key question

[Anonymous]

I think this might have been answered before...

But what does Star-OS key to, in a system without any ethernet (pc card or pci radios only) ports?

Thanks

[WISP]

It keys to a MAC address of either a NIC or a radio.

[tony]

For keying, you can go to your Interfaces menu and choose the MAC address from any 'etherX' or 'wpciX' device. 'wlanX' devices if listed are pcmcia, and cannot be keyed too.

Thanks!

[georgew]

There are a lot of small $4 ethernet boards out there that should work fine... you should buy one of those just for keying if you need to. Plus it is handy to use the empty ethernet port for pppoe/pptp tunnel termination anchors.

[Anonymous]

So a board without an ethernet port or enough slots to add one you don't need is actually useless?

I need to be clear on this.

[lonnie]

An Ethenet or PCI radio is required - such as the Dlink DWL-520 units. Anything with PCMCIA cannot be keyed.

Sorry but that was a design decision we made a long time ago.

[georgew]

So a board without an ethernet port or enough slots to add one you don't need is actually useless?

I need to be clear on this.

It is useless, unless you can show a good reason for Tony to redesign the licensing method.

The problem is even if you had a million single slot boards and they were 50 cents each, they are not very useful. The only thing they could be used for is WDS relays...

If the board has two slots and you are wanting to put a radio in both slots, you need to make sure one of the radios is a PCI radio. That is a pcmcia card plugged into a PCI bridge rather than a pcmcia adapter. The pci bridge looks like a pcmcia adapter, but it works differently...

If the board has only one slot, a pci radio could be used to make wds relays.

So the board is useful if you buy the right radios.

If you insist on a combination of parts that does not inlude an ethernet or a pci bridged radio, then yes the boards are useless.

[tony]

What hardware are you looking at?

So a board without an ethernet port or enough slots to add one you don't need is actually useless?

I need to be clear on this.

[Anonymous]

I have access to a variety of older PC hardware. I needed to know how to pick something out of the mess with an eye to making sure I didn't short-circuit the future plans by picking something with too-limited expansion :)

Chance licensing? Not needed. I just wanted to be sure about what the requirements were before I picked it out...

Thanks

[dkii]

I have keyed to USB ethernet adapters a couple of times