extending a HostAP networks range

[Martin Polak]

John Roark schrieb:
> Besides the obvious solution of increasing the wattage and using a 
> larger antenae... how would I extend the range of my wireless network. 
> Is there a way to link HostAps so that where one ap's range ends another 
> starts and extends the range by 50%? Some kind of dumb forwarder that 
> simply repeats whatever it picks up (without NAT)? I want it to look 
> like the client is talking directly to the main hostap, when in fact it 
> is talking to another box that is merely extending the range of the 
> hostap... is this possible?
> 
> eth0 : AP-A : wlan0 -- <wireless network> -- wlan0 : "Extender"
>                                                |
>                                   <extended wireless network>
>                                                |
>                                              wlan0 : Client
> 
> Is this a repeater? a bridge? does RDS do this (what is RDS?)? I want it 
> all to be on the same network (192.168.1.0/24)... and I need it to 
> preserve MACs and IPs.
> 

I think what you are looking for is a feature called WDS as far as I 
see. See hostap docs for details. I think what you are looking for is
a WDS-Link between AP-A and wlan0. Only problem is, that afaik WDS only 
works between two hostap-boxes.

Greets
Martin