PCI AP card recommendations

[John Nielsen]

On Jul 25, 2010, at 5:10 PM, Beach Geek wrote:

> Looking for feedback from people using FreeBSD v8.x as access points.
> We will be using Pentium 3 boxes with 8-STABLE as APs.
> Each box will have a unique SSID and use WPA2-PSK.
> Each AP will be linked back to 2 gateways.
> 
> I'm looking for AP card suggestions and any helpful hints as far as the
> APs.   Looking for card models, not chipsets.
> 
> Looking forward to hearing your experiences.

I've been using a D-Link DWL-G520 PCI card in my FreeBSD access point since at least 6.x. It sports an Atheros 5212 chip and uses the ath driver. The card supports 802.11b/g as well as the "Turbo" 108Mbps mode.

My current setup is FreeBSD 8.1-PRERELEASE with two vap's. The first is bridged with my LAN ethernet device and uses WPA-PSK. The second is for guests and has no security. The latter is firewalled off from the LAN and everything on the host except DNS. It's also bandwidth-controlled using dummynet.

This is a small network and rarely has more than 8 or so wireless clients.

A couple years ago I added a better external antenna (D-Link ANT24-0700, still available) and saw a noticeable range increase.

I've been wanting to upgrade to 802.11n but to my knowledge there is still no rate algorithm so even supported cards will only operate at "g" speeds.

Aside from that I've had no complaints whatsoever with my FreeBSD AP.

I very much doubt my specific card is still available new. I don't have any experience with the newer card models but it's not unlikely they still make a similar card.

JN