Does 802.11b use a lot of resources?

[Loren M. Lang]

On Wed, Mar 02, 2005 at 08:32:55AM -0800, Christopher Kelley wrote:
> Loren M. Lang wrote:
> 
> >On Wed, Mar 02, 2005 at 01:26:45AM -0500, Bob Johnson wrote:
> > 
> >
> >>On Friday 25 February 2005 12:06 am, Christopher Kelley wrote:
> >>   
> >>
> >>>Have I tried too hard to squeeze usability out of an old computer?
> >>>
> >>>I have a Pentium-166 that has been a faithful router & firewall (FreeBSD
> >>>5.3 and pf) for a couple years now.  It has no trouble with the 3 to 4
> >>>Mbps I get from my broadband connection, at least not with ethernet.
> >>>
> >>>I wanted wireless, so I could use my laptop around the house.  I
> >>>dutifully read the section in the manual about setting up FreeBSD as an
> >>>access point. I'm using a Netgear MA311 802.11b card (Prism 2.5
> >>>chipset).  And it does work, except it's very slow.  Now I know that I
> >>>can only expect about 50% of the rated speed with wireless, but I
> >>>figured even if I got only 4Mbps, I'd be fine.  But I get less than
> >>>1Mbps.  I've updated the firmware, added a signal booster and hi-gain
> >>>antenna, and I have "excellent" signal strength throughout my house.
> >>>
> >>>So my question is, is there more overhead with wireless than with
> >>>ethernet?  TOP doesn't seem to show that I'm taxing it too hard, idle
> >>>never goes below about 70% with polling enabled (Hz=1000), and never
> >>>below about 80% with polling disabled.  Am I expecting too much out of
> >>>an old Pentium-166?
> >>>
> >>>     
> >>>
> >>My experience is that:
> >>
> >>1) 50% throughput is probably the best you should expect.  I generally 
> >>plan on 3-4 Mbps for an 11 Mbps 802.11b card.
> >>
> >>2) Using 128-bit encryption (WEP) will significantly slow down some 
> >>(many?) cards. The WEP processing is done on the card (I think), and they 
> >>simply don't have hefty processors. If you use 128-bit WEP, try 64-bit 
> >>WEP and see if that speeds things up.  64 bit WEP is adequate to keep out 
> >>casual snoopers, and 128 bit is not adequate to keep out a serious 
> >>attacker, so the difference in security may not be as important as some 
> >>believe.  64-bit WEP is also known as 40-bit, and similarly for 128-bit 
> >>WEP.
> >>   
> >>
> >
> >Actually, what I recommend for home you, if you have the time, is IPSEC.
> >Much more secure than WEP and it's all done on the main cpu so it should
> >slow the wifi down as much.  There's a good article on freebsddiary.org
> >I believe.
> >
> > 
> >
> I found the article on freebsddiary, and I admit I only skimmed it, but 
> I have a mix of FreeBSD and Windows (XP) on my wireless network, and for 
> now I'd like to keep it as simple as possible.

I just wanted to mention that I have IPSEC running with several Win2k
computers and it works great.  The configuration is relatively simple,
the main problem was a couple of tweaks I needed to give to racoon, but
the windows side was even easier.  It's still more complicated than WEP,
but it's more secure and may provide faster data transfer.

> 
> Christopher
> 
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