wireless access point in FreeBSD 8.2p2

[CyberLeo Kitsana]

On 08/27/2011 11:21 AM, Paul Beard wrote:
> I seem to be missing something, possibly from reading too many HOWTOs. What I am trying to do is get a system with a wireless card to stand in as a wireless AP should my aging LinkSys base station develop a tragic smoke leak. 
> 
> It's an ath0-based card and the following steps suggest it should work (it has HOSTAP capabilities and offering robust encryption). 

I just finished something almost exactly like this a little while ago.

> But various permutations of rc.conf, hostap.conf and many iterations of /etc/rc.c/netif restart leave me with two ifconfig entries, one of the ath0 interface and one for wlan0. None of the examples show this so I suspect it's wrong. The IP address is pingable from the host it's installed in but not from anywhere else. And I can see the AP from another system and attach to it but it doesn't route any traffic. 
> 
> <snip>
> 
> redacted results of ifconfig: 
> ath0: flags=8843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> metric 0 mtu 2290
> 	ether 00:0d:88:93:21:3a
> 	media: IEEE 802.11 Wireless Ethernet autoselect mode 11g <hostap>
> 	status: running
> 
> wlan0: flags=8843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> metric 0 mtu 1500
> 	ether 00:0d:88:93:21:3a
> 	inet 192.168.0.26 netmask 0xffffff00 broadcast 192.168.0.255
> 	inet6 fe80::20d:88ff:fe93:213a%wlan0 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x7 
> 	nd6 options=3<PERFORMNUD,ACCEPT_RTADV>
> 	media: IEEE 802.11 Wireless Ethernet autoselect mode 11g <hostap>
> 	status: running
> 	ssid lower channel 8 (2447 MHz 11g) bssid 00:0d:88:93:21:3a
> 	regdomain FCC indoor ecm authmode AUTO privacy OFF txpower 27
> 	scanvalid 60 protmode CTS wme burst dtimperiod 1 -dfs

This looks correct so far, for an unsecured wireless access point. The
wlan0 device is the interface you will use for communicating; the ath0
device exists solely as a target for wlan0 creation.

Things to keep in mind:

tcpdump(1) is your friend; it seems cryptic and obtuse at first glance,
but it will help immensely

wlan0 itself will not assign v4 addresses to clients; you need a DHCP
server for that

The hostap machine must be explicitly told to route packets, by setting
gateway_enable="YES" in rc.conf and adding the appropriate routes

If you're intending this to be a home gateway, you will likely also need
NAT.

> Yes, I am trying it without any encryption until I see some packets being passed. 

Good idea.

Hope this helps!

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