Its like.... magic hardware.

[babyrat]

Let's see. $50 WAP/router = 10 watts. Free P2 = 150 watts. Which one do I want running 24/7?

How bout Free P2 that is running anyways 150 watts, $50 WAP router 10 watts

Total with routert 160 watts, total with using PC as router 150 watts.

Seems simple to me...

Re:Its like.... magic hardware.

[jdray]

I always heard it pronounced "wye-fye" rather than "wifey." I still prefer "wireless," though. BTW, great website you run there. Thanks.

Re:Its like.... magic hardware.

[jdray]

My DSL router/modem IS an AP. Lucky that it has WEP, MAC filtering, and other security measures built in.

Re:Its like.... magic hardware.

[Dinglenuts]

Hey, I installed a Linux WAP on my shoe the other day, so STFU.

Re:Its like.... magic hardware.

[m1a1]

he author said you "you don't even need to spend the dough for an Access Point". This is wrong.

No it isn't. You don't need to spend the dough for an acess point. You STILL need to buy a wireless card but that tends to be quite a bit cheaper than buying an access point. At least it was back when I bought my wireless stuff.

If people where saying that you could run an access point off of Windows without buying any hardware, they would in fact be insane zellots.

He didn't say you don't need any other hardware. He also didn't say you do. Maybe there is a crime of omission there, but I think discussed that above.

Re:Its like.... magic hardware.

[Anonymous Coward]

Zealotry aside, have you actually used any of those $90 wireless access points? I fussed and fumed with both SMC's and D-Link's wireless firewall/routers. Both had to be rebooted about once a week and performance sucked! They don't have enough horsepower to do the job and their firmware sucks!

My current solution involves a Pentium 233 with 64 M RAM that was sitting in the closet. It runs Linux. Rather than adding a wireless access point, I installed a wireless network card and it serves as access point, too. Security is not a concern; I use IPCop and DMZ'd the wireless stuff so it can't see my internal wired network unless I want it to.

Total cost: about $50 for the wireless card (of course, I already had the computer and a couple of network cards hanging around). I had to fight for a while to get the wireless card working under Linux, Jean Tourrilhes' HowTo's (mentioned elsewhere in this thread) were invaluable getting it working. It has been running 24/7/365 for over 2 years now. The only time it went down was when I upgraded the IPCop software about 2 months ago. Just browsing the Web seems about twice as fast as either the SMC or D-Link boxes. IPCop has many more features than either with IDS and full configurable firewall capability, all set up via web-pages.

I kid you not, this is an enterprise class solution!

Re:Its like.... magic hardware.

[maximilln]

-----
Lucky that it has WEP, MAC filtering, and other security measures built in.
-----
Congratulations.

My wireless AP has all of these features as well. I still wouldn't trust it as far as I can throw it. That's why it manages the subnet _behind_ the Sid system.

Re:Its like.... magic hardware.

[QueenOfSwords]

Yeah I got caught by that too. Also it only works through some sort of Windows driver emulation layer. .AU Slashdotters, avoid the Belkin 802.11b cards. You don't always know what you're getting.

Re:Its like.... magic hardware.

[Micro$will]

.AU Slashdotters, avoid the Belkin 802.11b cards.

I'm here in the US and I make it a point to avoid everything Belkin makes, except cables. I've tried one of their 4 port routers and it was a buggy mess hooked up to DSL, and I've heard a few stories of flakey KVM switches as well.

Re:Its like.... magic hardware.

[j1m 5n0w]

My understanding is that an access point tells associated devices to transmit one at a time, in an ad-hoc network devices can transmitt over each other.

In PCF (point coordinated function) mode, that would be true - the access point polls each client in a round robin fashion, asking if they have data to send. However, PCF is an optional part of the 802.11 spec that has never been implemented.

In DCF (distributed coordinated function) mode, which all 802.11 hardware uses, everyone transmits whenever they feel like, as long as no one else is already currently transmitting, and no CTS (clear to send) transactions have been heard recently. All transmissions must either be from, or to, the AP, though, in infrastructure mode. Sending a packet from client A to client B would require two hops -- one from A to the access point, and one from the access point to B. In an ad-hoc network, anyone can talk to anyone.

-jim

Re:Its like.... magic hardware.

[Anonymous Coward]

The original poster is correct. Dedicated hardware must be used. Not only is it foolish to use your primary machine as the router, but this article is recommending using bootable CDs. It's *possible* to integrate a bootable CD into an already configured machine, but your arguments are getting less and less sensible. Stop.

my thoughts on wifi

[Anonymous Coward]

I was skeptical at first, like most people should be. After I installed a Linksys AP and G card into a notebook, I was amazed at the reliability. Sure, the AP goes down about once a month, but that usually means I have to power-cycle the damned thing.

Plus it's nice when my friend has another friend with a laptop come over and the G card in their laptop automatically connects and starts getting on the Internet.

(We don't WEP. We're in a rural area, dirt road and our neighbor is like 1000' away from us.)

Good Post!

[Daemonik CyCow]

and to think, when they finally get those tiny microdust processors working, we might even be able to cover the planet in wifi... Imagine that.... But would we have to suffer with the grey dust and wear versaci breathing masks?

Re:Good Post!

[Daemonik CyCow]

Ok. That was way offtopic. My nuerons are just not shooting off right today... Think it was the lapse in my free open network that I use @ werk for 3 hours.. Felt like an eternity!

Re:Good Post!

[lawngnome]

microdust you say? hmm imagine a beowulf... Rock! up yours housekeeping! Im networking!

Re:Good Post!

[Daemonik CyCow]

Man. The power of a googillian microdust particles, all GRID connected through ABEW. ACK!

what about...

[bobsalt]

NoCat.net????

I love the Albert Einstein quote -lol

Re:what about...

[Alan Hicks]

Seriously, nocat is a great piece of work. I had the opportunity to test nocat with some SMC WAPs recently and I was impressed. The setup was a little difficult (had trouble getting the latest stable to work, nightly opporated fine however), but once it was up and running I had no trouble accomplishing exactly what I wanted.

The company I was working for was trying to install wifi access in downtown Macon GA. We got beat to the punch by Cox Communications (who has a many time inferiour setup, but I won't go into that). NoCat basically lets you firewall off all ip traffic until a user opens their web browser. Upon doing that, their session is captured by nocat and redirected to an https page where they have the option of signing in, or using the system anonymously.

The benefits of this are incredible. Coffee shops can use it to broadcast out a TOS that one must agree to before using their wifi, large scale networks can offer web page advertising that everyone must go through sooner or later, and universites can require students to sign in to use the free service. It's a great way to offer 'contractual' service to users without having to distribute wifi keys everywhere.

