Re: [NTLK] Wireless LANs

From: David C. Myers (myers_at_aedifice.net)
Date: Fri Oct 11 2002 - 17:33:37 EDT


> Yes, that's the idea behind 'ad-hoc' mode; no base station required. But
> ad-hoc is 1-to-1; any more devices and you'll need a base station.

That's kinda true, kinda not true...

Ad-hoc mode seems to mean different things to different people. True
ad-hoc mode is point-to-point; it is rather like a crossover cable, as
another poster suggested. But there's another ad-hoc-like mode, called
IBSS (independent base station services? Something like that...) which is
more like a shared segment. It resembles a 10Base2 link, in which
multiple machines can communicate with each other.

Free OSs (like NetBSD in my case) can put a card into IBSS mode, and
therefore act like a pseudo-base station. Hiroshi's drivers support this
mode; it's called "ad-hoc (old fashioned)." And yes, with two
ethernet interfaces, the NetBSD box routes packets between the wireless
segment and the internet.

True BSS mode from a single card is theoretically possible (thus making
it the logical and physical equivalent of a base station), although
apparently the Lucent/Prism chipsets are not documented enough to allow
open sourcers to write a driver.

 -David

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