[sclug] confused - wireless access

[Bob Franklin]

On Thu, 23 Jun 2005, Darren Davison wrote:

>> [1] You may need an Ethernet crossover cable...
>
> thx.

A lot of hubs have one port with an 'uplink' button that crosses-over that 
port as a crossover cable would do.  However, most of the modern hubs I've 
seen (including a Netgear one I bought 2-3 years ago) have auto-MDIX ports 
that will detect if the port needs to be crossed over automatically; if 
you have one of these, you should just be able to plug-in and it works.


> ... Basically, as long as it does exactly what a cable would do (connect 
> the laptop to the hub) it will work, but that's what I wasn't certain 
> about.

Modern wireless APs seem to have a wealth of features (including NAT, VPN 
support, port-forwarding, RADIUS, etc.) - the first time you power up, 
you'll probably get some sort of 'wizard' type thing that will guide you 
through the setup.

If you just disable NAT, routing, etc. and stick the wireless access point 
in a basic bridge mode, it should just relay traffic through it much like 
a hub does - the difference is that one of the ports is wired and the 
other is wireless.

I do this with my APs at home and use a Linux box to route through a 
single IP.  It works fine.

   - Bob


-- 
  Bob Franklin <r.c.franklin at reading.ac.uk>          +44 (0)118 378 7147
  Systems and Communications, IT Services, The University of Reading, UK