PCI NIC with external antenna

[Ged Haywood]

Hi there,

On Wed, 15 Sep 2004 Lasse Riis wrote:

> have a server (PII 350 MHz) I think adding a wireless PCI NIC with
> an external antenna would be a better idea. However I can't seem to
> find any complete list of cards that actually work in host AP mode.

I don't think there is one. :(

> I've been looking at the "D-Link AirPro DWL-AB520" but I can't seem
> to confirm whether it actually works in host AP mode.

I don't know, sorry.

> [another] card, doesn't seem to be available in Denmark

I can ship anything you like to Denmark. :)  Unfortunately I cannot
tell you whether it would be legal to use it there... :(

> Also I'm preferably looking for a 54 Mbps card.

As far as I know there is no 54Mbps card which will work with HostAP.

> could you recommend other cards ...

Netgear MA311 (NOT the MA311+ which is TI, not Prism-based).  They
have served me extremely well.  However they are only 11Mbps.  I use
external antennas on two such cards to link to access points mounted
on a tower at the industrial estate where lives one of my businesses.
This gave broadband access to the business when it was not available
from the cable suppliers.  I do not use the MA311 PCI cards as access
points, but they will work that way and I believe that you will have
no difficulty running a VPN over them running in that mode.

> I'd like to hear from people who have some sort of VPN running on
> their Linux boxen running in host AP mode.

I use OpenVPN, continuously, over two radio links and between three
countries.  The product is Open Source, free, and it works.  You will
find that the documentation at the OpenVPN website is quite adequate:

http://openvpn.sourceforge.net/

There are no special considerations for running OpenVPN over a radio
network, as long as the network is reliable.  Excessive duplicated
packets can be troublesome on a radio network but if that is happening
you need to find the reason(s) and fix it(them).

73,
Ged.