Re:what about...

[Anonymous Coward]

Already done, franchised cheaply even:
www.wiresnap.com
Disclaimer: I wrote the code.

What do you do, steal it?

[tbase]

Did you realize that you don't even need to spend the dough for an Access Point?

They have Open Source hardware now?

Re:What do you do, steal it?

[psoriac]

They have Open Source hardware now?

Yeah but it's free as in speach, not free as in beer.

Re:What do you do, steal it?

[KarmaPolice]

They have Open Source hardware now?

Yes...

And they have the internet on computers, too...

Re:What do you do, steal it?

[TheMysteriousFuture]

Zapata telephony project Open source T1 Card design

Works with the Asterisk OpenSource PBX (Integrated VoiceMail, VoIP Conferencing...etc.)

Re:What do you do, steal it?

[tbase]

Apparently they don't have the Internet on their computers... site's down.

I tried installing the Intenet on my computer, but my hard drive wasn't big enough.

Location?

[drewzhrodague]

Did you know that you can find the locations of some of these projects, by searching for SSIDs? Also, if you know part of the MAC address (for the vendor), and the location, you can pair it down, and see maps of their coverage. Of course, this is all from wardriving data, uploaded by our users -- go out and wardrive!

Re:Location?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow! That covers the whole world from Alabama to Wyoming! ;-)

Re:Location?

[drewzhrodague]

Sure does! We only have detailed street-level maps of the US, however. Mostly because other countries' governments don't publish this in a free way. The US Census publishes TIGER, but it's in this wacky ass format. Anyone know where to get non-US street data for free?

Re:Location?

[Anonymous Coward]

The PHP/PostgressSQL is bjorked...

Re:Location?

[drewzhrodague]

Yah, posting on Slashdot will do that. Takes a while, still handling the load. Certainly a nice test!

Re:Location?

[Anonymous Coward]

Riiight.. .get your head of your ass sir. Have you ever even been outside the USA?

Re:Location?

[drewzhrodague]

Sure, I used to live overseas, but that still doesn't help find free street data for other countries.

Hmmmm

[Richard_at_work]

Did you realize that you don't even need to spend the dough for an Access Point?

Really? Who is giving away mini-itx systems these days then? My $40 Netgear access point is silent and very small and has all the features I want, Id like to see someone put together a linux based wifi router for that sort of money. The whole point of an access point is that its small and discreat enough to be wall mounted, ceiling mounted, crawl space mounted or whatever. Yes this statement may be true if you are looking to reuse old PC hardware, but then you loose much of the point of an AP.

Re:Hmmmm

[johnpaul191]

let alone the electricity use and heat that a PC produce compared to an AP. it might not be a lot, but when you consider you will keep the machine running mostly 24/7 it adds up..... unless you live somewhere like Las Vegas where electricity costs virtually nothing.

Re:Hmmmm

[Wakkow]

It seems the whole point of this type of system is to be able to control who gets to access the AP and what those people can/can't access.

I have no need for a Linux-based wireless AP, but there are many applications that do.

Re:Hmmmm

[tji]

My $40 Netgear access point is silent and very small and has all the features I want, Id like to see someone put together a linux based wifi router for that sort of money

Actually, there are some Linux based AP's for not much more than that. I'm not talking about x86 boxes, with a Wifi card and software to act as an AP. There are cheap hardware AP's that use Linux, and can be extended & modified.

The one I use is the Linksys WRT54G. It's an 802.11G AP, running Linux, and there are several open projects creating firmware updates with nice feature extensions. At the minimum, it allows you to ssh into the box and modify the firewall settings to do exactly what you want.. which is a bit leap over closed AP's.

Some good info on mods for this AP are here: http://www.seattlewireless.net/index.cgi/LinksysWr t54g

Re:Hmmmm

[Lumpy]

ok no problem

linksys pci 802.11b card.... $19.00 newegg..
RACK MOUNT Pentium 133 computer with 64 meg of ram and other junk in it... $0.00 - $9.00 at a local hamfest, computer store, flea market, etc... Yes I find Pentium 133-233 machines all day at free to $10.00 each recently I found a bunch in rack mount cases...

so I'm at $28.00 + $0.98 for an expensive blank CDR for the bootable ISO image that installs and set's up a custom Accesspoint that does things that you can NEVER EVER do with your netgear. (Like redirecting initial we connectionsto a launch page.)

only a complete moron would waste an expensive mini-itx machine on a low poer use like a AP/hotspot box.

Re:Hmmmm

[m1a1]

The whole point of an access point is that its small and discreat enough to be wall mounted, ceiling mounted, crawl space mounted or whatever.

Incredible. And all along I thought the point of an AP was to allow wireless network connectivity.

Re:Hmmmm

[ack154]

Access points really only get "warm" from what I've seen. Well, at least mine. I have a netgear wireless router that is on 24/7 and you dont really feel any heat coming off of it.

Though I should mention that it's enough heat to be annoying. I had a small box of mini-reese cups and had unknowingly placed it on top of my router only to find the entire box melted the next day.

So I put the box in the fridge and had a Reese's Brick. :)

Re:Hmmmm

[Realistic_Dragon]

Unless of course you already have a building full of PCs (office for example?) and want to be able to load up some software to create an instant full mesh of access points.

A USB WiFi adaptor that works with HostAP is around $10-$15 in bulk, and you will get much much better coverage with one in every third desktop on your network than with one or two APs per office.

You can then also get other advantages, such as pre-cached handover (great for VoIP), more granular connection tracking, more complex firewall fules and routing tables, better VPN interoperability and other things that most big work sites would kill (or pay Cisco a fortune) for.

Re:Hmmmm

[tmasssey]

You have *got* to be kidding me...

$40 wirelss router. A single computer on the back end running NoCat/Squid/Etc. to handle authentication/filtering/etc.

Which is better? Saving $10 to use an 8-year-old computer with an 8-year-old power supply that consumes 10x the power and takes 5+ times the space, or a small, silent, cool device that is UNDER WARRANTY and has no moving parts?

And in case you missed the "but I can't redirect the initial connect to a different page!", I can do exactly that ON THE BACK END! Why would I put that page on 100 different access points where a single change has to be made 100 times? YOU PUT IT ON THE BACK END!!!

Jeez. Soon you'll be telling me that I shouldn't pay $75 for a print server, I should drag out an old 486 and pay a penny an hour for the electricity to make my own print server that takes up twice the room of the printer itself?

Re:Hmmmm

[carlos_benj]

Great... Thanks a bunch. I was going around the house putting push pins in the walls, ceilings and crawlspaces everywhere I wanted an AP since they seemed to meet the "whole point" of having an access point. Now I have to go to plan "B"..... again....

