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Hardware

Linksys WET11: Bridge 30 Devices To Any Wi-Fi Network 119

Posted by timothy from the dreamcast-or-whatever dept.
eggboard writes "The Linksys WET11 lets you bridge a wired network with up to 30 devices to any wireless access point that uses Wi-Fi. The utility is enormous: you could build a pseudo-mesh network by pairing cheap Wi-Fi APs with this cheap ($129) Wi-Fi bridge. Before this, the only generic Wi-Fi bridge was proprietary: you'd buy a bridge from Alvarion that paired with one of their hubs, and spend several hundred each. Even the dual-WAP11 bridge approach of last year was wonky and required extra gear (although it can handle more devices than 30 since it's a protocol bridge, not a MAC bridge). I review the WET at O'Reilly's wireless developer's site."
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Linksys WET11: Bridge 30 Devices To Any Wi-Fi Network More

Linksys WET11: Bridge 30 Devices To Any Wi-Fi Network

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  • Wireless ISP Uses (Score:4, Informative)

    by gabeman-o ( 325552 ) on Thursday September 12, 2002 @06:33AM (#4243660)
    I hang out at the WISP message board on broadbandreports.com ( http://www.dslreports.com/forum/dslalt ) and it seems that many WISPs are using these to connect customers to their wireless network. The WET11's antenna is detachable, so you can use an external one. It can also be configured to use POE (power over ethernet) by changing two jumpers.

    There have been some cool mods like:
    http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,4220 109~roo t=dslalt~mode=flat

    http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,4123612~r oo t=dslalt~mode=flat~start=0
    • There have been some cool mods like:

      http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,4220109~r oo t=dslalt~mode=flat
      http://www.dslreports.com/foru m/remark,4123612~roo t=dslalt~mode=flat~start=0

      I can't make out that tiny chip on the board. But the peltier circuit cooler seems like overkill. If that puppy turns out not to be a major heat source I'd try just putting the bare module in a NEMA enclosure by clamping the PCIA board to the inside of the enclosure gooped with a layer of heatsink compound. For any environment where the card would work in a laptop (like maybe anywhere but a desert, Antarctica, or inside a diesel-electric locomotive) this stunt should work in a NEMA.

      If dissipation on that chip is a problem I'd still try it but with a heatsink on that chip or a block of aluminum and two layers of heatsink compound between it and the enclosure.

      Now if there's something dissapative UNDER the card it's another matter. But in that case it would probably have trouble on your desk inside that plastic box.
  • There is lots of traffic that doesn't really belong on wireless networks. Isn't the transfer rate bad enough without unneeded traffic clogging up the airwaves? Also, how secure is this system, will this make networks easier to break in to?
    • These are two great questions.

      First, which kind of wireless networks doesn't it belong on? It might be a bad addition to certain topologies that lack redundancy or are already crowded or rely on community cooperation. But it's a great addition to many kinds of networks in which you're looking to span or create a loose, fake mesh (it doesn't have mesh routing protocols, but i wouldn't be surprised to see hacks when mesh routing becomes an open-source reality).

      Second, security is definitely an issue because you're beaming a ton of network traffic over the link. But because it's a client association session, someone can't just tune into your WET11 and monitor traffic; they have to get access to the AP that it's connecting to.
      • when mesh routing becomes an open-source reality

        There are a number of open source mesh protocol's
        Mobile Mesh is one

        someone can't just tune into your WET11 and monitor traffic

        Wrong. Using any number of free tool's from the net you can sniff 11b with little to no trouble. WEP is crackable in a few days. There are patch's but not many people even turn on WEP so it still a moot point. 11b is insecure: Period.
        Only running some kind of tunnel(VPN/SSH/Ect) is your data secure. People should assume that in the first place even on wired connection's.

        DS systems are, by nature, made to be open and easily accesed. FH is no hackable like DS is. You have to know the exact hop sequence, If you dont then forget about it. Not that it can't be done, just it hasn't been done.

        Do not forget that things like AP spoofing and AP tunneling are possible too.

        Crackers`n`Soup
        • But where are you sniffing? You can't associate with the WET11 and sit actively on the network. You could sniff traffic going by, but the WET11 is likely to be used in short-range point-to-point installations with some sort of antenna unless it's entirely within someone's home.

