previous 802.11 thread (prism2 + managed mode, success with dlink)

[Michael Still]

On Sat, 25 May 2002, Damien Elmes wrote:

> I ended up springing for two d-link cards, both from Harris Technology in
> Sydney. (www.ht.com.au). My laptop uses a DWL-650
> (http://dlink.com.au/products/wireless/dwl650/) which seem to be a pretty good
> deal at $160 a piece. For the desktop end, I got one of the integrated PCI
> solutions (rather than a pcmcia->pci bridge, and associated card).
> http://dlink.com.au/products/wireless/dwl520/ is the product I chose. At $200,
> it was cheaper than a combo solution, and the detachable antenna meant I could
> expand range if necessary.

This is exactly the solution I bought, from the same place... The PCI card
is a DWL 520 (google fodder).

> Following the advice about having difficulty penetrating the walls, I
> installed the desktop card in a machine upstairs. I'm assuming I'm using the
> same driver you mentioned earlier (to get PCI cards in adhoc mode), and have
> achieved about 615kbytes/sec. This drops by about 75-100k at the far end of
> the house, and I get about 400k/sec outside when sitting in my car in the
> driveway. Over all, I'm quite pleased by the link quality I'm getting around
> the house.

Well, my 520 is in a little brick room out the back of the house (the
computer room, and I have connectivity all through the house... I haven't
tested for speed, because who cares with telnet?

> My next two tasks are to implement an ipsec based tunnel

I haven't done this yet, I was thinking about just using ssh tunneling...
My other problem is that people can still have DOS attack, just my taking
all my DHCP address pool.

> and set up the
> desktop PCI card as an access point, as I'd like to be able to have access to
> link quality statistics and the like. There's a page floating around on the
> internet, at http://www.cafwap.net/prism2ap/, which outlines the process
> needed to turn a prism2 based card into an AP. Has anyone followed these
> instructions / done something similar? I'm wondering how to obtain the
> firmware from Intersil.

There is a page on my site (http://www.stillhq.com), which outlines my
experience with this process... Basically, it just works.

Cheers,
Mikal

-- 

Michael Still (mikal at stillhq.com)     UMT+10hrs