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Wireless working great for gateway arrangement

Offline ylluminate

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Wireless working great for gateway arrangement
« on: August 11, 2011, 09:03:54 AM »
Just wanted to make a note about a success I've just had with SME Server for our workgroup.

Using an older Dell laptop with a PRO/Wireless 2200BG card integrated.  Not optimal for huge loads, but it has 4 gigs of RAM and is performing very well for us so far.  I was in a pinch as I couldn't get an additional USB LAN adapter for the unit within the next few days, so I thought I'd take a plunge, and I'm very happy I did!

SME Server 8 ß6 detected the device just fine, but the firmware was missing.  Was able to do a bit of searching and found the following rpm which worked a treat: "ipw2200-firmware-3.0-3.el5.rf.noarch.rpm"

After pushing that in and **TURNING ON THE WIRELESS DEVICE** (BIOS setting and Fn+F2 (there are also other way via ifconfig)) I was able to do
Code: [Select]
`iwconfig eth0 essid MY_ACTUAL_SSID && ifconfig eth0 MY_IP_ADDRESS` and voila, it just worked.  The SME Server admin config worked fine with it.  No coaxing whatsoever.  Reboots work fine and SSID is remembered.

This may be helpful for you if you want to know a touch more about shell wireless config: http://www.thelinuxdaily.com/2010/03/setup-wireless-connection-in-terminal/

My particular scenario is working well as it is a gateway server between our Internet connection and the switches and wireless router.  Thus:

Quote
INTERNET <-ethernet-> SME SERVER <-wireless-> Wireless Router <-> Switches & Workstations

Performance is really good as well as is reliability since it's close to the wireless router.  I think I'll still get a wired USB dongle for this, but I thought that this was nice to have a solution so clean.

Thanks so much guys again for making this so clean for such scenarios.


-George
« Last Edit: August 11, 2011, 09:06:47 AM by ylluminate »

Offline cactus

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Re: Wireless working great for gateway arrangement
« Reply #1 on: August 11, 2011, 05:14:06 PM »
SME Server 8 ß6 detected the device just fine, but the firmware was missing.  Was able to do a bit of searching and found the following rpm which worked a treat: "ipw2200-firmware-3.0-3.el5.rf.noarch.rpm"

After pushing that in and **TURNING ON THE WIRELESS DEVICE** (BIOS setting and Fn+F2 (there are also other way via ifconfig)) I was able to do
Code: [Select]
`iwconfig eth0 essid MY_ACTUAL_SSID && ifconfig eth0 MY_IP_ADDRESS` and voila, it just worked.  The SME Server admin config worked fine with it.  No coaxing whatsoever.  Reboots work fine and SSID is remembered.
Don't be surprised as your system stops working on syetm upgrades or configuration changes. To survive such events you should anchor you changes in the configuratin database and the configuration templates as that is the basis where configuration files are generated on at system updates or configuration changes.

For more information on this look at the SME Server Developers Guide linked in the wiki, especially the sections on templates and the configuration database.
Be careful whose advice you buy, but be patient with those who supply it. Advice is a form of nostalgia, dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than its worth ~ Baz Luhrmann - Everybody's Free (To Wear Sunscreen)

Offline ylluminate

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Re: Wireless working great for gateway arrangement
« Reply #2 on: August 11, 2011, 09:50:11 PM »
The only non-standard change was indeed: `iwconfig eth0 essid MY_ACTUAL_SSID`  The other ifconfig really was not necessary and was handled by admin (I just did it for good measure afterwards).

Everything so far with other config changes and updates to most recent testing have seemingly worked without issue so far.

If the iwconfig command should be initiated, where would I anchor this into the config?  Perhaps the primary rc conf or is there a better place / method?


Thanks for the note.

Offline cactus

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Re: Wireless working great for gateway arrangement
« Reply #3 on: August 12, 2011, 06:18:04 PM »
If the iwconfig command should be initiated, where would I anchor this into the config?  Perhaps the primary rc conf or is there a better place / method?
/etc/rc.local IIRC.
Be careful whose advice you buy, but be patient with those who supply it. Advice is a form of nostalgia, dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than its worth ~ Baz Luhrmann - Everybody's Free (To Wear Sunscreen)

Offline Franco

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Re: Wireless working great for gateway arrangement
« Reply #4 on: August 17, 2011, 10:46:18 PM »
Nice!

So you're configuring your network card as a client for an Access Point.

I'll have to try and see if I can reproduce the same, but as AP and Chillispot :-D

Thanks,


Offline ylluminate

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Re: Wireless working great for gateway arrangement
« Reply #5 on: August 17, 2011, 11:39:52 PM »
Yes, it is a client to an AP and piping the Internet WAN traffic on into it.

I am, however, curious now.  I have an additional USB LAN adapter that I thought I'd attempt to tie into the solution.  What I had in mind is that when the Net goes down, I can use the wireless as a failover to one of our iPhones.  It's an emergency situation provision, but it should be doable.  Essentially I now have eth0 (WAN), eth1 (LAN (wireless)), and eth2 (USB LAN dongle).  I'd like to use eth0 and eth2 for the WAN to LAN traffic and then the eth1 wireless as a failover option to connect on demand (i.e., when it goes down we just turn the sharing on and it connects to an iPhone SSID and away we go).

Any ideas on hacking that together?  Doesn't seem that it should be terribly bad, but I'd like to know what packages might be most compatible with SME given any one else's playing or experience. 

Man, I wish we could get the community built back up and more activity going on for SME Server.  It's really a cleaner and simpler option than other solutions, in my opinion, like ClearOS.

Offline ylluminate

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Re: Wireless working great for gateway arrangement
« Reply #6 on: October 12, 2011, 01:17:31 AM »
We've gotten to a point where we have a wired dongle that is detected fine by the kernel, however when I switch over to use it as the LAN port, no traffic actually is sent through it.  Interestingly it appears to be fine and, as far as I can tell, there's nothing amiss.  I assume that for some reason or somehow the routing table has been b0rked.  Disabling the wireless device does not help, although it does stop showing up in the configuration sequence.

Even if I flip it over to be the WAN port, it still fails to transfer traffic over the WAN while the LAN works fine. 

Any ideas as to what could be stopping a newly added device from working like this or what to look for that may be the culprit?