Comments on the Linksys WAP11 AccessPoint from the AccessPointReviews page.
- Linksys Wireless Network Access Point WAP11 (24 April 2001)
- Approximate Cost: $149 Buy.com, $179 from Best Buy after rebates, ibuyer.net ($235-$281)
- OS Support: Windows 95, 98, 2000, NT, or ME (for configuration)
- Protocol: 802.11b
- Features:
- Nics: 1 Wireless, 1 Ethernet
- Antenna Connectors: 2 External Dipole Antennas, Removable, RP-TNC Female Jacks
- Server Functions: None
- Bridged Mode: Yes
- Access Point Client Mode: Yes (with 1.4f5 firmware or newer)
- Security: 40-bit WEP (128 bit with 1.4x firmware)
- IP Address management: Manualy set or DHCP recipient
- Power Source: 5 V, 2 Amp DC, Center-Positive on mini plug
- Useful Links (Reviews, Product Description etc):
- Comments/Thoughts:
- New version of the firmware!
- Wireless Bridging of physically separated LANs
- MAC Address filtering
- IP Filtering
- SNMP Configuration Utility password protection
- DHCP client
- 128-bit WEP
Unfortunately, I cannot get the new firmware to flash completely. It still functions to pass packets, but e.g. the SNMP manager cannot find it now. --[http://russnelson.com]
- Note: 1.4h3 fiwmare requires 1.1 hardware to work properly. According to sources in the know, 1.0 hardware has a 2 megabit flash module, whereas 1.1 has a 4 megabit module. The 1.4h3 firmware has grown to large to fit in flash, and as a result the SNMP code portions won't run on 1.0 hardware. -- Xam R. Time
Cheap at $179 after rebates. This product is only a Wireless Ethernet Bridge. That's all, no NAT, no DHCP, no MAC filtering. Supports 40/64 bit WEP. Authentication Types are Open System, Shared Key, or both. Supports Short Preamble and Long Preamble. Basic Rates Include 1-2 Mbps, and 1-2-5.5-11 Mpbs, and Auto Rate Fall Back is a settable option. Fragmentation Threshold, and RTS Threshold are also settable. IP Settings are a bit screwed up. The wireless bridge comes with a static address and doesn't have the ability to use a DHCP server. Client machines attached to the wireless bridge can use DHCP fine though. Also Linksys says there is a bug in the IP settings that it doesn't allow the SNMP configuration utility to set two-digit IP addresses in the last two octets. Another bug is that with a Lucent Orinico card in W2K it reports an error message all the time that can be ignored. The latest version of the driver (Lucent's) is supposed to fix this. My biggest complaint, and the reason why I will be returning this product is that it doesn't have any password protection to the configuration. Anyone on your network that has downloaded the configuration program from Linksys's website can reconfigure your bridge at their will. Stupid. This product looks like it would be great for the Personal Telco project with the external detachable antennas, and cheap price, but it's fatal flaw is no password on the configuration. If Linksys fixes this in a future firmware release I would think about purchasing this product again. Until then it goes back to the store. -- TerrySchmidt
Ours works fine, and when i forgot the password, it denied my access using the SNMP tool, i didn't test the usb tool. One thing though, is whatever firmware came right out of the box for us, doesn't actually allow me to change the channel. It's not really important, it's the only ap out there, but still... --ForrestEnglish
It is true that there is no password protection, but i do not believe it can be configured over wireless. It can be configured over usb with their "DFU" utility, or via wired ethernet with their SNMP program (both are windows only; there is no builtin http server as in the linksys switch/nat products). The wired side has a fixed ip address, default 192.168.1.250 (the wireless clients are bridged and get their own ip address, presumably through a dhcp server on the other side). So it is somewhat secure, since USB requires physical access, and the wired side requires private network access. But in larger companies, the private network has to be protected from employees. I had problems getting any settings to "stick", until i downloaded new firmware and the latest versions of the config software. Even with the the little antennas, my coverage has been the same as with an ad hoc network, but I do not have any other AP to compare it to. -- mda@discerning.com
- The WAP11 Can be configured, using the SNMP Setup Utility, via wireless. A bit of a hole I would say... --John
I (JayPrimePositive) have had some troubles using snmpget/snmpset or the linksys-config from the Linux command line. Some Wap11 bugs sent its SNMP address to funny things (like 0.12.34.56) forcing me to use the USB Windows2000 configuration tool.
