One useful project is to turn one of the free Unixes into a true AccessPoint. More to come ...
Personal Telco is now maintaining a pre-built DebianApImage which includes everything you need to setup a Linux node. It's still not for the newbie as you have to get the image onto your PC but it's much easier then building the whole thing from scratch yourself. Any ideas or contribution towards making it easier to install for a new comer would be much appreciated. -- AdamShand
Here's an example system that is functional as of 08/04/2001.
An easy, useable, IP-free solution available now is that of a PCI-based PC running Linux and an off-the-shelf D-Link DWL-500, which is a DWL-650 bundled with a Ricoh-based PCI bridge for about $120. Range is bad, but there are instructions as to how to solder a pigtail into the board for an external antenna. There may be other Prism II boards with better transmit power and/or receive sensitivity and/or an external antenna available.
JouniMalinen has written a Linux Host Ap Mode driver that works with this card to provide InfrastructureMode functionality. This compiles easily with the latest PCMCIA packages and Linux kernels, and has worked for me very well.
There is no WEP currently, nor is it *fully* supported by the Wireless Extensions for Linux. (Interface shows up as wlan0, per-user signal statistics not supported.)
This requires other softwares to conform to the PersonalTelco vision of a full AccessPoint or to the NoCatAuth RFC.
Bridging is not natively supported in the driver, but the Linux kernel can use its bridging functionality fully with this interface. I prefer to keep the interface separate and run Masquerading on it
I have simple deny-all incoming to my router machine, except for UDP ports 53, 67 and 68. 53 is needed as I prefer to run a local DNS server and I haven't configured the Masquerading code to divert Masq'd connections into local connections though it is possible. 67 and 68 are needed for DHCP.
Again, note that this is not a bridging situation: there's no way for the wireless network to see the wired intranet. This is intentional as I have way too many machines here to worry about securing them.
With those caveats, I represent that this system allows anyone with a plain old laptop to come over and stick in a plain old wireless card and cruise the internet without any knowledge of how the network is set up.
Here are some links:
- Homepage Host AP Mode driver for Intersil Prism2:
- Article from live.com on turning a linux box into an access point.
Some information on using Linux as a true AccessPoint (not Ad Hoc).
- This may be a good, inexpensive box for a Linux Router/Firewall/Access Point.
- Ebtables (like IP tables only layer 2)
- 802.1x support for Linux
http://www.mtghouse.com/supplicant_priv.html (Free but closed source)
Good article on how to build a true LinuxAccessPoint using the LinuxWlanProject, including information on how to create the required firmware. -- AdamShand