Re:Hmmmm

[Anonymous Coward]

Netgear stuff IS Linux based afaik. There's links to GPL parts of their router software on their site anyway.

Re:Hmmmm

[Anonymous Coward]

And in case you missed the "but I can't redirect the initial connect to a different page!", I can do exactly that ON THE BACK END! Why would I put that page on 100 different access points where a single change has to be made 100 times? YOU PUT IT ON THE BACK END!!!

YOU have *got* to be kidding ME...

Jeez, soon you'll be telling me that the back end machine runs without electricity, costs nothing nd doesn't take up any space! So, it's better to spend 2x as much and STILL dedicate a PC to this? Why not do it all on one box in the first place.. .since you are going to be setting up a 2nd system anyhow?

How about if I want to connect an existing PC to my home network. Should I add a dedicated access point.. just because it's "better"? Get real.

Re:Hmmmm

[Anonymous Coward]

When I can run ethereal or tcpdump on a Netgear/Linksys AP then I'll consider paying attention to you.

Re:Hmmmm

[Sahib!]

Soekris Engineering produces 486-based routing hardware that will run your choice of Open Source OS. They aren't quite as cheap as a Linksys or Netgear router, but they are hackable and upgradable, since the network interfaces are PCMCIA or Mini-PCI cards and they have Compact Flash interfaces for storage.

Re:Hmmmm

[tmasssey]

Sigh. IHBT, but I'll bite...

Apples and oranges. If we're talking NoCat (or other such access control to relatively open systems), isn't it highly likely that we will be talking more than one AP?

Which is easier? To put out a series of small, silent, reliable, power-efficient AP's connected to a single back-end computer, or a bunch of large, noisy, power-hungry and failure-prone (if used) or expensive (if new) computers to *act* as AP's, all to save a *single* back-end computer in a nice, controlled, convenient location?

Now, if you're talking about a single AP, integrating the capabilities of the back-end system with the AP *might* be theoretically cheaper (though I still disagree: you're still talking about bulky hardware in inconvenient places). But if we *are* talking a single AP, *why* do you need NoCat, exactly? I have a feeling that the number of users who need a NoCat solution and can get by with a single AP are very, very small. If you think your solution is superior for that application, so be it. I'll stick with the solution better for 99.9% of the people.

Oh, and don't forget: you are doing all of this so that you can save a grand total of $40 on the router. Still think your argument makes sense? Short of 15-year-old kids who don't want to spend their allowance, when does saving that $40 for a pieced-together solution over a proven, stable and warrantied solution make sense?

Again, what do we gain by using a computer instead of an AP? At most, $40. And, of course, "flexibility". But why does the flexibility have to be on the router, exactly? Who cares if the flexibility is one hop upstream? I can only come up with tiny "abuses" by using a standard router without NoCat on them: users could talk to each other across the same AP. Big freaking deal: I doubt that such use is really going to hurt you... Even then, there are routers that allow more controlled configurations to block even that.

If you're talking at home, go crazy. But in the real world, building a business with seat-of-your-pants designs to save at most $40 is not exactly smart.

Re:Hmmmm

[Anonymous Coward]

If you are setting up multiple APs, then sure, it makes sense to spend a few bucks for several simple APs. But if I'm putting in a single AP then why have extra expense and extra hardware to fail? It is rediculous to add a dedicated AP just for the sake of adding a dedicated AP.

Personally I have a dedicated AP at home because it was worth it to not mess around and I can move it at will without buying seperate antennas and cables. But to dismiss reasons for using a combo PC/AP is arrogant.

Re:Hmmmm

[bluGill]

I have a computer in my basement right now running a webserver. That machine is essentially unloaded, and needs to always be on. Using it as an access point would save money. Not just the cost of a dedicated access point, but also the 4 watts a dedicated access point would use. (yes I know that machine is using 70 watts or so, but it is going to do that with or without adding AP functionality)

Your arguments for a dedicated AP turn against the AP when you add in all the other things you do with the AP running linux. (But of course only if you use that machine for something else)

Am I terminologically challenged?

[gosand]

Did you realize that you don't even need to spend the dough for an Access Point? - standard Linux routing is enough to create your own access point, with a few other tools like Public IP's Zone CD or the Less Networks Hotspot server, you can freely create a hotspot and manage it all in minutes.

So what is the difference between an Access Point and an access point? This says I don't need one, all I need is Public IP's Zone CD. But one of the requirements of that is an access point.

I guess in short - huh?

Re:Am I terminologically challenged?

[MCZapf]

AFAIK, an access point is any wireless device in "Master" mode. An Access Point (capital letters) is a consumer device that fills this role.

There are three modes that a wireless device can be in:

1. Ad-hoc (communicating with anyone and everyone)
2. Managed (communicating with a single access point)
3. Master (An access point)

So, to build your own access point, you need a card and driver that supports Master mode. Again, this is all AFAIK.

My homebrew router

[j0hndoe]

I've had an iPaq 3650 in a dual-pcmcia sleeve, running handhelds.org Linux as my wireless router for several years. I've never had to reboot it, either. It's silent, fits on my windowsill, and has a built-in UPS. :)

Re:My homebrew router

[einer]

I've wanted to do that for AGES! I have an iPaq 3750 (I think it's probably very similar to yours). I got a linux boot loader on it, but have failed to progress past that point.

If you have any notes or pointers to share, I'd be most appreciative.

Re:My homebrew router

[Anonymous Coward]

A regular CD doesn't fit in the iPaq. You must use one of the business-card sized CDs and slide it into the SDRAM slot at the back, you should then run lnxsetup from the command prompt.

Good luck, post here if you have more questions.

I'd respond, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm still laughing at your use of the term "WAN card". WAN = Wide Area Network, not Wireless [something] Network.

Re:I'd respond, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm still laughing at your use of the term "WAN card". WAN = Wide Area Network, not Wireless [something] Network.

Me too!

Yep, Except for that &*(&^%^& Centrino

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been using wireless on Linux for some time, with lots of the aforementioned thanks to Jean deT. However with the advent of the Intel M chip and centrino architecture things stepped back hard ... much more difficult to find and engage an 802.11b driver for the integrated chipset.

One would think Intel would have shipped one for the second-largest operating system -- assuming of course they were a hardware vendor primarily ...

Remember...

[Anonymous Coward]

When you set up an access point (or do anything) without paying the Man, you're supporting Communism!

Did you *buy* that air, suspect 103892? Report to Judgement booth for sentencing, unless you have something to *hide*...?

fun with orinoco

[Anonymous Coward]

Not that long ago it was a serious pain to get an 802.11b card to work on a Linux machine.