          I don't buy "WEP is crackable in a few days." That's a canard. It's absolutely crackable with sufficient data samples. From my reading and talking with security folks, home networks don't generate the amount of traffic necessary over short periods of time, like days, and corporate IT managers should be boiled alive if they're letting non-encrypted data pass over wireless links.

          So we agree!

  • ok (Score:2, Insightful)

    by papasui ( 567265 )
    why is this on the front page of slashdot? Yea its a useful consumer product but the review is lacking and the device is entry-level. It would be a much more interesting read if someone setup a linux (or any other OS) box with a wifi card in it and a wired nic that feeds a hub/switch and NAT'd a bridge. You could actually use the Linux box for some professional applications since Netfilter is now being used.

    • Re:ok (Score:5, Funny)

      by rnd() ( 118781 ) on Thursday September 12, 2002 @06:54AM (#4243718) Homepage
      and the device is entry-level

      You must be looking for Slashdot Pro. You can sign up for just $99/mo. You've reached Slashdot (lite) by mistake.

    • Re:ok (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      I don't think that you would want to use NAT, but instead use actual bridging, unless you want an overly complex network.

      I have done this, except using gigabit ethernet instead of wireless. Made for a cheap gigabit ethernet switch.

    • Re:ok (Score:3, Interesting)

      by liquidsin ( 398151 )
      It would be a much more interesting read if someone setup a linux (or any other OS) box with a wifi card in it and a wired nic that feeds a hub/switch and NAT'd a bridge.

      Go for it. Or wait for someone else to do it. In the mean time, I'll be thankful for the review because it's putting ideas, just like yours, into peoples heads as to what they can do with this new toy.

      • Re:ok (Score:2)

        by mcdade ( 89483 )
        And tell me exactly why that is intersting?? People have been doing this for a while, it's nothing new to use linux or freebsd to build a wireless bridge or AP, there are How-to's on this subject all over the net.

        The coolness about the WET is that it is small, a linux/freebsd box has a huge footprint even if you have laptop to use.. this thing is small and tight, and will work with POE (power over ethernet). Oh.. and lastly, it's cheap!! You could do a wireless bridge link now for under $500 with cables and antennas!
        • The desktop solution is cheap too:
          ~$130 for an old pentium system
          $78 for a Linksys WMP11 (amazon)
          $40 for some random PCI NIC
          Grand total: $248.

          I know I had the old machine and random NIC laying around so I just picked up the card and voila.

          Still though, can't argue with the footprint or POE. My wireless bridge machine has to live in a closet it's so big, and requires an extension cord going to the nearest outlet.
    • Because /. doesn't have a back page?

    • Re:ok (Score:2)

      by battjt ( 9342 )
      It would be a much more interesting read if someone setup a linux (or any other OS) box with a wifi card in it and a wired nic that feeds a hub/switch and NAT'd a bridge.

      I've been doing that, but this is much cooler. I can stick these in friends houses or in a box on a mast on a roof, etc. The PC in my mother in law's garage is not cool.

      I was trying to run Linux on an Orinoco RG1x00s, but have much difficulty. This will get the job done easier and cheaper.

      Joe
    • Actually, that wouldn't be much of a write-up. It's pretty quick:

      I'm using a Linksys WMP11 PCI card + Debian. I compiled a 2.4.18 kernel with bridging support and am running the wlan-ng drivers in ad-hoc mode. It transparently bridges all wireless connections with valid external IP addys to my DSL bridge via an Intel EtherExpress Pro 100 PCI card.

      (phoneline-dslrouter/bridge-hub-linux_wifi_bridg e)

      The bridging+firewall patch kernel panicked on my machine, and I didn't bother to debug it. Plenty of people have had success with it though. I also used the HostAP drivers for a bit, but they were a little spotty (upwards of 2% packet loss) with my configuration. The difference between adhoc and ap really doesn't matter with my config.

      I also used WEP for a while, but the Windows' Linksys helper app occasionally had trouble negotiating, so I rely on secure protocols for sensitive communication.

      The downside is that this isn't much cheaper than the dedicated hardware solutions, but then again, you aren't limited in the same ways either.

      If you want more info, post back. I'd be happy to provide all the quick'n'dirty setup details (kernel settings, wlan-ng settings, bridge config, scripts).
  • wonky Pronunciation Key (wngk)
    adj. Chiefly British wonkier, wonkiest
    Shaky; feeble.
    Wrong; awry.

