WDS question...

Inspector Gadget

Hi Everyone:

We're setting up a wireless LAN in the house, and as I have two PCs in my room and don't feel like buying two wireless cards (plus one's a Linux box, and the world of pain that seems to come with trying to find a card with the few specific chipsets that actually have working drivers (unless things have changed recently) seems like more hassle than it's worth).

Add to this the fact that I inherited a Buffalo WLA-G54C for nowt. This is an access point/bridge, and I'm trying to figure out whether I can use this (via WDS, I suspect) to talk to the Airport Express we have in mind to plug into the DSL modem and serve up our BB link?

The other question is whether WDS is exclusive? What I mean is, assuming WDS is what I want to use the Buffalo yoke, can laptops/other machines with wireless cards still connect to an AP with WDS enabled? I can't really use WDS if it means that the others can't access the wireless LAN, you see...

Cheers,
Gadget

tomk

WDS is for AP-to-AP communication only i.e. you will use WDS on the link between the Airport and the Buffalo, but ordinary network clients will associate with either the Airport or the Buffalo in the normal way. In fact, in an optimum WDS setup, clients should be able to roam seamlessly between WDS-connected APs with no service interruption.

Incidentally, I have both a Prism GT and an Atheros card running successfully on Linux. Granted, it wasn't quite a plug-and-play setup, but it wasn't that much harder either, and shouldn't be any problem to anyone who's used to a bit Linux config hacking.

Inspector Gadget

Thanks for the response. I suspected that there'd be no problem if the computers themselves had wireless cards, but I'm actually trying to avoid that, if possible - in other words, plug the ethernet port of the Buffalo AP into a hub/switch, and use it as a bridge onto the wireless network, so that the two machines in my room could gain access to the internet connection which would be set up through one of the Airport Expresses downstairs.

The more I look at this, I wonder whether this has anything to do with the WDS spec, or the specific capabilities of my AP's firmware... or even if WDS is relevant to what I actually want here. (Sorry about the ambiguity)

Cheers,
Gadget

JoyPad

Looks like what you want is wireless bridging, as opposed to wireless repeating described by tomk. Have a look at the articles on www.tomsnetworking.com, especially this and this.

Cheers,
JP

Inspector Gadget

Cheers, looks like I've got some light reading to do

Gadget