Don't worry. If you miss the pain of the good ol' days, try getting monitor mode working properly with an Orinoco card on a 2.6.x kernel. Fun times. For some reason the owners of the orinoco driver will not include monitor mode by default, and you have to patch it in. Super annoying.

Re:fun with orinoco

[Roland Piquepaille]

For some reason the owners of the orinoco driver will not include monitor mode by default, and you have to patch it in. Super annoying.

Yes, I'll second that, especially if you don't have 2.6.2, which is the only 2.6 kernel that has a monitor patch, if you don't want to use the separate pcmcia distro.

I just patched 2.6.6 and it's kind of a pain to get all the failed hunks in airport.c manually.

Re:fun with orinoco

[peekitty]

The CVS drivers have rfmon built in - works perfectly for me...

Re:fun with orinoco

[Anonymous Coward]

The CVS drivers have rfmon built in - works perfectly for me...

They work with kismet but they use the prism2 style monitor mode (set via iwconfig). You won't see monitor mode enabled if you run iwpriv.

So with that in mind, apps that check that flag / expect to enable monitor mode via iwpriv tend to fail. Try running Airsnort sometime. Results are... let's just say less than spectacular.

Either way it sucks that the devs won't just standardize on one monitor mode method and make it part of the default driver package.

WAP fairies

[Anonymous Coward]

They also provide freshly made open-source footwear while you sleep.

Re:WAP fairies

[Havokmon]

They also provide freshly made open-source footwear while you sleep.

Just as long as their not stealing my underwear as part of an incomplete business model..

Requirement #1 for PublicIP ZoneCD...

[tbase]

Any WiFi compliant wireless router or access point

Kind of like the apple airport?

[ack154]

Did you realize that you don't even need to spend the dough for an Access Point?

So is this like when you can share the Airport on an Apple without having an actual base station? For example, I can just open up my iBook and create an access point with my airport card (presumably to share the ethernet connection, or dialup, if you dare).

Re:Kind of like the apple airport?

[dasmegabyte]

Yeah. It's great that Linux can now do what Apple did back in 1999.

(this isn't a dig on Linux, btw...I'm really impressed that wireless works so well on it...so much as an "hey apple has cool stuff first" post. i've been burning DVDs on my powerbook lately and have been very pleased with how painless it's been -- so long as you're willing to give up a little control).

Re:Kind of like the apple airport?

[Mr Guy]

I'm not versed in Apple but I suspect you are missing the point. The idea isn't that you can create an ad hoc network, you can do that with just about any wifi cards on any platform. The joy of this is you can set up your linux box to behave just as a wireless router would with more powerful tools. It's the TOOLS that make this fun. Everything you can set up for a linux gateway you can apply to your entire wireless AP without spending the money for a commercial version.

Yes, your generic AP for $40 will let you have SOME of the following features, but I've yet to see one that offers all the tools of a linux gateway.

For example, does your Apple or $40 wireless gateway offer:

- NAT (Probably)
- DHCP (Probably some version of it)
- Firewall software (Some basic version probably)
- Caching and Proxy (as in Squid)
- Packet shaping
- QoS management
- MAC filtering
- SSH tunneling
- VPN

and that's a partial list of what you can control with Linux. I've not seen a cheap gateway that offers ALL of that as customizable as you are willing to make it.

Re:Kind of like the apple airport?

[ack154]

Well that's kind of why I was asking, I know that the Apple version is pretty simple and basic, though I think that you can get at least a couple more of those services (than the most basic). But I wanted to be sure that it may have been that there was more to it.

Personally though, the most I need can be had with the "generic" access point - but I can definitely see the need for more control.

Nice, but about those 802.11a/b/g cards...

[ewanrg]

It's nice to see that Linux is helping some folks out with their connectivity issues. However, the article doesn't address the number one problem I've seen on most Linux user forums - which is how to get the dang card recognized and configured in the first place.

Myself, I have a Linksys WUSB11 v 2.8 wireless device. Linksys, the consumer arm of Cisco, is not exactly a small player. But to get my card to work I have to go to the Berlios.de site, do a CVS checkout (if I want 2.6 kernel support), and make sure I have kernel source around to build the driver.

Someone who can simplify THAT is going to make a lot more headway with the average user.

My .02 worth...

Re:Nice, but about those 802.11a/b/g cards...

[eln]

Get anything with a Prism chipset, and you're usually golden. The hostap stuff works with Prism 2/2.5/3, and the prism54 stuff (for g) works with Prism GT. Anything advertising Intersil chipsets are generally Prism. I've had good success with Orinoco stuff, but anyone who licenses Intersil's chipset will work, as I've tried some of the off-brand stuff too with good success.

Prism-based cards are plentiful and cheap, and the drivers, although initially flaky, have really improved over the last couple of months.

Try it, you'll like it. You know you want to.

Re:Nice, but about those 802.11a/b/g cards...

[nandhp]

But if you get a Proxim a/b/g card it comes with Atheros and you need madwifi to use it.

Re:Nice, but about those 802.11a/b/g cards...

[dbc001]

Would anyone be so kind as to make more specific hardware recommendations? I mean, it's great to know which chipsets are compatible, but there are a great many linux users who would like to move to wireless but have neither the time nor the patience to do the research. It would be greatly appreciated if people could post what wireless hardware they have had success with. A few good vendor recommendations would be helpful as well...

Re:Nice, but about those 802.11a/b/g cards...

[debian4life]

I tried two Prism2 cards. I tried them as modules, built into the kernel both 2.4 and 2.6, and I could never get them to work. I went on Ebay and got a Cisco 350 series card, popped it in the machine, recompiled the kernel with the Cisco card options and it worked first try.

If anyone every wants to save some time, that is the way to go.

Re:Nice, but about those 802.11a/b/g cards...

[Tin Foil Hat]

Well, this has certainly been a sticking point for me. I have a linksys card and d-link card, and I can't get either of them to work correctly in my laptop. The linksys card will only work if I configure the thing *before* I insert it for the first time, and then only for those exact settings. For some reason, I can't change settings on the fly. If I go to a different hotspot, I have to totally uninstall everything and re-install with new settings. Yeah, there's probably a better way, but I'll be damned if I can figure it out.

The d-link card simply refuses to run. It doesn't even power on. Works fine in Windows though.

Is there anybody that can provide me with a link to a seller that stocks a card that absolutely *does* work with Linux -- with a native driver that can access all the settings? I've been trying for a couple months, but I'm afraid to plunk down another eighty bucks or more for a card that I can't tell ahead of time whether it's going to work or not.

Re:Nice, but about those 802.11a/b/g cards...

