** Phil Clarke <phil@???> [2007-12-04 02:56]:
> Andy Random wrote:
> > I'm finally succumbing to the temptation of wifi at home... but what I'm
> > looking for is just a wireless access point. I already have a broadband
> > router that I'm quite happy with (and have no intention of replacing) so
> > I just want something to plug into it which will provide wifi.
> >
> > Any recommendations for a wireless device that works well but doesn't
> > have a built-in DHCP/NAT router as well?
>
> I have got two of these running - one at home and one at my parents house.
>
> <http://www.linksys.co.uk/download/wap54g_ds.pdf>
>
> Nice and easy to configure via web interface, can do DHCP/NAT but that
> is easily turned off and I've got both configured with a static IP
> address that uses the trusted interface of my Linux firewall to send all
> traffic to/from.
>
> I've also plugged it directly into an ADSL modem/router before and again
> statically configured it with an IP and the default gateway being the
> modem/router.
>
> Actually the one here even sits on two networks (one that runs DHCP and
> one that uses static IP throughout) and everything plays nicely together
> as the AP doesn't try and do anything "clever".
>
> Some people will go "ew linksys" and proceed to spout never ending
> horror stories about how it ate their cat and/or sold their first born
> into eternal slavery writing 419 emails for Dr Abdul M'Bongo, but I'm
> more than happy that it does what I want it to do and is stable to boot.
** end quote [Phil Clarke]
I'm in the "ew Linksys" camp, but that's based on the hardware/firmware
quality and not their ethics. I have a WRK54G on my network, which sadly
isn't the model that you can re-flash with Linux (otherwise I'd have
done it by now). I find that it frequently drops the wireless connection
and then fails to re-authenticate it. This has improved now that I have
a Linksys NIC in my machine, but it still causes problems. It is also
prone to stopping routing traffic properly. Sometimes the wireless side
of the network stops routing completely, although it does authenticate
the connection, sometimes routing only works on the internal side of the
network. For these various reasons I regularly have to pull the power
plug out of the back to reboot it - oh, the web interface is also prone
to stopping responding even though all other functions are working fine.
My final bug bear with this model is that there is a known problem when
using it with a particular particular model 3Com PCMCIA wireless card,
which unfortunately I have. There is a fix for it by upgrading the
firmware, but the unit I have is a newer version than the firmware with
the fix and it would appear that they have re-introduced the bug.
I now have a Netgear unit as supplied by Sky, which I haven't yet
connected up, so no comments. A DLink unit which, although it is up and
running, isn't generally used on the wireless side. On the wired side it
is constantly used and cause no problems. My parents-in-law use one
quite happily, and it has a nice remote admin feature, which is handy in
this situation! This is an obsolete model though, and both this and the
Netgear are ADSL versions of units that have similar DSL equivalents.
Again obsolete is the 3Com unit that I started with and have used on
customer sites. I've been quite happy with this, bar the fact that the
unit I have had a hardware failure - it does have a nice long warranty
though, so I'm getting it repaired :) Again this is an ADSL unit, and it
is the ADSL side has failed, but the customer sites use pure DSL
versions of the same unit (that annoyingly have an extra feature that
the ADSL one lacks - static addressing on the DHCP I think it was, but
it was a long while ago I configured them!).
--
Paul Tansom | Aptanet Ltd. |
http://www.aptanet.com/ | 023 9238 0001
======================================================================
Registered in England | Company No: 4905028 | Registered Office:
Crawford House, Hambledon Road, Denmead, Waterlooville, Hants, PO7 6NU
