Turning a PC into a Wireless Access Point pt I

Ever since I got my new BT Home Hub 2, my Dreambox has stopped communicating with the network.
The Zoom Game Adapter cannot handle the WPA2 encryption that the Home Hub uses as standard.
Whilst I could go the easy path of reducing the security level, my loft-based media server has a wireless network card, which raises the opportunity to give the Dreambox its own network, something that should be quite useful for streaming MPEG-2, or recording it to the NAS.
Time to break out OpenOffice Draw again and update the network plan:

Now for the tricky part... setting up a Linux Wireless AP using Ubuntu 10.04

I've identified a gap in the WiFi spectrum that I can use - the Home Hub sits on channel 11 and my neighbours are using Channels 1 & 6.  Checking the font of all knowledge, channel 3 appears the best choice as it will not argue with my network.


Firstly, I need to enable the card.  It's a D-Link DWL-G510 that I bought it a while ago when NDISWRAPPER didn't work - a bit of research showed that the chipset (RaLink RT2561/RT61) was supported natively.

The steps to check were gained from the Ubuntu Wireless Trouble-Shooting Guide:

sudo lshw -C network

returns:

*-network:1 DISABLED        description: Wireless interface        product: RT2561/RT61 rev B 802.11g        vendor: RaLink        physical id: e        bus info: pci@0000:00:0e.0        logical name: wlan0        version: 00        serial: 00:1b:11:06:ab:52        width: 32 bits        clock: 33MHz        capabilities: pm bus_master cap_list ethernet physical wireless        configuration: broadcast=yes driver=rt61pci latency=66 multicast=yes wireless=IEEE 802.11bg        resources: irq:11 memory:40200000-40207fff

...it's been seen.

sudo lsmod | grep rt61pci

returns:

rt61pci                18920  0 crc_itu_t               1371  1 rt61pci rt2x00pci               6027  1 rt61pci rt2x00lib              27541  2 rt61pci,rt2x00pci eeprom_93cx6            1333  1 rt61pci

...the modules have been loaded.

sudo iwconfig lo        no wireless extensions. eth0      no wireless extensions. wlan0     IEEE 802.11bg  ESSID:off/any           Mode:Managed  Access Point: Not-Associated   Tx-Power=0 dBm           Retry  long limit:7   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off           Encryption key:off           Power Management:off

Bring it up and see what's out there:

sudo ifconfig wlan0 up sudo iwlist scan lo        Interface doesn't support scanning. eth0      Interface doesn't support scanning. wlan0     Scan completed :           Cell 01 - Address: 00:14:7F:A3:1D:67                     Channel:1                     Frequency:2.412 GHz (Channel 1)                     Quality=40/70  Signal level=-70 dBm                     Encryption key:on                     ESSID:"BTHomeHub-0D7F"                     Bit Rates:1 Mb/s; 2 Mb/s; 5.5 Mb/s; 11 Mb/s; 18 Mb/s                               24 Mb/s; 36 Mb/s; 54 Mb/s                     Bit Rates:6 Mb/s; 9 Mb/s; 12 Mb/s; 48 Mb/s                     Mode:Master                     Extra:tsf=0000003f7c0c3d63                     Extra: Last beacon: 1124ms ago

It's alive!

We'll see about setting up the bridge tomorrow...


Building a home entertainment network:

1. Designing a Network with Linux
2. Installing Firefly Media Server
3. Turning a PC into a Wireless Access Point pt I
4. Turning a PC into a Wireless Access Point pt II
5. Serving Video on Demand to a Dreambox