Configuring WDS using hostap

[Dave]

> >
> > > its own network segment, along with the WDS back channels?
> >
> > I found doing ip routing across wds/ap's cumbersome so I opted for
bridging
> > with heavy filtering to minimize the junk flying around.
>
> Interesting.  What kind of junk?

multicast, unneded broadcasts, unneeded protocols, unneeded UPNP, unneeded
SMB broadcasts...lots of bandwidth being used unnecessarily. I found
filtering out much of this makes the network much more responsive and more
available throughput.

Assume a standard SMB broadcast (MS Client) of say 100 bytes times 100
associated STAs across the entire bridge (multiple APs) every what...5, 10
seconds or so...more/less. So you get 10k being used over a 5 or 10 second
span....randomly....that is if the broadcast is only 100 bytes...

Then imagine all the other broadcast stuff, occasional multicasts and other
stuff added into that talley...

We still have the issue of the unwanted traffic using up radio time...but I
haven't figured out a way yet to prevent that without doing something client
side. But stopping the unneeded traffic at the first possible location
(layer 2 after radio) prevents it from affecting other portions of the
bridge.


> > But I could see you having a /16 or /24 on a wlan0 and all associated
> > STAs...then having /30's on each side of your WDS links...and just put
> > simple statics in the route table to direct the flow.
> >
> > Did I misunderstand the question?
> >
>
> No, I've never done any large scale routing.  So I was really asking how
> exactly you'd do all that.  So you'd need to establish static routes in
some
> (all) situations it sounds like?

Yes. I did first think about doing routing across our entire network similar
to how I described...when planning deployment with a future goal of mobile
IP and absolutely no loss of layer 3 when dis/re-associating to APs...I
quickly surmised I could not do it without bridging...and without a finely
tuned bridge.

But to do it via IP routing you could basically apply a /30 to each side of
a WDS interface, assign a /24 or /16 to a wlan0 and associated STA's with
the STA's pointing to wlan0 ip address and a static route in the AP pointing
to downstream toward the final gateway.

Doing it in a mesh without bridging would require some thought...maybe proxy
arp's?

-Dave


> >
> > -Dave
> >
> > > <snip>
> > >
>
> -- 
>
> Jason Boxman
> Administrator TrekWeb.COM
> http://trekweb.com/~jasonb/articles/ - Linux Pages
>
>
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