- New version of the firmware!
- Great document by XamRTime of Wi2600 on how to make your Wap11 useful.
http://www.wi2600.org/mediawhore/nf0/wireless/docs/802.11/WAP11/fun_with_the_wap11.txt
- As of current firmware (releases 1.4g5, 1.4g7, and 1.4g8, several things relating to SNMP configuration have been fixed by Atmel (the group actually writing the RTOS and doing the Acess Point code). On the top of the list are: removal of the ability to read WEP keystrings via. any SNMP community, community strings for read and read+write can be set durring initial setup via. the USB utility, or the SNMP utility, handling of multi-character IP address values works as it should, the WAP can allso be a DHCP recipient- with the wireless or wired interface being the prefered source, Access Point Client mode also now works- caveats: the access point client will (upon poweron) probe for a BSS to associate to; after hearing a reply from an AP in the BSS, it will complete it's association. However, when the AP-Client misses beacons or the AP it associated with gets reset/power cycled, the AP-Client will not reassociate. Very madening. Hopefully, this will get fixed soon. --Xam R. Time
- A note about the utility; don't bother trying win95a/b (with the USB supplement), or win98 second edition; these platforms don't correctly load the USB driver for writing to the configuration registers in the WAP11. Windows 2000, 98 First Edition, and XP all correctly work with the wap11 via USB at the time of this writing. --Xam R. Time
- A note about computers using DHCP and the Atmel utility; on WinNT4 (sp6a, all that jazz) simply installing the Atmel program, and then rebooting will result in DHCP services being broken. Even removing and reinstalling the network components will fail. you'l see a particularly bad result if you attemp to view bindings; it seems that something in the registry gets stompped on so badly that the network control applet crashes when trying to read bindings data. So, long and short: don't use DHCP on a NT4 box you wish to run the Atmel tool on. So far, no idea if this holds true on win2k. -- Xam R. Time
- Some current bugs/badness:
- If you're trying to set a fragment threshold below 256 bytes, you're in a rude trip with the WAP11. On 1.4g7 firmware, regardless of the bridging mode (bridge, AP, or AP-client), setting a frag-thresh below that somehow causes the bridge to freak out. SSID, IP address, and SNMP communities all fall back to defaults. -- Xam R. Time
- You can, in fact, set a null SSID with the Atmel SNMP config tool (more info, and a download location are mentioned in the fun_with_the_wap11.txt). After setting a null sid and enabling AP-client mode, it seems the WAP11 won't associate to anything, leading me to beleive that the AP won't promiscuously latch onto a nearby network after seeing a broadcast SSID in a beacon. So, no war driving ala- ethernet bridge. --Xam R. Time
- True access-point client (STAtion functionality, that is) mode would (you'd think) not require you to set a channel. However, for the WAP11 to do anything, you need to. This would logicaly impede having the WAP11 in AP client mode associate to more than one AP; you'd probably never have two within range of each other on the same channel, and would probably want to run non-overlaping AP's for backup or redundancy. I hope someone from Atmel or Linksys is reading this! AP-Client mode is nice, but it needs work! --Xam R. Time
- It seems there is a split in hardware platforms emerging. Version 1.0 and 1.1 have now been seen in the market. What's the difference? A key change is that a 4 megabit flash module is now in the 1.1 hardware, whereas the 1.0 hardware only had 2 megabits of flash. Badness! Will they take back my older AP? Are they going to split the firmware families? - Xam R. Time
- To change the output power without using the silly windows tools, snmpset 192.168.0.250 private .enterprises.410.1.1.8.8 x "80 80 80 80 80 80 80 80 80 80 80 80 80 80" you probably want to snmpget the default first though, as I believe the default is actually _calibrated_ per AP (to get them all to a uniform power level), and is probably designed to co-inside with the receive sensitivity somehow. I haven't needed to do this to my WAP11. --From HostAP mailing list