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Date:      Sat, 21 Jun 1997 19:50:02 -0700 (PDT)
From:      "Rodney W. Grimes" <rgrimes@GndRsh.aac.dev.com>
To:        bad@uhf.wireless.net (Bernie Doehner)
Cc:        freebsd-isp@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: Wireless Services
Message-ID:  <199706220250.TAA00982@GndRsh.aac.dev.com>
In-Reply-To: <Pine.BSF.3.95.970621182936.3650A-100000@uhf.wdc.net> from Bernie Doehner at "Jun 21, 97 06:34:30 pm"

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> > You could make a wireless ``router'' out of FreeBSD very easily,
> > I have had fairly good luck with the AT&T/Lucent Wavelan cards and 
> > FreeBSD as a router (the multicast code in the if_wl.c driver does
> > not seem to be up to snuff as I had to convert OSPF/multicast to
> > OSPF/nonbroadcast to make it work right.)  But other than that snag
> > it seems to be working quite well.
> > 
> 
> Which version of the driver are you running? Is this with Peter Wemm's
> MULTICAST mods in -current?  

Hummm... actually I am still running on the jrb/msmith version
that was up for ftp at pdx.edu someplace under FreeBSD 2.2-stable
(about 2 week old buy now).

The problem seems to be that the card(s) [I am running multiple cards
in the same box] are either a) hearing each other (how can that be,
they are on different NWID's) or b) the multicast code is sending
the same packets out all interfaces (gated/ospf could be in error
here, but it works just fine when I replace all the wl cards with
de cards.)

> I haven't had much time to devote to this lately, but I promised
> jrb@cs.pdx.edu and miff@spam.frisbee.net.au to also test the Multicasting
> mods that Peter Wemm added to the original miff driver. Looks like you
> beat me too it.

:-).  Too bad the router had to go into production use, or I could have
done some more debugging.  As is I just undef'ed MULTICAST and mark
the interfaces non-broadcast in /etc/gated.conf and added a few router
records to the ospf config section and it is working like a champ so
far.  The next task is multipath routing with a mesh configuration,
that should be real interesting....

> Also, I have yet another version of the driver that supports the 2.4 Ghz.
> half-height with EEPROM/daughter card. Should test those so that miff can
> comit them soon.

Ohh.. gee... I didn't realize the 2.4Ghz cards where different, arghh..
well... I might be an alpha/beta tester for that code as there are suppose
to be some of these on the way here.

One other thing... these cards don't seem to be to good at Collision
Avodiance when you have a routing type of setup (ie, you have a central
node with 2 cards in it talking to 2 other sites and are trying to
ftp packets (gee, maybe a stick drawing would be better:))


       A/wl0 <-----> wl0/B/wl1 <-----> wl0/C
	       18mi              12mi

You can ftp really nice between A and B or B and C, but try to go
from A to C and your bandwidth goes in the dump.  I worked around
it with some realy bad kludges, there has to be a better way!

[Yes, folks you can make a wavelan go 18 miles.... how is left up
as an exercise I don't care to repeat :-)]

-- 
Rod Grimes                                      rgrimes@gndrsh.aac.dev.com
Accurate Automation, Inc.                   Reliable computers for FreeBSD



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