Building a wireless router with MNF, some generic

[Guest hari_seldon99]

Hi all,

 

My first post here, so do be gentle.

 

I'm seriously thinking abt going wireless in my home network, but want the most optimum LAN security possible (the kind that you can get cheap with a powerful Linux gateway). Basically, that's WEP, no dhcp, MAC Cloning, & no ESSID Broadcast. So I got an old Compaq pc with a free PCI slot & put in a D-link DWL-520+ 802.11b wireless card. The reason why I got that particular one was because it works with the acx100 driver, and I would rather use a native linux driver than use ndiswrapper over closed-source windoxe drivers, or spend $20+ for proprietary driver-loaders. I tested sadi wifi card on my Desktop (running Mdk 10.0) and, while the precompiled acx_pci driver didn't work, I downloaded the latest driver source-code from the website of the acx developers (http://acx100.sourceforge.net), flashed the latest firmware and compiled the driver by following their wikis/HOWTOs (rather blindly, I'm afraid) and got it to work in my Desktop. Thus, I know it works with mdk 10.0. Now I got another one of those beasties and put it in my old compaq, which I plan to use as a wireless router. I looked at this M.N.F. distribution from Mandrake and it looks ultra-cool and ideally suited for what I need to do. My prospective network topology is as follows:

 

===========(wifi)================

Linux PC ---------------->------------>------(o)

(dual-boot w windoze, but shouldn't

matter, right?) with D-Link

DWL-520+

 

=================(wifi)==========

Roomie's windoze laptop---->--->----------(o)

(with Linksys 802.11g-series

wireless pcmcia thingie)

 

 

 

=====(wifi)================(cat5)============(analog)=========

(o)----->------Compaq as Router------->------cablemodem--->--------internet

 

 

 

 

 

I have a few generic questions before I begin:

 

 

1. Since I don't have a monitor for the router, I guess I should connect my PC's monitor to the machine and install it (I can then run it headless while it's routing). But is there any way by which I can install the base distribution automatically from the install cd without needing a monitor so that it detects the hardware, formats the filesystem and installs the base packages and boots into the hd and sets up some servers automatically? I can then log in remotely from my PC over my existing wired router and config it. This is not the same as the standard "Network Install" method, as that's for machines with no local boot media (& my Router has a bootable cdrom). Can it be done?

 

 

2. Once I download and install the acx100 drivers (assuming they work with the MNF kernel heh), will I be able to re-config NAT etc from the web interfaces (as now there will be a NEW interface wlan0) without having to rerun the installer or whatever?

 

 

3. How do I turn of ESSID broadcasting in wlan0?

 

4. Can the "shorewall" package do mac cloning, or do I have to mess with dhcp.conf to assign static ips to specific mac's? Which is better (if I have a choice)?

 

5. Should I use the VPN support in MNF for secure data transfrer over wifi, or will that throttle traffic too much (in case I do HUGE 3-4 gig downloads of Linux distro cd's and stuff over bittorrent or whatever)?

 

6. Will WEP throttle traffic also (ie will the encryption create a sugnificant bottleneck in MNF)?

 

7. Does anybody know if these DWl-520+ cards have any latency issues with the acx100 drivers. What about stability?

 

 

 

Any advice would be greatly welcomed at this point.

 

Thanks for your attention,

AR

[Qchem]

1. I'm not sure you can easily perform a headless install with that (or many other) distros - although I'm not an expert in such specalist distros. Make sure you install ssh and allow X to be forwarded.

 

2. You should be able to remotely run mcc (or whatever mnf uses for config) via ssh. For more web based configs you might want to take a look at webmin.

 

3. Not sure, I've only ever done this from dedicated routers with http based configs.

 

Have you actually considered buying a cheap wireless AP? Most of these options are simple click on and off in a http manner, also with regards to running costs - the savings in electricity in running a simple little AP over having the constantly running pc for a year will probably pay for an AP with some change left over. Just something to think about.