[rRaminrodt]

I have a Belkin 102.11b USB adapter with the model no. F5D6050. This card uses the Atmel at76c503 drivers which are included with other drivers in the kernel rpm in Mandrake 10.

Even when I was downloading and compiling the sourceforge drivers myself, it worked very well.

One point though, is that these don't support the Master mode, so I run an Ad-hoc network for the handful of PCs I need to connect to this machine.

Nothing new?

[mgs1000]

I know I am going to get flamed for this, but can't you already do this with Windows(internet connection sharing) and OSX?

Re:Nothing new?

[Alan Hicks]

Yes you can. The point is you can now easily do this with linux using a host of third party tools and native linux routing. No one ever said you couldn't do the same thing with windows or Mac OSX. Go back to your hole, troll.

Re:Nothing new?

[Anonymous Coward]

Although it can be convenient, MS internet connection sharing is VERY different than having a router. You can actually get linux distros that are specifically made to work just like a router (any linux distro will do, these are just more convenient). The only difference is that the sky is the limit of what it can do. If you just set it and forget it, it has about the same functionality as a low end $90 router, but if you want to write some code and tweak it, you can give it the same advanced functionality of high end Cisco routers. I agree, if you don't want to do anything fancy, just buy a cheap wifi router. In my case, I wanted to connect my wired and wireless networks to another wireless network (the other wifi network being the WAN side). You can't do this with a $90 router... but you can with a linux based router.

P.S. No, I will NOT disclose the reason I was connecting my networks to my neighbo... I mean another wifi network :-)

BSD 802.11

[Anonymous Coward]

Not to forget Warner Losh and others, bringing 802.11 to xBSD. For many, BSD is more relevant than Linux for public Hotspots.

Re:BSD 802.11

[Anonymous Coward]

It is official; Netcraft confirms: *BSD is dying

One more crippling bombshell hit the already beleaguered *BSD community when IDC confirmed that *BSD market share has dropped yet again, now down to less than a fraction of 1 percent of all servers. Coming on the heels of a recent Netcraft survey which plainly states that *BSD has lost more market share, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. *BSD is collapsing in complete disarray, as fittingly exemplified by failing dead last in the recent Sys Admin comprehensive networking test.

You don't need to be a Kreskin to predict *BSD's future. The hand writing is on the wall: *BSD faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for *BSD because *BSD is dying. Things are looking very bad for *BSD. As many of us are already aware, *BSD continues to lose market share. Red ink flows like a river of blood.

FreeBSD is the most endangered of them all, having lost 93% of its core developers. The sudden and unpleasant departures of long time FreeBSD developers Jordan Hubbard and Mike Smith only serve to underscore the point more clearly. There can no longer be any doubt: FreeBSD is dying.

Let's keep to the facts and look at the numbers.

OpenBSD leader Theo states that there are 7000 users of OpenBSD. How many users of NetBSD are there? Let's see. The number of OpenBSD versus NetBSD posts on Usenet is roughly in ratio of 5 to 1. Therefore there are about 7000/5 = 1400 NetBSD users. BSD/OS posts on Usenet are about half of the volume of NetBSD posts. Therefore there are about 700 users of BSD/OS. A recent article put FreeBSD at about 80 percent of the *BSD market. Therefore there are (7000+1400+700)*4 = 36400 FreeBSD users. This is consistent with the number of FreeBSD Usenet posts.

Due to the troubles of Walnut Creek, abysmal sales and so on, FreeBSD went out of business and was taken over by BSDI who sell another troubled OS. Now BSDI is also dead, its corpse turned over to yet another charnel house.

All major surveys show that *BSD has steadily declined in market share. *BSD is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If *BSD is to survive at all it will be among OS dilettante dabblers. *BSD continues to decay. Nothing short of a miracle could save it at this point in time. For all practical purposes, *BSD is dead.

Fact: *BSD is dying

Device drivers have a loong way to go.

[eechuah]

Hi,

I'll probably get modded to oblivion for this, but the support of wifi for linux is dismal. Many cards don't work, and those that work, many features don't work (like WEP!!). This is obviously no fault of the community, since they're doing their best to reverse engineer hardware, but asking people to create AP's using Linux when most cards don't even FUNCTION is a little weird.

(I know what I'm talking about. I've bought 2 wifi cards for my Mythtv box, and both only work partially, even though they're reported as "working" by the HW compatibility list).

Re:Device drivers have a loong way to go.

[pnutjam]

The only Linux distro I've had any success getting wireless to work under is SuSE, even with the vaunted Prism chipset. Maybe YAST deserves the credit, but I swear I had it setup properly under redhat, debian, and knoppix.

Re:Device drivers have a loong way to go.

[Mafia$oft]

Nope, YaST doesn't deserve any credit whatsoever. In SUSE 9.0 it failed completely at setting up a PRISM54 based card (WG311 or so). The forums are full of complaints about YaST's wireless setup. Not even fiddling with YaST's network config template files helped, took almost 3 hours to get that card set up even marginally (by far not all YaST's fault). I know what I'm talking about - I'm the project leader of http://acx100.sf.net ...

Re:Device drivers have a loong way to go.

[Anonymous Coward]

I have two wifi cards base on Realteks RL8180 which claimed they would work with Linux.

They came with an binary only driver that only works with two specific kernel versions. They don't have a working wrapper for different kernels, which other vendors managed for some time.

And even with the right kernel version, the driver didn't work with my cards.

But I got it working with ndiswrapper.

Router as AP

[n0d3]

I guess I can imageine why people would like this. As far as I understand it, you now can just add a wireless nick to your allready existing router and have an AP right then and there. sounds like a good deal to me, it's just what I was looking for really. since my router/server allready does a lot of work for me, this makes it I don't have to add a socket or whatever to plugin an nother extra adapter, i don't have to worry about a 'spot' even so small. Allthough I do admit attenna's might be a problem, with a seperate AP you can just move the antenna (and the whole AP at that) anywhere you want, now you are somewhat limited...

Re:Router as AP

[jpmkm]

Has slashdot started inserting the letter 'k' in random places or did you actually write 'wireless nick'?

Re:Router as AP

[ack154]

Last I checked, Slashdot was still brought to you by the letters F and U. So it must just be a NICk thing.

Re:Router as AP

[n0d3]

so I typo'ed ... sue me. That, or I just got confused, and how that happend ... dunno, but my mind is usually 3 words a head of what I type anyhow ...

Duh

[stratjakt]

. Did you realize that you don't even need to spend the dough for an Access Point?

I would sincerely hope that everyone reading slashdot realized this. Yeah, linux can route and masquerade, and we've been doing it for years. WiFi is just another net adaptor, with a couple more settings.

But do you realize you can do the same thing with Windows! Wowee. Turn on routing and remote access, or click on "share this connection". Install WinRoute, etc..

