Configuring a FreeBSD Access Point

LiquidPC writes: "SysAdmin Mag has a great article on configuring a FreeBSD access point for your wireless network. In the article it goes over how to create an inexpensive access point, how to configure FreeBSD clients, and how to secure the whole setup."

nice option, but why bother?

[Splork]

you can pick up a stand alone access point for less than $200 that will be much more reliable than a PC.

Re:nice option, but why bother?

[jo42]

When you already have a FreeBSD box and don't want to blow $200 on an access point, duh.

Interesting approach, how's it compare to NoCat?

[emag]

I just recently made the jump to the wireless world. I have to say, it's pretty nice being able to sit in bed, or on the sofa, or even out on the balcony, and still waste time reading /., chatting on IRC, and even doing real work. I'm actually upset I didn't jump back in October when I started a good 4-month stint of working from home every day for a single client.

So now, I had to make the same hard choices about networking security, and how to keep just anyone from accessing my WAP (a LinkSys WAP11... I wanted simple to set up)... Enter NoCatAuth [nocat.net].

I'm in the process of getting a box together to setup NoCat on, and until then, my WAP is sitting powered off for the most part, except for testing. Since I haven't gone through the actual install yet, I can't comment on its ease-of-use compared to the FreeBSD example in the article, but it seems to have several points going for it.

Namely, I like the idea of guerilla wireless communities, and the ability to grant certain individuals more access than others. A few friends and coworkers recently went wireless as well, and since I trust them enough to hook up wired to my own LAN, I trust them enough to connect wirelessly.

As for the "public", I'll likely open things up a bit once I've satisfied myself that connections are going only where *I* want them to go, instead of back into my internal network. Likely, I'll be blocking several outbound ports, but I'll have to see. I'll definitely need to go about making sure that anything sensitive is going over SSH or an IPsec tunnel (joy, finally a use for FreeS/WAN here).

If this article had come out maybe a few days earlier, I might have considered building a WAP instead of just buying one, but I'm happy with my choice.

I'd be happy to know about anyone else's experiences with setting up their own WAPs, either for purely internal access, or for public consumption, especially regarding issues such as security, NoCat, this FreeBSD-type AP, etc.

(Oh, for anyone else who started to tear their hair out because the LinkSys WAP11s don't really like to speak to normal SNMP tools, I discovered this [polesye.net] utility that talks to it beautifully, with a text-mode interface)

For more info (including instructions for Linux)

[Ross Finlayson]

See this link [live.com].

what happened to

[obtuse]

What happened to the folks who were booting linux on commercial wireless access points?

There was a Slashdot article about access points that were already no longer available commercially, and I found one old pointer to someone who was building a kernel for the airport too, but haven't found anything else.

Re:When did they get 802.11b working?

[jquirke]

All I found was options for 802.11a, instead

huh? I think you are confusing straight 802.11 (2 megabit, 2.4Ghz) with the new 55megabit 802.11a (5Ghz).

--jquirke