    I had to look it up myself, but there you go. It really IS a word...

    • wonky is official jargon (Score:3, Interesting)

      by jukal ( 523582 )
      wonky [fortunella.uta.fi] /wong'kee/ adj.

      [from Australian slang] Yet another approximate synonym for broken. Specifically connotes a malfunction that produces behavior seen as crazy, humorous, or amusingly perverse. "That was the day the printer's font logic went wonky and everybody's listings came out in Tengwar." Also in `wonked out'. See funky, demented, bozotic.

    • How could you not known about wonky? I find the whole idea of not being familiar with that work absolutely wonky.
      I imagine you know what something does when it conks out, right?

  • Bridges (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    This is a good thing... we should be building bridges, not burning them.

  • By Walt Mossberg's substitute Nick Wingfield in his

    Personal Technology [wsj.com] column

  • Are these tough enough to put in an unventilated metal box on the side or roof of a building? Even on a cloudy day the temp inside my car is over 100 degrees F. Even though they are cheap, it would get pricy replacing them every month.
    • With a detatchable antenna, you can leave the box inside and just run a wire to the external antenna.

    • For what it's worth, I've had a WAP11 outside in a garden tool shed all summer. I live in the Sacramento valley and it's been 115 F. outside and probably 130 in the shed. It's worked fine.

      I've probably reduced it's lifespan, but if I get 1 year out of it, I've paid for DSL 3x or 4x over.

  • Weather-proof? (Score:4, Informative)

    by Quixote ( 154172 ) on Thursday September 12, 2002 @07:09AM (#4243751) Homepage Journal
    This does not appear to be ruggedized for outdoor installation, so I wonder how useful it'll be for bridging the 'last mile'.

    I have been looking for a WiFi bridge to help a friend get cablemodem access: the cable company will not lay the cable to his house (cost > $1K), and it is about 300' from the road. One possibility I am considering is to use a pair of WiFi APs to bridge the gap. But they need to be rugged, to withstand temperatures from -30F to +100F, and rain/snow. None of the cheapo units comes in a weatherproof enclosure. Anyone know of any? I've looked around. Of course, the cost can't be more than $200 or so (each); the .com days are gone. :-(

    • Motorola do a system called Canopy which is designed as a last mile solver. It's expensive, but is already fully ruggedised for outdoor use.

      • Canopy isn't that expensive compaired to most of the broadband fixed wireless solutions. It is designed to be mounted outdoors, but "ruggedised" is not a term I would use. There are no seals around the bottom half of the unit that pulls off to give you access to the RJ-45 jack. They just overlap the top of the unit by about a half inch. Also no seals around where the cable runs out of the bottom. The cable actually runs threw a circular hole half of which is in the two parts of the shell.

        Had to describe, but if you saw (felt) one in person, you would not be calling it rugged.

        On the other hand, the switch/GPS/power inserter that one would locate at a tower site is very nice. Fully water tight, seals around everything. Solid too.

        But that was the what Motorola intended, to try to make the subscriber units as cheap as possible, so it could be a viable solution on the price level of DSL and cable. Still it costs a little more, but the cost will hopefully fall over time.

    • Re:Weather-proof? It can be (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      I hope you view anonymous replies..

      We've had a pair of Linksys WAP11 access points mounted in waterproof plastic electrical enclosures on top of our chiller towers at work for about 18 months. These chiller towers release slightly acidic moisture that coats everything. I the winter they don't run much so the access points are exposed to everything a michigan winter can dish out.

      Open the phone book, find a local industrial electrical equipment supplier and pay them a visit. I think we paid around $30 ea for an approx 12x12x8" ABS enclosure with a thick rubber seal and stainless steel screws to hold the hinged door shut.

      I used homebrew power over cat5 to simplify wiring. Make sure to run all wiring out of the bottom of the box and use a product called marine goop to seal it. Never had a moisture or connectivity problem the whole time. We are using 24dBi grid antennas to span a 3/4 mile gap.

    • You expect something called "WET" to be weather proof?
    • Why not just run some cat5(e) yourself? It would certainly cost less than $400 and if you bought some high quality cable (or better yet run it through a conduit) weatherproofing wouldn't be a big deal.
    • If you can dig, do it. Run some cat5 or coax. Its cheap for both(I buy 1000ft spool's of cat5 for about $50 shipped) and i have had coax at $75 for a 1000ft spool(army surplus). Buy some conduit from HomeDepot or the like.

