How do I set this up?

Tue, 30 Apr 2002 07:00:00 PST

So now that I've convinced you have managed mode is the way to go, I should probably help you get there.

The normal way to achieve a managed network is an access point. Access points are expensive (about twice what I paid for my PCI wireless card). The linux route is also more flexible.

Please note that these instructions are based on you having an Intersil Prism2 wireless network card, such as the D-Link DWL 520. This stuff wont work on non-prism2 cards, because the Prism2's have some funky firmware to make this possible. If you're looking for a card, then have a look at Everything Linux, as they have good prices and understand linux.

Follow these amazing steps:

Go forth and get a new kernel
- I tried this on a 2.4.2 kernel, and the prism2 code didn't compile
- It did work on a 2.4.18 kernel (the current stable kernel)
- You might find that if you have a version inbetween, then it does work for you
- Compile into the kernel 802.1d ethernet bridging, and probably iptables unless you're insane
Once you've verified that your new kernel boots and all that jazz, you're ready for the Prism2 drivers
- Go to http://people.ssh.com/jkm/Prism2/ and download the latest version
- Untar it
- Read the instructions
- Read them again
- I did something along the lines of:
```
make pci
make install_pci
```
- And it just worked
- Note that the Makefile cares about the location of your kernel source, so you might need to edit that
Install the physical card and reboot
After the boot, all the link lights on your wireless cards should have magically gone on (if not, try an insmod on /lib/modules/...ver.../net/hostap_pci.o)
You now need to setup bridging of the wireless network with your wired network. This will allow you to reuse your existing DHCP server and stuff like that:
- Do you have the brctl command? If you don't, go to http://bridge.sf.net and start downloading...
- You need to build a bridge between the networks. For me, the set of commands to do this was:
```
  brctl addbr br0
  brctl addif br0 eth0
  brctl addif br0 wlan0
  ifconfig eth0 0.0.0.0
  ifconfig wlan0 0.0.0.0
  ifconfig br0 172.31.0.200 up
```
- This was scary. I started doing this with an ssh login from a different box, and the login went away. In retrospect, that's because I took the interface down that I was logged in vai, the unexpected bit was that it went away with the brctl addif br0 eth0 command.
- This sets up br0 as a bridge interface, and adds my existing wired network (eth0) and the wrieless network (wlan0) to it. The ip address is the ip address of the machine doing the bridging
Comment

stillhq.com : Mikal, a geek from Canberra living in Silicon Valley

How do I set this up?