Richard,
> Has anyone any experience in this?
Both Gordon Rowell and I have (separately- since I'm in Canada and he's in
Australia - wireless range is good but not THAT good!) experimented
with using 802.11b wireless cards with an e-smith server. Neither of
us have had much time lately to work on it, but we have had successful
experiments. Both of us have been using Lucent Orinoco (formerly WaveLan)
cards.
Michael Maxwell also wrote up a HOWTO on using Raylink and Webgear cards:
http://home.iprimus.com.au/michaelmaxwell/esmith.html
> How do you add wireless to the safe local side of the e-smith network.
Two options...
1. Buy one of the many wireless hubs now available and simply plug it
into your internal network. (Having all the configuration take place on
the wireless hub.)
2. Configure your e-smith server to be the wireless access point.
To do #2, you more or less need to do this:
- install a PCMCIA adapter and one of the wireless cards
- install the pcmcia_cs RPM for your kernel
- install the wireless tools RPM (which gives you the 'iwconfig' command)
- start 'pcmcia' services
- run iwconfig to configure your (e-smith-server) card
- configure your clients to interact with your server
Well, you'll also need to figure out how to give different addresses to
your client systems - potentially configuring DHCP to support the second
subnet. And I'm probably missing a few steps... but that's the idea.
> If wireless hardware only provides 40 bit encryption - how do you add
> wireless to the "live" side of e-smith so you can VPN in safe 128
> encryption?
Lucent's Orinoco cards come in 40-bit (Silver) or 128-bit (Gold). Buy
Gold cards. Now you have 128-bit encryption. (Using an algorithm, of
course, that has been broken.)
The truly paranoid (in the good security sense of the word) then run ssh
or some other encryption algorithm on top of their wireless connection.
> What cards work well?
Like I said, Gordon and I have been using the Lucent cards and they have
worked well. Michael's HOWTO covers the Raylink and Webgear cards.
The Linux Journal had a couple of articles on this... as did O'Reilly
(http://www.oreilly.com/ ). I would search on "802.11"
> Is a base station needed?
Not if you use your e-smith server as the base station.
> How strong is the signal/how far?
I've gotten about a 100 feet away or so without an antenna. At Linuxcare when
we had antennas, we were getting maybe 200 or 300 feet.
> Do brick walls pose a threat -
Yup. They reduce signal strength. Concrete, too.
> can you
> get "repeater stations" or mount aerials on roof tops to get the signal over
> other buildings?
Hmmm... Not sure how far the aerial can be from the base.
> I have 2 clients where their offices are at the MAX 100 meters from their
> houses. It was ~100 meters walking - not in a straight line.
Hmmm... it *might* work... but I'd be skeptical.
> They will be using ADSL and e-smith at the office and a wired or unwired
> LAN. And we are exploring the possibility of setting up wireless to extend
> the offices into their homes. However there are a couple of buildings in
> the "line of sight" way - and the walls of the office and house
> respectively. It is still >= 100 metres though.
Hmmmm ... I would be highly doubtful that it would work. But you never
know...
Dan
--
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