[KLUG Members] Wireless network question.

[Bryan-TheBS-Smith]

Bruce Smith wrote:
> Because these are X-terminals (and a jetdirect printer), I
> cannot buy a wireless network card, nor a wireless PCMCIA card.
> I want to know if I can use two access points???
> Would it work to buy two Linksys 802.11b access points (each with
> a builtin 4 port switch) and put one on the main network and one
> by the terminals?  (they are close to each other and in range)

Yes, in "AdHoc" networking mode.  But I seriously doubt two cheap
access points have such capabilities (I could be wrong).  

> I do NOT want to create a whole new subnet for this, but I
> simply want to extend our current private class B network.

Which is what "AdHoc" networking does in Ethernet "bridge" (layer 2)
mode.  Again, I don't see you being able to do this with cheap
access points.

> Any problems with this setup?  I haven't used wireless at all.

Again, getting devices that actually do AdHoc networking.  There is
some stuff for Linux out there to do AdHoc, but it's limited to
certain cards and a _lot_ of work.  AdHoc networking is something
AVS does in its commercial products and trust me, it's *NOT* cake. 
;-PPP

> BTW, I'm aware of the security problems of wireless, and will
> deal with that, I only need to know what hardware I need.

The RC4 cipher in WEP is fine, but the WEP authentication chatter is
not.  This is being addressed.  We are also looking at some
alternate cipher/authentication methods, but most access points just
don't have the juice to drive more than one or two stations.

-- TheBS

-- 
Bryan "TheBS" Smith     mailto:b.j.smith@ieee.org    chat:thebs413
Engineer   AbsoluteValue Systems, Inc.   http://www.linux-wlan.org
President    SmithConcepts, Inc.      http://www.SmithConcepts.com
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