Linux Firewall as Wireless Access Point

[nmeyers at javalinux.net]

On Mon, Feb 07, 2005 at 10:37:29AM -0500, Gregory Boyce wrote:
> On Sun, 6 Feb 2005 trlists at clayst.com wrote:
> 
> >I have been contemplating adding wireless to the network.  I was
> >looking at wireless access points the other day -- they seem to be more
> >expensive than the wireless broadband routers!  Then I realized maybe I
> >could just use the firewall as the WAP, by adding a third (wireless)
> >NIC on the firewall and constructing the iptables rules properly.
> 
> I believe it's a bit more complicated than that.  If you want to run your 
> wireless network in infrastructure mode (with an access point) rather 
> than doing an ad-hoc network I believe you'll need to look into the HOSTAP 
> drivers.  I'm not sure if all linux supported wireless adaptors support 
> acting as an access point.

You'll need to choose your wireless adapter very carefully - support
for wireless is still far from complete and, as Greg pointed out, not
all modes are well supported. In my experience, infrastructure client
mode is widely supported, ad hoc mode less so, and AP mode much less so.
(That is, on the cards that have support to begin with.)

My home network is 802.11b - fast enough for my needs. I'd been running
an ad hoc network for quite awhile, but when the bottom dropped out of
the WAP market for 802.11b, I happily bought one, changed over to an
infrastructure network, and stopped using my firewall as a WAP.

Nathan