      Crackers`n`Soup
  • This may be a dumb question, but here goes...

    I know it's possible to steal (or borrow :) bandwidth from a wireless network, but is it possible to hack an otherwise closed network if the network is wireless? For instance, the CIA's network has no outside lines, making it unhackable unless you get in on an authorized terminal. Does that change if you used a wireless network? Could you hack the signal for information, not just bandwidth?

    • I suppose you could hack the signal but the main concern with most WiFi setups is if you actually do hack into a network (in some cases theres no security implemented at all) is that you are behind the firewall if you get in. This means you have full access to anything that local LAN useers have, most people (in homes) don't run much stuff on the LAN side so the general use is to get internet access. To secure a WiFi network you can do a number of things such as enable WEP encryption, turn off dhcp, only allow specific MAC address's to have access, change the ip ranges off the default, and to place your WAP in place that limits the range of its signal so it doesn't travel further than necessary. If someone wants to they can still gain access to a nework implementing those security measures but the idea is to make it so time consuming that the typical Wardriver won't bother. In my network scenario I actually segment my WiFi Lan from my wired by placing a linux box between them that directs all the traffic and blocks everything except the stuff I use my Wifi lan for (mainly webserving, email, etc.)
  • Great, 30+ devices sharing a cable/DSL connection. I can't wait to get the clockspeeds on that.

  • I bought one (Score:5, Informative)

    by DirkDaring ( 91233 ) on Thursday September 12, 2002 @07:13AM (#4243768)
    It's a great little unit. Been playing around with it for about a month. It can use an external antenna (RP-SMA connector) also. It's also 70mW, which helps out on the transmissions.

    There are a few current threads about the WET-11 for Wireless ISPs here:

    http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,4123612~r oo t=dslalt~mode=flat

    http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,3915738~r oo t=dslalt~mode=flat

    Dirk

  • Odd behavior from the WET11 (Score:5, Interesting)

    by JackAsh ( 80274 ) on Thursday September 12, 2002 @07:25AM (#4243790)
    I was one of the early customers for the Linksys WET11. My hope at the time I bought it was to be able to hook it up to my Xbox game console and use it to play Xbox games online while running Gamespy or or XBConnect on my primary PC, and therefore not have to run any unsightly ethernet from my entertainment center into my computer room (I rent an apartment, and the landlord would appreciate me returning it eventually without too many extra holes).

    Obviously, nothing is ever that simple. I discovered that the WET11 performs some wonky MAC addressing translations when forwarding packets. Seeing as Xbox System Link games depend entirely on ethernet addressing schemes, the WET11 proved to be useless for this - despite Linksys advertising it as a solution for Xbox gaming.

    Correct me if I'm wrong - something labelled as a "Network Bridge" should pass packets from one side of the bridge to the other unaltered, and simply keep a table of what addresses are on what side so as to pass packets when necessary between two broadcast segments. WET11 converts all MAC addresses on its "wired" network into it's own address. The reverse is different - it'll reassemble incoming wireless packets based on what I guess was their original IP source, and place the MAC address it replaced with its own back in the packet. Go figure why they go through all the trouble. Of course this behavior is undocumented, so this took several hours of packet sniffing (so blame me, I don't deal with Layer 2 issues every day).

    Now, Xbox Live is expected to work at the IP level, but that is'nt out until December. Existing System Link game like Halo only work on a local broadcast segment, using ethernet for addressing while sending out some horribly mangled non-RFC compliant ethernet packets that look like UDP but aren't.

    The ethernet mangling caused problems with Gamespy and XBConnect, but I was able to get in touch with the developer for XBConnect and over a nice weekend hacking session we were able to cobble together support for the WET11 in his program - essentially it now has the option to look for the MAC address of the WET11, and retranslate that to that of an Xbox. The funny bit is on the return path from a remote Xbox, it needs to again translate the address of the local Xbox back to a WET11 so your average Access Point knows who to retransmit your Xbox packets to. Every Xbox game needs to go through four translations: two on the WET11 and two on XBC.

    http://www.xbconnect.com

    http://www.apoxx.org/community/viewforum.php?f=1 3 - this is the forum for XBC. Look for anything in there labelled WET11.

