ddvzlnz
12-26-2002, 08:01 AM
I have a few questions as I finalize my equipment list. My cpe target is the soekris board, everything else is plain Intel PC's.
1. Are the Cisco 350 pci cards (AIR-PCI352) supported?
2. Are the Cisco 350 pcmcia cards (AIR-LMC352) supported?
3. Are Senao or Zcom cards in PCI adapters supported?
4. Which Mini PCI cards are supported (and are there any that do not require soldering!)
5. If I let access points out in the field do NAT and dhcp, do I have to point the tcpip accounting perl script at each access point or just at the router back in the NOC?
6. I have not used web proxy's before. Does the transparent proxy (squid?) require a change in the browser set up for each client? If it does I can see how this would be ok on a desktop, but if the browser setup changes on a mobil laptop will the browser work in the next hotspot (off my network) they get to?
7. How many PCI based cards can I expect to get into an Intel Base Station AP server?
Thanks
GT
georgew
12-26-2002, 10:11 AM
1. Are the Cisco 350 pci cards (AIR-PCI352) supported?
2. Are the Cisco 350 pcmcia cards (AIR-LMC352) supported?
3. Are Senao or Zcom cards in PCI adapters supported?
4. Which Mini PCI cards are supported (and are there any that do not require soldering!)
5. If I let access points out in the field do NAT and dhcp, do I have to point the tcpip accounting perl script at each access point or just at the router back in the NOC?
6. I have not used web proxy's before. Does the transparent proxy (squid?) require a change in the browser set up for each client? If it does I can see how this would be ok on a desktop, but if the browser setup changes on a mobil laptop will the browser work in the next hotspot (off my network) they get to?
7. How many PCI based cards can I expect to get into an Intel Base Station AP server?
1. No cisco card support.
2. See the answer to 1
3. Yes, these cards are supported, but ORiNOCO cards perform better despite being lower power. High power cards don't help you if they are deaf... I have tried both of these cards (Zcom and Senao) and have not been impressed with the results. There are situations they can be used to overcome a problem where the receive signal is strong, but you need more output because the other end is deaf... but using deaf cards like these, the extra output power does not help you go farther...
4. I don't have first-hand knowledge of the mini-pci cards, but the miti-pci spec is nearly identical to the PCI spec, so any card that uses identical drivers would be compatable. However many mini-pci cards may be using compact-flash type wireless cards, which are probably using a different chipset than the PCMCIA version of the card. I believe the agere mini-pci cards work, but I have not tested this first-hand. I don't know which ones require soldering or why... (Antenna connector perhaps?)
5. The accounting gives you from ip, to ip, and bytes. If the users are natted on "overloaded" ip addresses (more than one user on a public address) then you will not see the individual users. So to get pre-nat accounting, you would need to poll each individual AP, as you obviously anticipated with your question. If you use dynamic DHCP assignments, then the IP accounting will not know which user was using which IP address, so you will need to use fixed IP assignments in your DHCP server, or coorelate dhcl assignments with your netflow accounting collections... a lot of work most likely.
6. Transparent proxy does not require any set-up on the user side. However it does cause problems for many web sites... for example any web site that does not properly identify CGI output as non-cachable will fail... Microsoft supports DNS proxy assignment. With this method the client requires no configuration, and automatically interacts with the proxy in a proxy-aware manner. I don't know the details to this method, but my local proxy expert says this is the only "semi-transparent" proxy method that is likely to work for most end users. An advantage to the DNS proxy methos is a user can opt-out of the proxy with a simple browser setting... so you can fix individual user complaints without turning the whole proxy off. Also, the DNS method prevents constant tweeking of the browser by the end user... each time they associate, you can serve them the correct proxy IP via DNS, or none at all if they come from a cell without a proxy. This method requires understanding and control of your own DNS server. I have purchased $50,000 worth of proxy hardware, and have never been satisfied with transparent proxy servers. I've not gotten away with turning on a transparent proxy for more than three days at a time... that is how long it takes irate users to figure out we broke the web page they are having problems with.
7. Assuming you are using compatable hardware, StarOS supports up to 8 radio cards. there are only 3 non-overlapping channels available, so if you use more than three radios, you will generate local interference, and reduce the performance of the overlapping radios. The performance reduction is porportional to the level of use... so a busy network will loose most of it's performance, and a mostly idle network may see little if any performance degradation.
I'm just a starOS user, rather than one of the programmers, but I believe everything above is accurate. Someone else will need to expand on answer number 4, but you can probably glean some additional info from the radio card forum.
George
Thank you George! It's nice to see the board is able to run itself at times. You guys are very helpful!
To add to Question 4:
We do support the Agere MiniPCI and Prism 2.5 MiniPCI. (as comes with the Linksys WMP11 (original version, not the new v27 ones)
Thanks!
ddvzlnz
12-26-2002, 11:39 AM
Thank you thank you. That was very helpful. I'm all on board with the use of sensitive cards, that is why I was hoping the Cisco's were supported. They are as sensitive as the Orinoco's and have another 5db or so to boot. Luckily I'm in an urban area and each hop does not have to go very far (less than 4 miles).
gt