I mean, obviously there's no news here. Just a chance to use two of our favorite buzzwords, "WiFi" and "Linux"..

You can keep your wonky 2.4ghz access points that drop out when the phone rings, or are completely obliterated when the local news station does a remote story in your neighbourhood (their satelite uplinks will rape 2.4ghz right through its pants).

Wires are where it's at. Watch, in a year or two, what's old will be new again. Starbucks will replace their wireless setups with complementary ethernet jacks in the tables, etc.

Re:Duh

[Anonymous Coward]

But do you realize you can do the same thing with Windows! Wowee. Turn on routing and remote access, or click on "share this connection". Install WinRoute, etc..

um no.. as windows drivers do not allow turning on the AP mode in the wireless adapters.

if the card is not in AP mode, it dont work bucko.

Re:Duh

[dasmegabyte]

Really? Don't tell my adapter. It's been doing this since 2001, and I'm afraid if you tell it that it can't it will stop working. Like when the coyote would look down in Looney Tunes.

Re:Duh

[pchasco]

It's even easier than that. If you already have a nat gateway on your network (many DSL routers have this feature always on) install a wireless ethernet adapter into your windows XP box, open up network connections, highlight your LAN connection and your wireless connection then right click->bridge connections. There ya go. It is completely transparent.

Within minutes? Is that a good thing?

[192939495969798999]

So within minutes, my stuff can be available over wireless... or, within minutes, my cable modem can be saturated with pringles cans from miles(?) away! Wheee! That sounds like a plan. Hey, all I need is that 92 TB router, and then I just uncap my cable modem and watch as time warner's bw usage goes to the moon.

Ad-hoc or Infrastructure?

[Anonymous Coward]

My question is, what mode are these networks running in? Last I checked, you couldn't put just any network card into infrastructure mode. I haven't seen anything says it's possible with 802.11g cards at all. You can create a router using a wireless card in ad-hoc mode, but the performance is going to be very suboptimal. If your router can't manage infrastructure mode, it just isn't as good as a commercial access point.

Yup

[tomhung]

Did you realize that you don't even need to spend the dough for an Access Point?

Duh, I've been leaching off my neighbors for years.

Re:Yup

[easter1916]

I knew it!!! I'm going to get you, you b@stard!

Your Neighbor

Antenna?

[SlashDread]

AFAIK, these wifi thingies have antenna's. My casemodded Asus p4p800, does not. However, it would look cool, so where can I get one?

"/Dread"

Re:Antenna?

[donkeyoverlord]

Hyperlinktech has a nice selection of wireless gear, amps, antennas, spliters, etc. They seem like there pricing is high but the quality of the product is good.

Re:Antenna?

[SlashDread]

wow, thanks,

"Dread"

been there... done that....

[whitelabrat]

Many moons ago I had a linux box with a Proxim Symphony (1.5Mbps) wireless card that acted as a cable modem router/firewall/kitchen sink. It worked great!

Unfortunately the bums at Proxim didn't make WinXP drivers so I scrapped it all for D-Link cards... that I've never gotten to work with linux. A DI-614+ access point is dirt cheap though so no big deal.

Pretty thin article

[Roland Piquepaille]

Where are kismet? airsnort? kwifimanager? the various useful Orinoco patches for pcmcia?

Power consumption is an issue...

[Entropius]

If you're using the same computer both as an access point and a, well, computer (ftp/mail/www/whatever else server), this makes sense. But I would think that reusing old hardware as a dedicated AP would pull 150-200 watts, while a commercial AP would draw less than ten...

Still is....

[EpsCylonB]

Not that long ago it was a serious pain to get an 802.11b card to work on a Linux machine

Still is, your lucky if your card is supported, if linux support is important to you make sure there is a driver availiable for any card you choose.

Re:Still is....

[Tin Foil Hat]

So, any links? I've been trying to find one for months. Not that they're not out there, just that I can't find one. I can say that the crap at Best Buy does not work.

Re:Still is....

[EpsCylonB]

So, any links? I've been trying to find one for months. Not that they're not out there, just that I can't find one. I can say that the crap at Best Buy does not work.

There is a list on the net, google for linux wifi drivers or something similar...

And avoid the linksys wmp11 v2.7 (broadcom chipset) which is what i have, annoying other wmp11 cards with different chipsets do have drivers, just colour me unlucky i guess.

Re:Still is....

[Tin Foil Hat]

Well, with the aid of tips from some other posters here, I was able to find a card that seems like it will work.

Specifically, the Cisco Aironet 350 series cards have native linux drivers available directly from Cisco's site. The card is a little pricey ($130 - $200), but probably worth it and is probably what I'll get. Now, if I could just find a local retailer I'd be happy. Probably though, I'll need to order it from the internet.

Nice, but

[Anonymous Coward]

What I'd like to see is a standard for logging into a public hotspot which doesn't involve opening a webbrowser and typing something manually.

Wifi hotspots are small and if everyone has his own login system, you'll be too busy logging in to use the net, unless you stop for a while. An increasing number of PDAs come with builtin Wifi. A login standard could make these (almost) always-online, even if you're on the move. This way you could receive mail and instant messages or use location based services.

Re:Nice, but

[brxndxn]

I agree about the need for a login standard. Having a universal login would be useful for people running around with PDAs in and out of wifi areas. If someone keeps the PDA on 'wifi standby' the PDA could automatically login when a wifi network is seen and download the latest email, voicemail, porn, etc.

This would work kind of like the Tmobile network. Whenever you are in network, you receive your calls. However, most of the time, you will see the calls you missed..

Mini-ITX solutions

[ArcRiley]

If your goal is just a home WIFI AP and you want to save money, this isn't the way to do it. You can pickup a decent 802.11a (or g) AP from Pricewatch for under $100. Linksys even makes a 802.11g AP that runs GNU/Linux and allows you to load your own software onto it.

However, if you're looking for something custom, there's just no better way than building it yourself. I recommend picking up a nice VIA EPIA 800 from CWLinux preloaded with their LinuxBIOS and toss in one or two WiFi cards (one A, one G).

Some examples of the kind of flexibility this gives you is offering IPv6 support, packet tunneling to hide your upstream, or setting up a custom website which all new users of the hotspot will be given when they try to access any website until they've activated their service (EULA, payment, whatever).

The minimum the hardware for this is going to run around $350. With only a few extra features, it can easily run over $500. That $40 802.11a AP from Pricewatch sure looks like a good deal now, doesn't it?

