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

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.

[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.

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!

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

[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

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. :)

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...

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).

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.

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...).