Hey guys,

I wanted to build my own router to replace my stupid dlink...
I was hopeing to use Vyatta because it seems very well built,
but I didn't see anything on their site about wireless... Which I need.
On top of that, I don't really know how wireless cards work as far as in 'AP mode'. Do I need a special card for that? Should I use something other than Vyatta? Thanks for your help, I'm very excited to get this going.

nomb

"AP mode" - do you mean Ad-hoc?

I took a peak at the Vyatta website, and from the looks of things, since its a distribution it should be easy to incorporate wireless networking. If Vyatta doesn't have out-of-the-box support for WiFi networks, it would be a little silly. Simply due to the rate at which WiFi is growing.

Distros like Vyatta simply make the whole "turn your computer into a router" gig easier and allow you to get it rocking more quickly, but IMHO it would be much better to learn how to setup routing daemons, proxy daemons, and WAP daemons by hand so as when it comes to something like Vyatta, you know how to fix a problem when it occurs, and have a better idea as to how to fix the problem more quickly; instead of doing then reading the manual, you read the manual while you're doing.

Of course, if you are knowledgable in setting up and maintaining PC-based routers (DHCP, net proxy and the like) then by all means, go on with it. Just make sure you know how Vyatta handles software (ie. package management) and its administration interfaces (everything from custom GUIs - think Fedora's system-* scripts - to a text editor and a raw file).

When I say 'AP Mode' I'm meaning access point mode, meaning having other computers connect to the wifi card in my 'router computer'. I don't have any experience setting up anything like this before so doing it by hand might be the best way.

Any idea on 'access point' mode and where I should start? I don't know what distro I should use or what daemons I should use.

Thanks,

Nate

Unless I've been misinformed, AP-mode == ad-hoc mode.

If you check out the Tutorials (Linux Answers) portion of this forum, I'm almost certain you'll find something about how to set up a wireless card. A quick Google search here and there never hurt. And if all else fails, check out http://www.linuxhomenetworking.com/.

Hmmm, I guess access point mode could be the same thing as ad-hoc mode. Altho I have never tried more than one computer connecting to another that way. And I wouldn't have thought the router set into ad-hoc mode could give all the other computers ip address through dhcp. But I guess I got some reading to do.

nomb

But wouldn't that mean that any computer -> router connection is ad-hoc?

You'll want to find some card that supports Master mode (AP mode). I've had very good luck with cards based on the Atheros chipset (personally I like cards made by Proxim). Avoid Broadcom chipsets, which (as far as I know) will NOT work in Master mode, so will not work for setting up a WAP.

I found this (http://gentoo-wiki.com/HOWTO_Buildin...s_Access_Point) article extremely helpful as far as getting the wifi up and running on my router (which is running Gentoo, an old laptop that's not quite dead).

You might also want to look at Smoothwall. It's another pre-built router distro. Some friends of mine use it, but I wanted to learn about dhcp servers, bind, and the like; so I setup my own.

Thanks depper,

I would like to make one from scratch too. The smallest box I could find was a micro ITX. Anyone have any suggestions?

nomb