No it doesn't. THe black lines is the wired backbone. The Radio Waves graphic is just that, showing RF transmission. AP's don't talk to AP's except on the wire. Or if one is in client mode or both are in Bridge mode etc... but as long as they are in AP mode, they talk to clients wirelessly and they can talk to each other over the wire. Well Cisco's AP's do anyway, for load balancing purposes, flashing firmware and so forth.
No it doesn't. THe black lines is the wired backbone. The Radio Waves graphic is just that, showing RF transmission. AP's don't talk to AP's except on the wire. Or if one is in client mode or both are in Bridge mode etc... but as long as they are in AP mode, they talk to clients wirelessly and they can talk to each other over the wire. Well Cisco's AP's do anyway, for load balancing purposes, flashing firmware and so forth.
Yes, but the black lines don't connect all parts of the network shown. But anyway, I agree with you that APs don't talk to APs, I just think Linksys could have been clearer on this and that people could easily be fooled by the way they present it. I bet most people are a little surprised when they find out APs don't talk to APs and it is not necessarily easy to just add another AP to your system.
On the ethics/security issues, does the mac address filtering done by the University remain safely intact with this setup? And if so, will Stealth's own little network benefit from that security, i.e. if you can't connect to the University network you won't be able to connect to their little network either? Or maybe you could connect to their network but not the University network?
I asked a semi-related Q a little while back but got no answers -- if one WAP has WEP, Mac address filtering, etc., do all WAPs have to have that info? I had a modest goal of setting up a 2nd WAP in my house to support roaming, so if I had to configure both identically I could, but I imagine this could be kind of a nightware in a university setting unless you can centralize everything.
Here is what Linksys tech support says about the wet11+wap idea. I'm not totally sure I understand them though. I get confused as to which WAP is which in their discussion.
Anyway, I think it should be WET11 - Faraway WAP are same channel, same SSID. WET11 and WAP connected to it by Cable are different channels, different SSIDs. They're talking about roaming, but I don't think roaming will work without a wired backbone, but maybe I'm wrong. I've written back to Linksys and if they say I've blown it I'll let you know. But in any event, Linksys says something will work, which is good.
Anyway, I think it should be WET11 - Faraway WAP are same channel, same SSID. WET11 and WAP connected to it by Cable are different channels, different SSIDs. They're talking about roaming, but I don't think roaming will work without a wired backbone, but maybe I'm wrong. I've written back to Linksys and if they say I've blown it I'll let you know. But in any event, Linksys says something will work, which is good.
I got some followup email from Linksys. I said "WET11 and faraway WAP need to be on same channel and have same SSID. WET11 and cable-connected WAP need to be on different channels and have different SSIDs." They said "Please take note that the setup you are trying to configure is achievable but somehow it is not that advisable for this is not guaranteed to function properly."
Of course, the main problem with this setup may be that it is cheaper than their preferred alternatives
. If I'm following them correctly, they want you to have two WAP11s on both sides of the street. On each side, a WAP11 is configured as an Access Point, and the other WAP11 is configured as a Point to Point Bridge. Each bridge needs to know the MAC address of the other bridge. The WAPs configured as Access points should have the same SSID but utilize different channels.
Besides the greater cost, in the current situation you have the problem that you don't have complete control of the setup across the street. To do what they recommend, you'd have to plug in another WAP (configured as a bridge) across the street. (Or, you'd have to take the WAP that is already there and reconfigure it as a bridge -- which might make the university and everybody in the dorm a little cranky.)
Of course, the main problem with this setup may be that it is cheaper than their preferred alternatives
. If I'm following them correctly, they want you to have two WAP11s on both sides of the street. On each side, a WAP11 is configured as an Access Point, and the other WAP11 is configured as a Point to Point Bridge. Each bridge needs to know the MAC address of the other bridge. The WAPs configured as Access points should have the same SSID but utilize different channels.Besides the greater cost, in the current situation you have the problem that you don't have complete control of the setup across the street. To do what they recommend, you'd have to plug in another WAP (configured as a bridge) across the street. (Or, you'd have to take the WAP that is already there and reconfigure it as a bridge -- which might make the university and everybody in the dorm a little cranky.)
The lines are blurred a bit because this thread has gotten long but the WGB, WET11, will not talk to an AP in bridge mode. It's an AP client. If he had a true bridge, or an AP in bridge mode that would be excellent as well, assuming the device at the school was a bridge. The beauty of the WGB is that it will communicate with and AP as a pseudo bridge but allow the AP to broadcast to wireless clients at the same time. If we assume that the device at the school are True AP's or just in the AP mode of the hardware then a bridge has no play in this scenario. A workgroup bridge, on the other hand is ideal for that situation. If linksys told you that you needed a bridge then either they misunderstood what you were talking about, were making some assumptions of their own, like the school had bridges and not AP's, or they're just dim. Any one could be true. Sounds arrogant but I did what this thread is about every day of my life for close to 5 years. Linksys support are a bunch of A+ (maybe) guys that sat through a class about the 802.11b product line. They couldn't engineer a wireless job if their life depended on it.
The only qualifier is that the Cisco Bridge can also act as a bridge at the same time, talking to Child bridges in a PtoP or PtoMP environment as well as clients cards and WGB's etc... I read a thread where a SOHO manufacturer, DLINK i think, added this in a firmware upgrade. Perhaps Linksys has done the same recently though it used to be one or the other and the Linksys guys would have no way of knowing the capabilities of the schools hardware. I myself would like to know for sure. I am not convinced they are aren't bridging to the remote sites and then using AP's to broadcast to wireless clients.
