Best equipment/method for creating home wireless network?

[Jason Straight]

On Tuesday 04 October 2005 16:20, Walter Tautz wrote:
> Hi folks, Just wondering if one can recommend equipment
> to setup a home wireless network. I currently use DSL service.
> I know there are wireless modems from my provider (bell sympatico).
> Any recommendations?
>
>
> I suppose the ultimate control would be achieved by using a cheap PC
> as my gateway to the home network with somekind of wireless device
> attached... any thoughts?
>
>
> Can I make my network private, i.e.
> if 2 or more computers connect to the outside world it should look like
> only 1 computer is visible (NAT?).
>
>
> Any personal experiences would be appreciated...

Yeah, you can use a linux box as an access point, as long as the driver in use 
for your wireless card supports it. For example 'iwconfig ath0 essid 
mynetwork mode master' turns my machine into an access point. Of course you 
still need to setup the device IP proto with ifconfig, turn on forwarding 
with sysctl, and any NAT you want to do with iptables.

so you could do:
iwconfig ath0 essid mynetwork mode mastar
ifconfig ath0 192.168.0.1 netmask 255.255.255.0 up
sysctl -w net.ipv4.ip_forward=1
iptables -t nat -I POSTROUTING -s 192.168.0.1 -j MASQUERADE
iptables -I FORWARD -i eth0 -m state --state NEW -j DROP

NOTES: you can add the sysctl line to your /etc/sysctl.conf to turn on 
forwarding at boot time.

The last line eth0 refers to the device connected to the internet, this line 
filters all new connections coming into your device with destination of your 
private network. While this SHOULD never happen - it IS possible that someone 
who is on the local network your internet connection goes to could add a 
route for your private LAN to gateway through your router and access your LAN 
almost as if they were on it. So you should understand that NAT [ by itself ] 
is not a firewall.

Also, after you get it all working you'll want to encrypt your wireless with 
WEP so 'man iwconfig' for instructions on setting your enc.



-- 
| Ubuntu Linux
| www.ubuntulinux.org
|
| Kubuntu
| www.kubuntu.org