Hostap configuration - internet resoucres ?

[Mario Premke]

> > Hello,
> > obviously a WLAN newbie question, but I cannot find any resources on the
> > net describing how to configure hostap with the following constellation:
> >
> >
> >   DSL                               WLAN
> >  -----> |LINUX Firewall (MASQ)| <-----------> | WinXP |
> >         Netgear MA311[Prism2.5]                Centrino
> >                    192.163.1.1              192.163.1.2
> >
> > So there's only the linux box and the WinXP notebook to be connected. Can
> > anybody point me to some appropiate information?
> 
> Well.... this might sound a bit rude but
> did you try to do anything before asking us?
> If yes, tell us about it.

Hmm ... my problem is how to try, for I do not know anything about WLAN.
I have my DSL link up of course, my Firewall is ready and yes I,
compiled the hostap-driver modules and hostap-utils, they are running
well:
--
bash-2.05b# iwconfig wlan0
wlan0     IEEE 802.11b  ESSID:"test"  
          Mode:Master  Frequency:2.422GHz  Access Point:
00:09:5B:91:8D:D3  
          Bit Rate:11Mb/s   Sensitivity=1/3  
          Retry min limit:8   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
          Encryption key:off
          Power Management:off
          Link Quality:0/92  Signal level:-69 dBm  Noise level:-90 dBm
          Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
          Tx excessive retries:31  Invalid misc:0   Missed beacon:0
--
bash-2.05b# cat /proc/net/wireless 
Inter-| sta-|   Quality        |   Discarded packets               |
Missed | WE
 face | tus | link level noise |  nwid  crypt   frag  retry   misc |
beacon | 16
 wlan0: 0000    0   187   166        0      0      0     31     
0        0
--

The Windows machine even recognizes the 'test'-network - nevertheless
there are no packets transmitted:
----
bash-2.05b$ cat /proc/net/dev
Inter-|   Receive                                                | 
Transmit
 face |bytes    packets errs drop fifo frame compressed
multicast|bytes    packets errs drop fifo colls carrier compressed
    lo:   18796     306    0    0    0     0          0         0   
18796     306    0    0    0     0       0          0
  eth0:       0       0    0    0    0     0          0         0       
0       0    0    0    0     0       0          0
  eth1:   91745     992    0    0    0     0          0         0   
62190     999    0    0    0     0       0          0
 wlan0:       0       0    0    0    0     0          0         0       
0       0    0    0    0     0       0          0
  ppp0:   32328      62    0    0    0     0          0         0    
3132      64    0    0    0     0       0          0
----

Inspired by the mail from A.Jellinghaus I meanwhile tried some
encryption commands taken from the hostap-utils-0.1.2/README file:
----
prism2_param wlan0 bcrx_sta_key 1
iwconfig wlan0 key s:abcde [2]
iwconfig wlan0 key [2]
hostap_crypt_conf -p wlan0 [hostap_MAC_address] WEP s:qwert
----
iwconfig wlan0 indeed now shows an encryption key, but my WinXP notebook
doesn't see the network ('test') any more (what was formerly the case)!

Any hints?
Mario

BTW, I am not asking to configure my network - I just asked if there is
some access point configration information for WLAN brain deads on the
net.