How to become a wireless station

My laptop is often on some network connection that I would like to
share with friends. For example, when I am using my cell phone as a
modem.

What I would like, is to turn it into a secure wireless network, like
a network that a "Linksys wifi" router would provide, so that my
friends would gain access to the network. I would obviously run dhcpd
and assign some private addresses to them and masquerade.

Is there some system or thing that would do it?

thanks

i

On Dec 12, 3:00 pm, Ignoramus7955 <ignoramus7...@NOSPAM.7955.invalid>
wrote:
> My laptop is often on some network connection that I would like to
> share with friends. For example, when I am using my cell phone as a
> modem.
>
> What I would like, is to turn it into a secure wireless network, like
> a network that a "Linksys wifi" router would provide, so that my
> friends would gain access to the network. I would obviously run dhcpd
> and assign some private addresses to them and masquerade.
>
> Is there some system or thing that would do it?

You are looking for the "host_ap" tools.
You might want to do a quick Google search on 'Linux "access point"';
you'll find lots of help on the web, including this howto ->
http://oob.freeshell.org/nzwireless/LWAP-HOWTO.html

Ignoramus7955 wrote:

> My laptop is often on some network connection that I would like to
> share with friends. For example, when I am using my cell phone as a
> modem.
>
> What I would like, is to turn it into a secure wireless network, like
> a network that a "Linksys wifi" router would provide, so that my
> friends would gain access to the network. I would obviously run dhcpd
> and assign some private addresses to them and masquerade.
>
> Is there some system or thing that would do it?
> thanks

Well, you need a couple of things I can think of. First, your laptop would
have to act as a bridge/router between the internet connection you have
with your cell phone and the local network to be accessed by your friends.
AFAIK, that can all be done with software on your laptop, like you are
thinking. To this point, I think the fact that it is to be a wireless
network is actually irrelevant.

Second, you would need to provide a wireless access point for your friends
to connect with. I think some wireless nics can do that, but it sounds a
little tricky to me, especially if you also want to use it as a regular
wireless nic at other times. Assuming your laptop has a wired ethernet
port (in addition to whatever it takes to connect your modem), the obvious
solution would be to get an actual wireless access point, such as a NetGear
WPN802 (I can vouch for this particular unit) or something equivalent.

--
Larry Bristol --- The Double Luck
http://www.doubleluck.com

On 2007-12-12, Larry Bristol <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
> Ignoramus7955 wrote:
>
>> My laptop is often on some network connection that I would like to
>> share with friends. For example, when I am using my cell phone as a
>> modem.
>>
>> What I would like, is to turn it into a secure wireless network, like
>> a network that a "Linksys wifi" router would provide, so that my
>> friends would gain access to the network. I would obviously run dhcpd
>> and assign some private addresses to them and masquerade.
>>
>> Is there some system or thing that would do it?
>> thanks
>
> Well, you need a couple of things I can think of. First, your laptop would
> have to act as a bridge/router between the internet connection you have
> with your cell phone and the local network to be accessed by your
> friends.

Correct.

> AFAIK, that can all be done with software on your laptop, like you are
> thinking. To this point, I think the fact that it is to be a wireless
> network is actually irrelevant.

Well, yes. What I want is other people to connect to my laptop via
wifi and obtain internet access. I would assign them internal
addresses and masquerade their IPs.

> Second, you would need to provide a wireless access point for your friends
> to connect with. I think some wireless nics can do that, but it sounds a
> little tricky to me, especially if you also want to use it as a regular
> wireless nic at other times.

I do want it to act as a regular NIC, for sure.

> Assuming your laptop has a wired ethernet port (in addition to
> whatever it takes to connect your modem), the obvious solution would
> be to get an actual wireless access point, such as a NetGear WPN802
> (I can vouch for this particular unit) or something equivalent.

You know, that's a good, practical idea, thanks

i

Ignoramus7955 <(E-Mail Removed)> writes:

>My laptop is often on some network connection that I would like to
>share with friends. For example, when I am using my cell phone as a
>modem.

>What I would like, is to turn it into a secure wireless network, like
>a network that a "Linksys wifi" router would provide, so that my
>friends would gain access to the network. I would obviously run dhcpd
>and assign some private addresses to them and masquerade.

>Is there some system or thing that would do it?

I believe that most Linux drivers do not support the Master option for the
wireless card, which would be needed to make the wireless card into an
Access Point.


>thanks

>i

On 2007-12-12, Unruh <unruh-(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
> Ignoramus7955 <(E-Mail Removed)> writes:
>
>>My laptop is often on some network connection that I would like to
>>share with friends. For example, when I am using my cell phone as a
>>modem.
>
>>What I would like, is to turn it into a secure wireless network, like
>>a network that a "Linksys wifi" router would provide, so that my
>>friends would gain access to the network. I would obviously run dhcpd
>>and assign some private addresses to them and masquerade.
>
>>Is there some system or thing that would do it?
>
> I believe that most Linux drivers do not support the Master option for the
> wireless card, which would be needed to make the wireless card into an
> Access Point.

What about Atheros amd Wlan0? I tried setting mastert mode and it did
say not supported.

i

["Followup-To:" header set to comp.os.linux.misc.]
Lew Pitcher staggered into the Black Sun and said:
> Ignoramus7955 wrote:
>> My laptop is often on some network connection that I would like to
>> share with friends. What I would like is to turn [the laptop] into a
>> secure wireless network, like a network that a "Linksys wifi" router
>> would provide. Is there some system or thing that would do it?
> You are looking for the "host_ap" tools.

A quick glance at the Gentoo ebuilds says that that package is only for
users of Prism2 cards. hostapd looks like it's a more general package
and is on http://hostap.epitest.fi as well as in your distro. Right
now, I don't have time to test it and make sure. I know that the stock
ipw2200 kernel module won't let you do the "iwconfig eth1 mode master"
thing you'd really need to turn an 802.11 card into a real AP. (Ad-hoc
mode works, though.) I have little experience in this as I've only got
one fully tweakable 802.11 device.

> You might want to do a quick Google search on 'Linux "access point"';
> you'll find lots of help on the web, including this howto ->
> http://oob.freeshell.org/nzwireless/LWAP-HOWTO.html

Parts of that HOWTO are probably out of date and prism2 specific.

--
That which does not kill us makes us stranger.
--Trevor Goodchild, Aeon Flux
Matt G|There is no Darkness in Eternity/But only Light too dim for us to see

On 12/13/2007 03:56 AM, Ignoramus7955 wrote:
> On 2007-12-12, Unruh <unruh-(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>> Ignoramus7955 <(E-Mail Removed)> writes:
>>
>>> My laptop is often on some network connection that I would like to
>>> share with friends. For example, when I am using my cell phone as a
>>> modem.
>>> What I would like, is to turn it into a secure wireless network, like
>>> a network that a "Linksys wifi" router would provide, so that my
>>> friends would gain access to the network. I would obviously run dhcpd
>>> and assign some private addresses to them and masquerade.
>>> Is there some system or thing that would do it?
>> I believe that most Linux drivers do not support the Master option for the
>> wireless card, which would be needed to make the wireless card into an
>> Access Point.
>
> What about Atheros amd Wlan0? I tried setting mastert mode and it did
> say not supported.

Try latest madwifi-ng (new generation) driver http://madwifi.org/

$ svn co http://svn.madwifi.org/madwifi/trunk madwifi-ng
$ cd madwifi-ng
$ make
$ sudo make install

You will need to unload old driver with rmmod and modprobe new driver,
check the README file for further details and for automating settings
check the procedures recommended by your distro.

--
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