Check that. They call their WGB's bridges. Erroneously of course but not unexpected coming from these yoyo's and their device nameing schemes. So they may have meant the WET11 when they said bridge, which still makes them twits.
What is the punishment for quoting yourself.
The only qualifier is that the Cisco Bridge can also act as a bridge at the same time, talking to Child bridges in a PtoP or PtoMP environment as well as clients cards and WGB's etc... I read a thread where a SOHO manufacturer, DLINK i think, added this in a firmware upgrade. Perhaps Linksys has done the same recently though it used to be one or the other and the Linksys guys would have no way of knowing the capabilities of the schools hardware. I myself would like to know for sure. I am not convinced they are aren't bridging to the remote sites and then using AP's to broadcast to wireless clients.
Check that. They call their WGB's bridges. Erroneously of course but not unexpected coming from these yoyo's and their device nameing schemes. So they may have meant the WET11 when they said bridge, which still makes them twits.
What is the punishment for quoting yourself.
Sorry, i didn't read the whole thread, but I want to try to help.
I had a similiar setup to what you are proposing and what I did was buy 3 access points. 2 linksys wap11 and 1 compaq wireless ap. The first wap11 was setup as a regular access point and was connected to my dsl line. The next wap11 was in access point client mode across the street. This second wap11 was connected via a crossover cable to the compaq ap (across the street). across the street, people could then connect to the compaq ap using their laptops. I used this setup to "beam" my dsl connection across the street.
Basically, the second wap11 and the compaq ap wired together with a crossover cable served as a repeater. The nice thing was that the people across the street and myself were all on the same local network because of bridging.
BTW the people across the street were my friends, not complete strangers......
You could buy two wap11 and hook them together with a crossover cable for a repeater. The price of a wap11 has gone down since i was playing with this stuff a year ago.
Good luck.
I had a similiar setup to what you are proposing and what I did was buy 3 access points. 2 linksys wap11 and 1 compaq wireless ap. The first wap11 was setup as a regular access point and was connected to my dsl line. The next wap11 was in access point client mode across the street. This second wap11 was connected via a crossover cable to the compaq ap (across the street). across the street, people could then connect to the compaq ap using their laptops. I used this setup to "beam" my dsl connection across the street.
Basically, the second wap11 and the compaq ap wired together with a crossover cable served as a repeater. The nice thing was that the people across the street and myself were all on the same local network because of bridging.
BTW the people across the street were my friends, not complete strangers......
You could buy two wap11 and hook them together with a crossover cable for a repeater. The price of a wap11 has gone down since i was playing with this stuff a year ago.
Good luck.
Thanks BL. This sounds like the same thing being proposed here but using a WAP in Client Mode instead of a Wet11. But what was your channel/ssid setup? I'm thinking it should be "WET11 and faraway WAP need to be on same channel and have same SSID. WET11 and cable-connected WAP need to be on different channels and have different SSIDs." Is that what you did, or were you able to get everything on the same SSID? Without making you read through the whole thread again, the idea is that if the two APs have the same ssid, the client card will pick up the signal of the closer AP (the one it is cabled to) and will miss the signal of the AP across the street (which is what it really wants).
Ah, the SSID problem. The documentation that came with my wap11 was misleading here. AP (1) and AP client (2) must be on the same channel/SSID. The repeater AP (3) must be on a different channel/SSID. I picked channel 1 and 11 so that there would be minimal interference. This way, the card doesn't have to guess.
Remember, in ap client mode, the wap11 is exactly the same as a regular client card and the same rules apply.
Using a wap11 in ap client mode is better than getting a wet11 in my opinion since the wap11 is more versatile than the wet11 and can be used later on as an access point bridge. the wet11 is limited in function. The price difference is also not that large.
Good luck.
Remember, in ap client mode, the wap11 is exactly the same as a regular client card and the same rules apply.
Using a wap11 in ap client mode is better than getting a wet11 in my opinion since the wap11 is more versatile than the wet11 and can be used later on as an access point bridge. the wet11 is limited in function. The price difference is also not that large.
Good luck.
Thanks BL, that is exactly how I thought it should work. It is nice to confirm that somebody actually got it to work like that. I agree that a Wap11 is probably a better purchase than a Wet11, except there may be some features in the Wet11 that make it easier to use when you have multiple client cards, e.g. it lets you give unique names to each one. It wouldn't surprise me if the Wet11 is just a crippled version of the Wap11.
Although I understand the use of the word repeater you should note that a repeater in the 802.11b world, at least with Cisco's 802.11b equipment, a repeater is something very similar to a "client mode" AP except that it's ethernet port gets blocked and it rebroadcast the signal it picks up from the parent AP, basically extending the range of the original Access Point. The downside is each repeater hop effectively cuts the bandwidth in half. Semantics really and that doesn't bother me nearly as much as using WAP when referring to an Access Point. Just an FYI. I have never seen a SOHO level AP that repeats by the way. At least not on the data sheet PDF's I have looked at anyway. I am not completely sure any other Mfg makes AP's that can be used as repeaters. I've tested with the setup before. It works pretty good but I have never surveyed a job that would warrant a AP in repeater mode vs. wiring to an additional ap to extend the coverage. Anyway, just information.
Yes, it can be done, it just cost $$$. I put in a lot of time and money into mysetup. Would have been cheaper for the people across the street to buy dsl themselves, but it wouldn't be as cool now would it?
Semantics are important. I was just trying to be clear within the context of this discussion
Regards,
Semantics are important. I was just trying to be clear within the context of this discussion
Regards,
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