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Using a laptop as a wireless switch / router?

J

Jimi

Junior Member
Hi

I've got a spare laptop that I'd like to use as a server to host my dsl router and printers for other laptops at my home office. All have wireless adaptors built in (the router is wired though, but I'll connect it to the spare laptop) and I'd like to create a wireless network to connect them all up and to use the spare laptop as an internet gateway. Is this possible/feasible? Can a wireless adaptor support more that one connection at a time? If the answer is yes, could someone point me to a guide on how to set up such a network?

Thanks
James
 
Interesting project. Yes a normal wireless card can connect to several hosts, it does this in ad-hoc mode already. I don't think there is any simple way to do it in windows, maybe with ICS but I don't know how. You can definately do it with linux, make sure you pick a distribution that supports your particular wireless chipset 'out of the box' as the ones in laptops can be fiddly. Just plug the wired interface on the laptop into the router and give it an IP on the wired network, then configure the wireless interface with the provided config tools and give it an IP on a different subnet. Once you get both interfaces up, you can set up routing and firewalling however you want - there are plenty of guides on the net, but basically you have to go 'echo 1 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_forward' to enable forwarding between the 2 networks and write an IPtables script to control access. You should get pretty good performance, especially if you don't install a GUI.
 
Welcome to AT Network Forum.

Sure, configure all Wireless to AD-Hoc, enable the master ICS on the Gateway Laptop and configure ICS as clients to the rest.

How do I do it?

May be this can Help, http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/usin...expert/bowman_02april08.mspx?pf=trueHi

Would it work? It Should.

Would I have nice stable Network and Internet connection? Probably Not.

What do I gain by such an arrangement? $15 - $30 (The price of a nice Wireless Cable/DSL Router on sale).

I am a teenager on an allowance! OK I understand every penny counts.

For an Office and sharing Files and printers! Hmmm?

So how an alternative Router arrangement should look like?

http://www.ezlan.net/network/router.jpg

:sun:
 
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