[opensuse] Linux Laptop as wireless router

John Andersen

18 Oct 2008 18 Oct '08

04:27

I seem to remember a way to use a laptop as a local wireless router (assuming it has a wired port to hook to the net), but I can't remember the name of the project and have no idea of the viability of this approach. Any clues? -- ----------JSA--------- Someone stole my tag line, so now I have this rental. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

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Gustav Degreef

18 Oct 18 Oct

06:28

I do it very often and you don't need any special software or project. I can't find the link where I read about setting it up. Briefly you set up your lan settings with yast. Select traditional method with ifup - not network manager. You have to enable ip forwarding and masquerading. I have a fixed ip address assigned to the wired connection by my isp. The wireless on the router machine is set with a fixed ip address 192.168.2.1 and the other machines' wireless are also assigned fixed ip addresses. It's detailed here http://www.novell.com/coolsolutions/feature/16579.html and http://www.novell.com/coolsolutions/feature/16022.html I had some problems and solved them with the list members help. You can take a look at my mails on the list from 5/22/7 if that may be of help. I looked for "internet connection sharing" on google at that time. I also was able to get windows clients to work on this network. Good luck. Gustav On Sat, Oct 18, 2008 at 6:27 AM, John Andersen wrote:

...

I seem to remember a way to use a laptop as a local wireless router (assuming it has a wired port to hook to the net), but I can't remember the name of the project and have no idea of the viability of this approach.

Any clues?

-- ----------JSA--------- Someone stole my tag line, so now I have this rental. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

-- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

Hans Witvliet

09:21

On Fri, 2008-10-17 at 21:27 -0700, John Andersen wrote:

...

I seem to remember a way to use a laptop as a local wireless router (assuming it has a wired port to hook to the net), but I can't remember the name of the project and have no idea of the viability of this approach.

Friend of mine tried it, but did not succeed with Linux because he could only get the wifi-card in client-mode... (but it worked with FreeBSD) -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

James Knott

11:52

John Andersen wrote:

...

I seem to remember a way to use a laptop as a local wireless router (assuming it has a wired port to hook to the net), but I can't remember the name of the project and have no idea of the viability of this approach.

Any clues?

If your wireless NIC supports it, you can use HostAP to make it operate in host mode. Once that's set up, you then configure Linux to do NAT routing between the wireless & ethernet ports. If you're simply looking for a portable NAT router, you may consider something like this: http://ca.asus.com/products.aspx?l1=12&l2=41&l3=0&l4=0&model=1710&modelmenu=1 I have one of those and it works well. It has 5 modes, including NAT routing for wireless devices. It can also act as a repeater, a bridging access port, make ethernet devices wireless, and even share a hot spot connection. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

James Knott

12:08

James Knott wrote:

...

John Andersen wrote:

...
I seem to remember a way to use a laptop as a local wireless router (assuming it has a wired port to hook to the net), but I can't remember the name of the project and have no idea of the viability of this approach.

Any clues?

If your wireless NIC supports it, you can use HostAP to make it operate in host mode. Once that's set up, you then configure Linux to do NAT routing between the wireless & ethernet ports. If you're simply looking for a portable NAT router, you may consider something like this:

http://ca.asus.com/products.aspx?l1=12&l2=41&l3=0&l4=0&model=1710&modelmenu=1

I have one of those and it works well. It has 5 modes, including NAT routing for wireless devices. It can also act as a repeater, a bridging access port, make ethernet devices wireless, and even share a hot spot connection.

I forgot to mention, it runs Linux. :-) -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

Andrew Joakimsen

19 Oct 19 Oct

17:18

On Sat, Oct 18, 2008 at 7:52 AM, James Knott wrote:

...

If you're simply looking for a portable NAT router, you may consider something like this:

http://ca.asus.com/products.aspx?l1=12&l2=41&l3=0&l4=0&model=1710&modelmenu=1

I have one of those and it works well. It has 5 modes, including NAT routing for wireless devices. It can also act as a repeater, a bridging access port, make ethernet devices wireless, and even share a hot spot connection.

That's almost perfect but it seems to need a power supply -- it would be perfect if it could get power via a USB port. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

James Knott

18:08

Andrew Joakimsen wrote:

...

On Sat, Oct 18, 2008 at 7:52 AM, James Knott wrote:

...
If you're simply looking for a portable NAT router, you may consider something like this:

http://ca.asus.com/products.aspx?l1=12&l2=41&l3=0&l4=0&model=1710&modelmenu=1

I have one of those and it works well. It has 5 modes, including NAT routing for wireless devices. It can also act as a repeater, a bridging access port, make ethernet devices wireless, and even share a hot spot connection.

