can i turn my ubuntu (or debian) box into a wireless repeater

baronobeefdip · 05-18-2011, 07:19 PM

i have a box currently running Ubuntu in my living room but at a very slow process so i might switch it to Debian, but the signal that the rest of the computers get from the router in my room are very weak when they are far away from it and have very minimal speed so i want to turn the Ubuntu box in my living room into a bridge (a machine that can receive the wireless signal from the router in my room through it's WLAN adapter and transmit an AP thats stronger)

baronobeefdip · 05-19-2011, 12:16 PM

i want my computer in my living room to receive the wireless signal from the router in my room and have the box transmit a wireless AP that is the same as the one transmitting by the router, a wireless repeater how can i do this in a debian machine
i have a zd1211rw wireless card on the box

scheidel21 · 05-19-2011, 05:56 PM

You don't want a bridge you want a repeater a bridge would be wireless to wired, vice versa or connecting two network segments. Anyways heres an article with some ideas http://archive.atomicmpc.com.au/foru...=2&c=16&t=4428 Here is another one regarding this http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...peater-676395/ I have not done it, but I would think that if you bridge the wireless adapters and turn on forwarding it might just work.

Although I'd be more comfortable just buying an AP to use some netgear models can repeat the signal.

baronobeefdip · 05-19-2011, 07:22 PM

i was told that i needed to have 2 wireless interfaces in order to try and repeat the network, one would be to receive a WiFi signal being transmitted from the router and the other would be for creating the AP, how will this work out? what software do i need to make this possible

scheidel21 · 05-19-2011, 08:45 PM

software is built in, but you need to have a master mode capable WiFi card. To be honest I'm not 100% sure exactly what you would do. I believe you'd need to turn on IPv4 forwarding and bridge the two adapters. Make sure the one in master mode is at least 3 channels away from the other WiFi signal to avoid interference.

Set up the wireless card that supports master mode as an AP here are a couple articles on how to do that http://www.linux.com/learn/tutorials...s-access-point and http://www.linux.com/learn/tutorials...s-access-point then replicate the wifi setting on that except change the channel to at least 3 apart. Finally bridge the wifi adapter connected to the original signal to the one you set up as an AP all traffic should flow right through.

scheidel21 · 05-20-2011, 12:47 PM

As I found your post interesting and wasn't able to find the answer myself, I posted it as a thought experiment on another site I belong to Spiceworks and someone came up with exactly what I think you are looking for http://www.tummy.com/journals/entrie...0041220_000528 Thanks to Rui another member over there you have your answer.

baronobeefdip · 05-20-2011, 08:08 PM

my device is having trouble setting itself to master mode i have done research and it is master mode compatible
i use a zd1211rw
SMC EZ Connect SMCWUSB-G

i run the commands to put it in master mode but i don't get anything good from it (i already installed bridge-utils)

Code:

# iwconfig wlan1 mode master

Error for wireless request "Set Mode" (8B06) :
    SET failed on device wlan1 ; Invalid argument.

my card is in fact called wlan1 heres the output

Code:

#iwconfig

lo        no wireless extensions.

eth0      no wireless extensions.

wlan0     IEEE 802.11abgn  ESSID:"linksys"  
          Mode:Managed  Frequency:2.437 GHz  Access Point: 00:25:9C:68:68:A2   
          Bit Rate=54 Mb/s   Tx-Power=20 dBm   
          Retry  long limit:7   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
          Encryption key:D7B3-38D1-3D
          Power Management:on
          Link Quality=42/70  Signal level=-68 dBm  
          Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
          Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:0   Missed beacon:0

pan0      no wireless extensions.

wlan1     IEEE 802.11bg  ESSID:off/any  
          Mode:Managed  Access Point: Not-Associated   Tx-Power=0 dBm   
          Retry  long limit:7   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
          Encryption key:off
          Power Management:off

wlan0 is the card i am using to recieve the internet

so what am i doing wrong or what haven't i installed because it's compatible for master mode but it's not switching to master mode this is very frustrating

baronobeefdip · 05-20-2011, 08:16 PM

heres a webpage about the chipset zd1211rw and it says at the bottom that it supports master mode
http://wireless.kernel.org/en/users/Drivers/zd1211rw

---------- Post added 05-20-11 at 08:16 PM ----------

heres a webpage about the chipset zd1211rw and it says at the bottom that it supports master mode
http://wireless.kernel.org/en/users/Drivers/zd1211rw

baronobeefdip · 05-20-2011, 08:37 PM

but i made an interesting discovery, it can go into repeater mode (i have found no configuration information about this) for the time being i would like to know why it's not going into master mode (is it case-sensitive or something)

scheidel21 · 05-20-2011, 08:38 PM

do you have hostapd enabled? Are you sure you are also running the latest driver for the card?

baronobeefdip · 05-20-2011, 09:00 PM

the latest driver from Debian is installed for it and i don't know if i have hostapd enabled but how do i check and how do i enable/disable it

baronobeefdip · 05-20-2011, 09:04 PM

alright i checked and i didn't have hostapd installed so i just installed it from the repository, what do i do now to enable it on the wireless interface i would like to make into a master

baronobeefdip · 05-21-2011, 06:36 PM

i have hostapd installed but i still can't turn my inerface into master mode, i ran

Code:

#/etc/init.d/hostapd start

got no error thought everything was fine then i ran

Code:

# iwconfig wlan2 mode master
Error for wireless request "Set Mode" (8B06) :
    SET failed on device wlan2 ; Invalid argument.

what else could it be i just started the hostapd daemon and i am still getting this error what going on here.

baronobeefdip · 05-23-2011, 11:44 AM

what are some books that you guys would recommend about turning a Linux box into a wireless access point (i'm not making a repeater, for now thats the second step)