    -Jack Ash
    • I received mine yesterday and was planning on using it to hook up my PS2 (once I manage to lay hands on a network adapter). Anyone using this with a PS2? Any problems? Go Loaf!

      • Re:Odd behavior from the WET11 (Score:1, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward
        I've been using a wet11 for my ps2 for a week with no problems. If you are using the default settings for your wireless network (no WEP, SSID of linksys) you shouldn't have to configure the wet11 at all. Good luck...
        • I've been using a wet11 for my ps2 for a week with no problems. If you are using the default settings for your wireless network (no WEP, SSID of linksys) you shouldn't have to configure the wet11 at all. Good luck.

          I've been looking at this, waiting to buy until Tribes Arial Assault comes out. I'd like to hear more detail: Did the network adapter setup go ok? How is the speed/latency? What's the form factor (or: can i hide it behind the TV so my wife won't get to annoyed?).

          The adaptor setup is the one I'm worried about, I've read here some people have had problems with this and the Xbox. If anybody has this setup and could elaborate I'd appreciate it.

      • Yep, I'm using it with my PS2 and a BEFW11S4 ver 2 router. No problems so far, but it only arrived yesterday. I haven't had to set up any sort of port forwarding to get the setup working with SOCOM. The voice chat works fine.

        A couple of minor notes. I haven't been able to properly set up WEP since none of my PS2 Linux browsers work very well with my routers setup page. I can't access the WET11's setup page at all.

        Internet speed seems about as fast as a direct connection of my PS2 to my cable modem. However it takes longer to connect to IRC servers than before.

        I bought the WET11 and my router with the express purpose of using them with my PS2.
    • Correct me if I'm wrong - something labelled as a "Network Bridge" should pass packets from one side of the bridge to the other unaltered, and simply keep a table of what addresses are on what side so as to pass packets when necessary between two broadcast segments.

      Close. A network bridge does not separate broadcast segments, but passes all broadcast packets through to all available interfaces.

      WET11 converts all MAC addresses on its "wired" network into it's own address. The reverse is different - it'll reassemble incoming wireless packets based on what I guess was their original IP source, and place the MAC address it replaced with its own back in the packet. Go figure why they go through all the trouble.

      Hmm. I don't know much about 802.11 but Part 2 is easy; it is a result of part 1. If the WAP didn't put the real destination MAC address back in, the real destination will ignore the packet unless it is promiscuous mode.

      The interesting question is why change the wired MAC addresses in the first place. I've loooked at the 802.11 header format, and it would appear the behavior you describe is standard. There is a "ToDS" flag bit, that if set means the packet is intended for an AP for forwarding. The standard then says that in this case the 802.11 destination address field should have the AP MAC address rather than the recipient.

      I think this may have something to do with ad hoc vs. infrastructure mode. In ad hoc mode, each wireless station talks to each other wireless station. In infrastructure mode the packets always pass through the WAP. Each of these modes have their advantages. For infrastructure mode to work, every packet transmitted by a wireless node needs to have the WAP's link address. Cards should not try to handle packets, even if they can see it and are the ultimate destination, because in this mode they are supposed to wait for the WAP to retransmit it with their MAC address in the destination field.

      Of course this issue is moot when we are talking about connecting wireless nodes to wired nodes, but the fact remains the WAP is going to ignore any wireless packets that aren't broadcasts or targetted to it's MAC.

      The behavior which you desire might be accomplished by setting up an ad hoc network, and putting a box on it with bridging software which talks to both the wireless and wired network. I wonder if a Linux box could be configured this way, using the Linux kernal's bridging features. It might not work since the wireless network is somewhat different from the wired, but it would be worth looking into if there were a need to do some protocol other than IP (note that WAPS can't be protocol agnostic like bridges can be because they have to do a network address to MAC address translation).
      • Re: "Broadcast segments" - You are absolutely correct sir. My mistake. I unfortuantely have a tendency to use the word "broadcast" when in reality I mean collision. Broadcasts should indeed be passed to all interfaces, and the WET11 handles this appropriately. What I originally meant was that I thought bridges were supposed to separate collision domains - packets would only be passed through the bridge if the destination address was on the other side.

        Re: behaviors: Indeed part 2 is a direct consequence of part 1. If you send packets out with a modified source MAC, the reply's destination will have to be that same modified MAC. However, I still fail to see why the WET11 needs to change MACs in the first place. D-Link has a device similar to the WET11 in function (sorry, don't know the name) that reportedly passes packets on transparently. From what I can tell, on my BEFW11S4 access point, the Wireless connector acts simply as a switched port. It keeps a table of attached MACs in order to minimize traffic effects.

