Date: Thu, 3 Mar 2005 12:28:44 -0800 From: "Loren M. Lang" <lorenl@alzatex.com> To: Christopher Kelley <bsd@kelleycows.com> Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Does 802.11b use a lot of resources? Message-ID: <20050303202844.GH30896@alzatex.com> In-Reply-To: <4225EAB7.3020205@kelleycows.com> References: <421EB26B.5050608@kelleycows.com> <200503020126.46489.bob89@bobj.org> <20050302101715.GE30896@alzatex.com> <4225EAB7.3020205@kelleycows.com>
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On Wed, Mar 02, 2005 at 08:32:55AM -0800, Christopher Kelley wrote: > Loren M. Lang wrote: > > >On Wed, Mar 02, 2005 at 01:26:45AM -0500, Bob Johnson wrote: > > > > > >>On Friday 25 February 2005 12:06 am, Christopher Kelley wrote: > >> > >> > >>>Have I tried too hard to squeeze usability out of an old computer? > >>> > >>>I have a Pentium-166 that has been a faithful router & firewall (FreeBSD > >>>5.3 and pf) for a couple years now. It has no trouble with the 3 to 4 > >>>Mbps I get from my broadband connection, at least not with ethernet. > >>> > >>>I wanted wireless, so I could use my laptop around the house. I > >>>dutifully read the section in the manual about setting up FreeBSD as an > >>>access point. I'm using a Netgear MA311 802.11b card (Prism 2.5 > >>>chipset). And it does work, except it's very slow. Now I know that I > >>>can only expect about 50% of the rated speed with wireless, but I > >>>figured even if I got only 4Mbps, I'd be fine. But I get less than > >>>1Mbps. I've updated the firmware, added a signal booster and hi-gain > >>>antenna, and I have "excellent" signal strength throughout my house. > >>> > >>>So my question is, is there more overhead with wireless than with > >>>ethernet? TOP doesn't seem to show that I'm taxing it too hard, idle > >>>never goes below about 70% with polling enabled (Hz=1000), and never > >>>below about 80% with polling disabled. Am I expecting too much out of > >>>an old Pentium-166? > >>> > >>> > >>> > >>My experience is that: > >> > >>1) 50% throughput is probably the best you should expect. I generally > >>plan on 3-4 Mbps for an 11 Mbps 802.11b card. > >> > >>2) Using 128-bit encryption (WEP) will significantly slow down some > >>(many?) cards. The WEP processing is done on the card (I think), and they > >>simply don't have hefty processors. If you use 128-bit WEP, try 64-bit > >>WEP and see if that speeds things up. 64 bit WEP is adequate to keep out > >>casual snoopers, and 128 bit is not adequate to keep out a serious > >>attacker, so the difference in security may not be as important as some > >>believe. 64-bit WEP is also known as 40-bit, and similarly for 128-bit > >>WEP. > >> > >> > > > >Actually, what I recommend for home you, if you have the time, is IPSEC. > >Much more secure than WEP and it's all done on the main cpu so it should > >slow the wifi down as much. There's a good article on freebsddiary.org > >I believe. > > > > > > > I found the article on freebsddiary, and I admit I only skimmed it, but > I have a mix of FreeBSD and Windows (XP) on my wireless network, and for > now I'd like to keep it as simple as possible. I just wanted to mention that I have IPSEC running with several Win2k computers and it works great. The configuration is relatively simple, the main problem was a couple of tweaks I needed to give to racoon, but the windows side was even easier. It's still more complicated than WEP, but it's more secure and may provide faster data transfer. > > Christopher > > _______________________________________________ > freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list > http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions > To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-questions-unsubscribe@freebsd.org" -- I sense much NT in you. NT leads to Bluescreen. Bluescreen leads to downtime. Downtime leads to suffering. NT is the path to the darkside. Powerful Unix is. Public Key: ftp://ftp.tallye.com/pub/lorenl_pubkey.asc Fingerprint: CEE1 AAE2 F66C 59B5 34CA C415 6D35 E847 0118 A3D2
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