Re:Mini-ITX solutions

[Anonymous Coward]

Building you own ap has it's advantages. For one thing you can tunnel your web traffic with ssh. Just issue the command :

<ECODE>ssh -L 8080:your-proxy.isp.com:8080 myaccesspoint.localdomain.com</ECODE>

on your laptop and set your proxy as localhost. This means that your nosy neighbours can't do behavioural studies on your net usage anymore:)

/freskog

Re:Mini-ITX solutions

[donkeyoverlord]

I visited that CWLinux site you posted and man what a mess of a design.
A problem with using mini-itx is that you only have 1 PCI so installing multipul cards would be a problem. But cards that support all 3 standards are made.

Re:Mini-ITX solutions

[carlos_benj]

The minimum the hardware for this is going to run around $350. With only a few extra features, it can easily run over $500. That $40 802.11a AP from Pricewatch sure looks like a good deal now, doesn't it?

Don't forget the price of a house to keep it in. Don't want the other folks living under the overpass stealing your hardware. Now it's costing you over $100k....

I'd think the assumption is that there will already be hardware in place and all you need is a WiFi card of some (compatible) kind.

Re:Mini-ITX solutions

[ArcRiley]

The VIA EPIA boards actually have one physical PCI slot but support daughter boards that expand this to two.

The expansion boards also make the cards flat along with the motherboard so the entire setup takes more space as a result.

Attention "Duh! A computer costs $300!" posters..

[pjkundert]

Remember...

Most poeple running Linux already have a computer...

What they don't have is a Wi-Fi hotspot...

You can pick up an used Prism 2.5 802.11b card (such as a Dlink DWL-520) for $30 (probably less, before this story hit!). That's it! You've got a wireless access point. Done. No extra hardware to "hide", not more crap to plug in. Just compile in the kernel "hostap" patches, and away you go!

Since you're running a firewall already (you know about Shorewall, right?), it is reasonably easy to set up a firewalled NAT subnet to contain your wireless LAN traffic. Don't bother with silly WEP, use ssh or ipsec for secure access, or just route access from unsecurable Windows boxes directly out to the open internet (use MAC filtering, if you feel vulnerable to losers driving by using your open AP to surf for porn...).

not an AP

[Space]

the sites linked do not create an AP from your PC. They merely handle authentication for an access point. The requirements list two ethernet cards, one to connect to your AP, one to connect to your lan/internet connection. This has nothing to do with setting up wireless on Linux.

Re:not an AP

[aquabat]

The first link describes using one of the computers in your house as a wireless access point.

The idea is that the computer that has the wired internet connection gets a wireless NIC added to it, and this NIC is set up as the "wireless" access point for any other wireless NICs in the area.

Kinda like how you may have set up a linux box to be the house router via a wired hub in the past, only now the house side NIC is wireless and you don't need the hub anymore.

Re:Attention "Duh! A computer costs $300!" posters

[rjstanford]

Remember...

Most poeple running Linux already have a computer...

What they don't have is a Wi-Fi hotspot...

Hmm. Yes, but an awful lot of people running Linux have a, singular, computer. And they'd kind of like to use it in different places without running wires everywhere. IE: the normal use of a wireless internet connection.

This is only useful as you point out if they have two computers, one of which they want to leave right where its it. Oh, and they're willing to pay about the same amount of money to get a wireless card as you can pay for a decent WAP. Which is fine, if you get your jollies hacking on your WAP ... personally, that falls into the "Just make it work" category for me - there are more interesting things that I can do with my time, even while coding.

Re:Attention "Duh! A computer costs $300!" posters

[advocate_one]

"Just compile in the kernel "hostap" patches, and away you go!"

you mean I'd have to compile my kernel??? I've managed to go 5 years now with Linux without ever having to compile a kernel...

What do you mean "Not so long ago"?

[Anonymous Coward]

I've had a Thinkpad R32 with a Cisco Aironet 350 mini-PCI wireless adaptor for over a year and I still can't get a driver for SuSE8.2.

So I dual boot WinXP, which works fine when I'm unwired.

I'm not a driver developer. I'm a customer and I want a working rpm.

Until Linux is taken seriously by driver developers, it's pretty muched doomed as a consumer OS.

Re:What do you mean "Not so long ago"?

[WildThing]

Psst.. here ya go - 350 Drivers From Cisco's own website

Re:What do you mean "Not so long ago"?

[Anonymous Coward]

D'oh! Thanks. Linux rulez. Go Linux. Ra Ra Ra.

Not very accurate, tho

[EvilStein]

I found an access point that used to be here where I work on that list. Its SSID changed *ages* ago. A lot of the information on there seems to be a few years old - stuff changes quickly these days.

Re:Not very accurate, tho

[drewzhrodague]

Yah, we've been working on a couple of different ways to check that the AP has either moved, changed SSID, or has been taken out of service. The SSID name should have changed if any wardrivers found the unit with the new name, however. Same for WEP charachteristics.

Re:Not very accurate, tho

[EvilStein]

I suppose that it's difficult to keep an accurate map. It's quite possible that a lot of the "default" SSIDs changed as soon as the owners read the FM. :)

off topic a little...

[seanismdotcom]

Which wireless cards do you guys recommend for linux? I have a linksys one which for a linux n00b like me is a B!tch to install. I have heard that prism cards are linux compatable but which cards are those. Thank you for the help in advance.

Re:off topic a little...

[Mothra the III]

Linksys WMP11 - no go on the newer models. There may be a way to get this working but you will need a linux guru.
I just got a Microsoft MN-510 USB working with help from www.linux-wlan.com and it works great.

Re:off topic a little...

[seanismdotcom]

I have 2 wireless cards... Hawking Tech. 11m Wireless Ethernet Card P/N: WE110p+ Linksys Wireless-B Notebook Adapter P/N: WPC11 ver. 4 I will buy another if another one works out of the box with linux due to my n00bness with it. I was hoping to use the Knoppix STD(sp?) to war drive and what not. Thanks

WiFi Defaults?

[drewzhrodague]

Actually, not. You'd think that consumers would read the snippets of documentation that come with the box, understand what they're doing when they turn this thing on, and pipe their computers into it. This is not the case. ~70% is unencrypted, and about 30% are totally default. What's the best way to get users to understand this?

I figure, shipping the unit with the factory defaults as nothing working, and make the user read/configure the thing first.

Re:WiFi Defaults?

[Anonymous Coward]

"I figure, shipping the unit with the factory defaults as nothing working, and make the user read/configure the thing first."

And have it returned to the store the next day.
'ph but lets chain the user to the device and that wont happen'
I thought liberals liked freedom.

Down with women's rights.

Re:WiFi Defaults?

[brunson]

Dude, I just found my AP. I think I need to turn on WEP.

Re:WiFi Defaults?

