Hi
I'm experiencing problems setting up an OpenBSD box as a
firewall/Wireless Access Point and wonder if I can get some advice from
someone who has previously set this up. I've tried everything I can
think of but have run out of ideas.
Firstly my setup:
* I've tried this using OpenBSD v4.1, v4.6 and a 4.8 snapshot from
29/10/20 all with similar results.
* I've tried various different wireless cards based on either the Prism
(wi0) or Ralink 2561 (ral0) chipsets.
* I've used 4 different machines, admittedly all low horsepower
machines, from 400MHz PII to 1.2GHz Athlon
* I've tried with pf enabled and disabled. This makes no difference.
* I've used WEP and WPA-PSK with no difference in outcome
* I've tried configuring the interface in both "ibss" and "hostap" mode.
I'm aware of the caveat regarding hostap mode and power saving mode in
the client and have ensured that the clients (various WinXP times 2, and
Brother wireless enabled printer) have this disabled but the packet
loss occurs in both ad-hoc and hostap modes anyway. Most google results
mention the hostap/power save issue.
On each occasion I get anywhere up to 75% packet loss or long periods of
several tens of seconds where the wireless link is down. Often the
clients are completely unable to associate with the access point/peer
and the link is most unstable. I have tried this with the two machines
side by side and at a distance of >10m but even with a link of only a
few feet I still get packet loss.
I've tested by pinging both ends both individually, and simultaneously,
and the packet loss occurs in both directions.
At the same time, I can use the same wireless cards in a Windows XP
machine and get zero packet loss and a completely stable link in an
ad-hoc network so I'm sure that the hardware is OK and the wireless
radio does work.
My /etc/hostname.ral0/wi0 is something like the following depending on
the options I've chosen:
inet 192.168.5.1 255.255.255.0 NONE media autoselect mediaopt hostap
nwid Homenet nwkey <my pass>
I'm afraid I don't have my dmesg handy but I'll attempt to post this
soon.. The fact that my configuration is failing every time despite
running on numerous different hardware/software combinations makes me
think that there's something fundamental that I've missed.
Can anyone point me to something that could either solve this or start
me looking in the right direction. Is there some sysctl value that I
need to check/set ? (...in the morning after I get some sleep!!)
Thanks in advance
Jeremy