That's almost perfect but it seems to need a power supply -- it would be perfect if it could get power via a USB port.

It does. It comes with both an AC adapter and a USB cable. Both plug into the same power connector. I have used USB power several times. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

John Andersen

23:35

On Sun, Oct 19, 2008 at 11:08 AM, James Knott wrote:

...

Andrew Joakimsen wrote:

...
On Sat, Oct 18, 2008 at 7:52 AM, James Knott wrote:

...
If you're simply looking for a portable NAT router, you may consider something like this:

http://ca.asus.com/products.aspx?l1=12&l2=41&l3=0&l4=0&model=1710&modelmenu=1

I have one of those and it works well. It has 5 modes, including NAT routing for wireless devices. It can also act as a repeater, a bridging access port, make ethernet devices wireless, and even share a hot spot connection.

That's almost perfect but it seems to need a power supply -- it would be perfect if it could get power via a USB port.

It does. It comes with both an AC adapter and a USB cable. Both plug into the same power connector. I have used USB power several times.

-- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

While researching that one I also found the DWL-G730AP which seems smaller. Easier to travel with. -- ----------JSA--------- Someone stole my tag line, so now I have this rental. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

James Knott

20 Oct 20 Oct

00:11

John Andersen wrote:

...

On Sun, Oct 19, 2008 at 11:08 AM, James Knott wrote:

...
Andrew Joakimsen wrote:

...
On Sat, Oct 18, 2008 at 7:52 AM, James Knott wrote:

...
If you're simply looking for a portable NAT router, you may consider something like this:

http://ca.asus.com/products.aspx?l1=12&l2=41&l3=0&l4=0&model=1710&modelmenu=1

I have one of those and it works well. It has 5 modes, including NAT routing for wireless devices. It can also act as a repeater, a bridging access port, make ethernet devices wireless, and even share a hot spot connection.

That's almost perfect but it seems to need a power supply -- it would be perfect if it could get power via a USB port.

It does. It comes with both an AC adapter and a USB cable. Both plug into the same power connector. I have used USB power several times.

-- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

While researching that one I also found the DWL-G730AP which seems smaller. Easier to travel with.

It doesn't appear to be quite as capable and is also slightly more expensive than the Asus. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

Dave Howorth

13:28

James Knott wrote:

...

It does. It comes with both an AC adapter and a USB cable. Both plug into the same power connector. I have used USB power several times.

Interesting. I thought from the photo that it might have a USB port so I went to the spec page and searched for USB but got no hit! Is there doc somewhere? Can it do anything else with the USB port? For example, can it serve USB storage or can I load extra Linux applications that use the USB link? i.e. can it do the kind of things that slugs and wl-500 can be hacked to do? Thanks, Dave -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

James Knott

17:35

Dave Howorth wrote:

...

James Knott wrote:

...
It does. It comes with both an AC adapter and a USB cable. Both plug into the same power connector. I have used USB power several times.

Interesting. I thought from the photo that it might have a USB port so I went to the spec page and searched for USB but got no hit! Is there doc somewhere?

Can it do anything else with the USB port? For example, can it serve USB storage or can I load extra Linux applications that use the USB link? i.e. can it do the kind of things that slugs and wl-500 can be hacked to do?

It has two connectors, ethernet and power. There is no USB port. It comes with a cable that's used to get power from a USB port, but it doesn't carry any data. It is strictly a WiFi device, with the 5 functions I mentioned earlier. The manual is available via that link I provided, under "Download". -- Use OpenOffice.org http://www.openoffice.org -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

David C. Rankin

19 Oct 19 Oct

06:08

John Andersen wrote:

...

I seem to remember a way to use a laptop as a local wireless router (assuming it has a wired port to hook to the net), but I can't remember the name of the project and have no idea of the viability of this approach.

Any clues?

If you have an atheros card, see madwifi.org. The madwifi package allow you to do just that with wlanconfig -- David C. Rankin, J.D., P.E. Rankin Law Firm, PLLC 510 Ochiltree Street Nacogdoches, Texas 75961 Telephone: (936) 715-9333 Facsimile: (936) 715-9339 www.rankinlawfirm.com -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

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participants (7)

Andrew Joakimsen
Dave Howorth
David C. Rankin
Gustav Degreef
Hans Witvliet
James Knott
John Andersen