[Cecil]

Users don't read instructions. It seems to be a primarily computer-based thing. A desk, that seems simple enough, but since they're not exactly sure which piece is for which, they read the instructions. A computer, on the other hand, is black magic. Black magic comes with instructions?

I can't count the number of times I've been doing friendly (read: free) tech support for someone and they ask me to, say, come and get their printer working. So I get there, ask them for the instruction manual, which half the time was in the garbage already. Follow the 5 steps listed on the instructions, everything works perfectly. "What was wrong with it? How'd you fix it?" "I followed the instructions." "Oh. I guess I should've tried that."

Your point is?

[Anonymous Coward]

Quote by author: "you don't even need to spend the dough for an Access Point".

This means you don't have to spend any EXTRA money to get a access point. Of course you need to own a wireless network card and have a computer. Duh! What are you thinking? You think someone would actually say you don't need a wireless NIC to connect to a wireless network? Stop being so silly.

Router !=Access Point

[rfg]

An access point serves as a bridge between your wired LAN and your wirelessed computers. A router will break that functionality as the network address will change. Useless for business.

GPL'ed captive portal with WPA integration

[Anonymous Coward]

Check out ChilliSpot which does the captive portal stuff as well as integrates with wireless protected access (WPA). Written in C.

MeshAP by locustworld.com

[agent]

Too bad he did not mention the MeshAP project by locustworld.com

the cost-benefit analysis of doing it yourself...

[deviator]

you know, if you want to do it for a hobby so you can learn about WiFi, cool. Otherwise, the benefits of "rolling your own" access point on Linux are minimal. Dedicated hardware access points are really a miracle of engineering--they're full-featured yet cheaper than dirt (you can often pick them up for less than $30).

Unless your time is worth *nothing* most people would be better served by simply purchasing a dedicated hardware access point (most are powered by Linux anyhow).

Ha! Your Netgear does NOT do what my AP does

[Exocet]

http://wiki.personaltelco.net/index.cgi?Node172

I took an old Compaq laptop (p2/333, 196MB RAM, 6GB HD) that I got for $50 from a company sale. Added a Senao ($80) 200mw wifi card with external antenna connections. I'm currently using a 5.5 dBi omni ($20) with plans to upgrade to a 12 dBi roof-mount.

Additional security has been provided by the already-in-place Cisco 1900 Catalyst switch. VLAN2, which is what my AP & main linux-based server are on - can not talk to VLAN1, which is what the rest of the home network is on.

My total cost, to date, has been $150. I already had loads of single-height NICs laying around, otherwise that would have been another $10-20. Not much more than what an AP cost 1-2 years ago. However, the differences are:

- My AP has better range than a commerically-built AP because it has a better card and better antenna. I can quite easily and cheaply ($100) purchase a 25 dBi parabolic grid antenna and blast my signal 10-15 miles away over a mostly-unobstructed surface. Your purchased product can not do this. A 12 dBi omni will work with a decent antenna on the other end through four blocks of trees and houses. I know because a fellow member of Portland's Personal Telco Project and a friend of mine are doing just that. The friend uses a Linksys WAP-11 (I think, or is it the WET-11?) with the rubber duckie antenna + a half-moon reflector grid behind the antenna for an extra boost.

- I have more control over my AP than probably an AP that can be purchased for under $200. Actually, I probably have more control over my AP than any AP you can purchase, period. It's Linux on a computer, duh.

Of course, my time has value but, since I learned a lot about wifi and debian during the course of the project ...I count myself as being financially ahead in that respect.

A commerically-built AP has many "advantages" over mine in that you can buy one right now and have it set up in 30 minutes or less. If you want simple wifi in your house, that's all you need to do - that's all 99.99% of people do.

Of course, 2/3rds of those people don't use WAP encryption or any sort of access-blocking methods. That just makes wardriving and internet-access-while-traveling that much more enjoyable. :)

When one builds an AP using Linux, one tends to be a LOT more aware of security risks and how to mitigate them. While I don't use WAP or any means of hiding/encrypting the data at a low network level I do encourage my wireless users to use SSH and tunnel the important stuff (email is the big one).

For Darwin/Mac OS X?

[david-bo]

Are there any similar utilities for Darwin/Mac OS X that allows a software base station (i.e. a Macintosh) to support bridging (rather than nat:ing as the default setup is arranged)?

Linux Wireless Driver Wrappers

[darkmeridian]

For those of you who need a way to use your wireless card with Linux, check out the ndiswrapper project at sourceforge. It wraps the Windows binary drivers into a Linux kernel module that supports the hardware. It has decent support. Check it out for your hardware. It is 2.6 compatible.

Re:Linux Wireless Driver Wrappers

[po8]

I currently have 3 different wireless solutions working well for my laptop :-).

1. Lucent Orinoco PCMCIA card. Works great with stock kernel stuff, Kismet understands it, etc. Disadvantages: not super cheap, 802.11b only, 64-bit WEP only (doesn't matter for security, but some APs are set up 128b).
2. Airlink+ B/G Cardbus card. Got ndiswrapper installed and working, and it all seems to work fine. Disadvantages: need to set up ndiswrapper, need to get the right windows driver, doesn't do some of the advanced wireless extensions.
3. Centrino built-in Intel Pro Wireless on my Powerbook T-41. Works with the recently posted sourceforge IPW driver. Would probably also work with ndiswrapper, but I couldn't figure out how to make it coexist with (2) above. Disadvantages: B only. Had to find and compile the software to use it. Built-in, so I can't loan it out.

Probably the biggest problem at this point is that the configuration is primitive and awful. I finally have it so that my hard ethernet and all 3 wireless cards are autodetected and conform to the current networking "scheme". It wasn't easy. I really need to do the HOWTO sometime, but it is possible.

flaw in the article's logic

[frovingslosh]

From the article (I read it, so shoot me): One thing always remains the same, however: the access point always costs more than the wireless card.

The problem is, I have found exactly the opposite. Wireless routers (and routers that can be used as access points) are dirt cheap. I got one just Saturday for under ten bucks after rebate at Staples. But I can't find wireless cards anywhere near that cheap, some moderately inexpensive cards don't work right (SMC, for example, even had their outsourced Indian tech support admit to me that there were known problems with the SMC2635W card I bought last month and that they knew it wouldn't work with my notebook, even under Windows and told me to return it and buy something different!), and it's still hard to find a card that is supported under Linux. So they can write all of the articles they want about kluging together Linux hot spots, but the truth is an inexpensive wireless router will do the job fine, while a Linux hack ties up a computer, makes you play games getting a card that will work under Linux, eats lots more power and turns it into lots more heat, and would only be justifyable for most users if an access point were a lot more expensive than a wireless card, which it isn't.