Re: WDS / Repeater support?

--- JoaoBR wrote:

> On Thursday 05 October 2006 23:23, you wrote:
> > It's a very interesting question IMHO. If I had to
> try making FreeBSD being
> > a Wireless Repeater, I would first try to install
> two PCI Wi-Fi cards in it
> > and applied if_bridge to them, then checked if it
> works. But I had no
> > chance to try it yet. I would like to hear right
> answer on this question.
> 
> If you use on both cards adhoc mode it should
> actually work but if you mean 
> one as client of an Ap and the other as hostap it
> does not bridge the WL 
> clients through
> 
> I put three cards in each repeater
> one as hostap with IP acting as GW for the conected
> WL clientes
> the other two as adhoc
> so I route IP subnets from point to point
> probably a better solution since I get less
> broadcast and arp-spoofing-risk is 
> low since I have small subnets, also the performance
> is extremly good even 
> behind several repeaters 
> 
> If you have on the gateway a WL card and adhoc
> connection to another box you 
> can run hostap and if_bridge with a second card and
> works fine but as 
> repeater no way actually.
> 
> I would like to see adhoc p2mp mode so I could have
> an adhoc base station and 
> could connect several accesspoints (configuring
> bssid of each of them at the 
> base station) with one adhoc and one hostap card
> running if_bridge
> 
> -- 
> 
> Jo�o


Thanks for all the replies everyone.

I checked the wi(4) man page and it claims WDS is
supported for Hermes based cards. Is that really true?
I only have an Atheros card to test with.

Excerpt:

Supported features include 802.11 and 802.3 frames,
power management, BSS, IBSS, WDS and old-style Lucent
ad-hoc operation modes.  Cards based on the Intersil
PRISM chips also support a host-based access point
mode     which allows a card to act as a normal access
point (with some assistance from the wi driver). The
Lucent Hermes and Symbol Spectrum24 chipsets do not
contain this functionality.  The PRISM family of chips
do not support the WDS functionality.  All host/device
interaction is via programmed I/O, even on those cards
that support a DMA interface.

I am trying to cover a concrete building with
approximately 40 rooms on the first floor. It is a
fairly large two story building. I need to cover both
floors. We have done some testing, and I think a
minimum of four access points are needed on the first
floor. Three will do on the second. I thought of using
channels 1 and 11 on the first floor with repeaters.
Channel 6 on the second floor and two repeaters. I am
just concerned with interference, that is why I wanted
to use repeaters. I like your idea Jo�o about using
multiple cards, which is a good option we might go
for. However, I would like to keep cost as low as I
possibly can.

I checked out Sam's slides, all I can say is those are
some really cool features. Where can I find a
timetable? Any ideas when the vap code will be
committed to current?

Thanks again everyone,
Alex