        Personally, I suspect Linksys is using the MAC translation in order to allow more devices behind WET11s to connect to a single Access Point. I mean, imagine your accesspoint has an address table of 5 MACs (just a sample number for my point). A single WET11 is designed to have up to 30 devices behind it, so passing each one's MAC address would overload the Access Point and make it not work. However, if a single MAC is passed for the whole network the Access Point would be able to handle up to 150 devices with 5 WET11s! NOTE: This is pure conjecture on my part.

        I don't know if there's a difference between Infrastructure and Ad-Hoc modes. All I've worked with is Infrastructure, so I've no information on Ad-Hoc. However, Linksys has some documentation indicating that two WET11s, linked to each other in ad-hoc mode would allow XBoxes to communicate with each other, which might indicate no MAC changes in ad-hoc...

        The way I see it, the WET11 should act as a pure bridge, and simply keep tabs on which MACs are on which side of the bridge and forward accordingly, and of course transparently. This would also allow the WET11 to forward protocols other than IP - one of the objectives you suggest...

        I guess what I'm saying is if you're gonna build and market a Network Bridge, make it just a BRIDGE, dammit. :)

        -Jack Ash
        • linksys probably did it that way (amongst other reasons) for home broadband connections that keep track of the mac addresses that it allows on the network (mine allows only 3).

          but i agree, you wanna call it a bridge, make it a bridge. ;^)


        • Personally, I suspect Linksys is using the MAC translation in order to allow more devices behind WET11s to connect to a single Access Point.

          I don't beleive your supposition is correct.

          My reading of the link frame layout is that WAPs are supposed to act this way in Infrastructure mode. The problem is you are thinking of this from the point of view of what happens when a packet is sent from wirelessland to wiredland. Think instead of what happens when a packet is sent from one wireless point to another one in Infrastructure Mode.

          When a card sees it's MAC address in the link level address, should it process the packet? Yes. When a card sends a packet to another card on the same wireless network, should it put the destination card's address in the link address? In ad hoc mode, yes, in infrastructure mode no. Why? Becuase in infrastructure mode every packet passes through the WAP even if it can initially be seen by its ultimate destination. So it's next destination is the WAP and the WAP's MAC address belongs in the link address field.

          Again, I don't know much about 802.11, but it seems to me that it is the card that knows it is associated with a particular access point (remember, cards can roam between access points). I'm not sure, but I think cards will determine which access point handles the packet by putting the WAP's address in the link address (according to the spec). Infrastructure mode is fundamentally different from ethernet with respect to link addressing and thus bridging in the ethernet sense is impossible IIRC.

          Now, what you want to do should be possible using a bridge with and ethernet interface and a wireless interface, with the wireless network working in ad hoc mode. However, spanning trees don't converge fast enough to allow roaming.
  • I, too, wonder just how compatible the WET11 will be, and whether it is actually a good low-cost CPE.

    (I haven't played with a WET11 yet. I realize WET11 and WAP11 v1.1, 2.x are different products by different companies. I realize your O'Reilly review didn't suggest it would be good CPE, but others are suggesting that.)

    I'd hoped you would compare and contrast with the WAP11 "access point client" mode. I think APC mode showed that handling multiple MACs from a single end-point would seem to be a function of the AP, not the remote equipment. For example, using WAP11 APC mode with a Cisco AP-352 would let you ping the WAP11, but nothing behind. I cloned the MAC with a Linksys BEFSR41 NAT router/fw, and presto, it would pass all traffic. Then I tried connecting a second WAP11/BEF pair to that Cisco AP, and the Cisco would reboot every time the second one associated! Cisco really doesn't want you to bridge this way. It seems deliberate, too - earlier Cisco/Aironet bridges don't do this. Do the WET11 docs explain exactly what it's doing?

    Someone on a dslforum thread on WET11 at
    http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,3915738 ~roo t=dslalt~mode=flat
    said it only passes a single MAC to the remote network. Isn't that bending the definition of "bridge"? If true, won't this cause trouble in some environments?

