MadwifiNG at Hacknight
So tonight at hacknight we are sitting at Cal Anderson park, I was able to fire up a Metrix box running Pyramid Linux with a lithium ion laptop battery to act as a repeater from the local cafe. The cool part is that we are using a single radio which is simultaneously a STA (client) and Access Point using the capabilities of the next generation Madwifi drivers. With MadwifiNG you can create multiple virtual interfaces one being a client and one being an AP but both existing on the same physical radio. Some caveats are that you have to be using the same channel on both virtual interfaces, and you have to create the interfaces in a certain order. You need to create the Access Point interface first, and then create the STA interface. In Pyramid Linux adding the following to the /etc/network/interfaces file, just replace the ssids:
auto ath0
iface ath0 inet static
address 192.168.91.1
netmask 255.255.255.0
broadcast 192.168.91.255
post-down wlanconfig ath0 destroy
pre-up wlanconfig ath0 create wlandev wifi0 wlanmode ap
pre-up iwconfig ath0 essid “SWN-Hacknight” channel 01 rate auto rts off frag off
pre-up ifconfig ath0 up
pre-up sleep 3
auto ath1
iface ath1 inet dhcp
post-down wlanconfig ath1 destroy
pre-up wlanconfig ath1 create wlandev wifi0 wlanmode sta nosbeacon
pre-up iwconfig ath1 essid “Metrix” rate auto rts off frag off
pre-up sleep 3
August 23rd, 2006 at 11:14 pm
[…] At this week’s HackNight we brought our own power to the park and built a temporary OLSR network. We also played with madwifi-NG’s one radio repeater mode, openWRT, and gutted a Alvarion CPE. There were no styrofoam planes. […]
August 24th, 2006 at 1:28 pm
Ken -
We’re using Metrix boxes and the similar capability of the madwifi drivers to do WDS. This is actually pretty cool. Here’s the whole /etc/network/interfaces:
auto br0
iface br0 inet static
address 192.168.2.2
netmask 255.255.255.0
broadcast 192.168.2.255
mtu 1500
gateway 192.168.2.1
bridge_ports eth0 ath0 ath1
pre-up wlanconfig ath0 create wlandev wifi0 wlanmode ap
pre-up wlanconfig ath1 create wlandev wifi0 wlanmode wds
pre-up iwconfig ath0 essid “SeaRanchLodge” channel 08 rate auto rts off
frag off
pre-up iwpriv ath1 wds_add 00:15:6d:40:01:85
pre-up iwpriv ath1 wds 1
pre-up ifconfig eth0 0.0.0.0 up
pre-up ifconfig ath0 0.0.0.0 up
pre-up ifconfig ath1 0.0.0.0 up
pre-up iwpriv ath0 mode 3
pre-up brctl addbr br0
pre-up brctl addif br0 ath0
pre-up brctl addif br0 ath1
pre-up brctl addif br0 eth0
pre-up brctl stp br0 off
pre-up ifconfig br0 up
post-down ifconfig eth0 0.0.0.0 down
post-down ifconfig ath0 0.0.0.0 down
post-down ifconfig ath1 0.0.0.0 down
post-down brctl delif br0 eth0
post-down brctl delif br0 ath0
post-down brctl delif br0 ath1
post-down brctl delbr br0
September 11th, 2006 at 5:10 pm
Tried it on metrix mark I kit and ath0 doesn’t come up.. Looks like it pukes on “configurable”.
Configuring network interfaces: /bin/sh: configurable: command not found |X failed!: No such device
Interrupt:11 Base addr
Failed to bring up ath0.
Wassup with this?
September 14th, 2006 at 4:01 pm
Steve,
Can you post your full config? Or email me to me. Are you doing this in /etc/network/interfaces?
Thanks
-Ken
March 29th, 2007 at 9:18 pm
[…] Dual Zone, enabled after a really easy one button firmware update, turns the ruckus into a single radio repeater, something that we’ve played with in madwifi-ng for some time now, but is rarely seen in a consumer grade device. I don’t think I’ll have a problem recommending these for people who want to connect on the cheap, and as an added bonus, I’ve knocked 15 bucks off the metroflex for the entire month of April. […]