    I'm so tired of companies bending definitions, stretching standards, and inventing terminology, followed by weeks and months of the user community discovering these errors and miscommunications through failure and tech support calls, when a few simple paragraphs in the docs in the most precise 7-layer and networking terminology would make it clear what a product does and doesn't do.

    With the WET11, it does seem like companies are evolving towards what I agree would be a better CPE solution: something like a WET, but why not with an integrated NAT / firewall like the $80 Linksys boxes?

    Better yet, combo with the VPN abilities of the BEFVP41 and BEFSX41. Hardware VPN encryption as needed, forget WEP, NAT/fw when you need it.

    I've been using these at my WISP and it's working great so far: customers get VPN between remote sites (at full wireless speed when they stay on my network) plus NAT to protect their local network when on the Internet, and administratively, the VP41 and SX41 can use syslogd for logging.
    • said it only passes a single MAC to the remote network. Isn't that bending the definition of "bridge"? If true, won't this cause trouble in some environments?

      I think the author of the O'Reilly article isn't really a network engineer, since he uses some terms very loosely. WAPS are not bridges in the ethernet sense at all, they provide a different set of functions which are tailored to specific wireless needs. One significant difference is that WAPS are not protocol agnostic, since they have to do network address to wired MAC translation.
  • From the review:
    Instead of buying two dedicated pieces of equipment (albeit they're only about $99 each), you need to buy just a single $129 device.

    Ok, so once I have my single $129 WET11, what wireless device will it be connecting to? Wouldn't I still need to buy a $99 access point? And if I'm buying a $99 access point already, why wouldn't I just buy another one that can do more than bridge and save myself $30?

    • I'm sure this sounds confusing. If you're already running a wireless network or setting one up, you need at least one AP running infrastructure mode. If you wanted to add a WAP11-based bridge, you had to add TWO WAP11s--one for each side of the bridge. You cannot run a WAP11 as an AP and a bridge; it's essentially too separate modes. Many, many people wrote me asking why they couldn't associate to the WAP11 as an AP and have it bridge, and I said, ask the firmware makers.

      So the WET11 reduces your equipment needs and also allows you to go generic: you don't need a Linksys on the other side.
    • One of the uses of this product would be connecting a network printer to your network WITHOUT wiring.. It basically allows you to connect any device with ethernet already installed on it to a wireless network. Transparent to the device. Pretty handy, if you ask me.

  • Perfect! (Score:2)

    by PD ( 9577 )
    This would be perfect with the Big microwave tower bunkers [slashdot.org] mentioned last night. If there was one of these in microwave towers across the country we could build our own national wireless network.

  • What am I missing? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by FreeLinux ( 555387 ) on Thursday September 12, 2002 @08:25AM (#4244053)
    Ok, the price is pretty cheap. No argument from me there. But, I still can't see the "technical greatness" of this device. Symbol, Cisco and probably Lucent have always had bridges capable of both bridging and AP mode at the same time.

    Also, they can all be configured to talk with each other so, I don't understand the proprietary reference. Sure, Symbol et al don't speak Cisco's enhanced WEP but, the Cisco can be configured to use standard WEP so it will speak with the others.

    So, besides cost, whats so special about this device? Something else that I am missing is the power output of the Linksys bridge. What is it? Historically, the cheaper Linksys Wi-Fi products have had a lower power output that the others. Is this also true here or does this latest Linksys bridge put out the full 100 milliwatts, as the others do?
    • In the v2.2 WAP11, the specifications call for 100mW power output, but in actual testing, this number is shown to be 50-75mW. This is however still an improvement over the 1.1 WAP11, which was only able to transmit at 25-50mW.

      The part that makes me wonder what the big deal is, the new firmware releases, and particularly the 2.2 version of the Linksys WAP11 is, there is an access point client mode on them. It works very well. Does anyone know if the AP will act as a client to non-linksys AP's?

    • Re:What am I missing? (Score:3, Informative)

      by eggboard ( 315140 )
      We're talking two issues here: cheap and simple. I don't think the average consumer would spend $1,300 to get the wireless bridge + AP that the Cisco gear would cost, and I don't think the average consumer could figure out how to configure it!

      The WET11 is pretty straightforward, just as hard as hooking up a client to an AP, and it's dirt cheap.
  • My Wet11 works beautifully with my 3Com Audrey webpad - I can browse the web using this totally proprietary machine without having to stretch a wire from my kitchen counter, where it's nice to have web access, to my bedroom where my cable jack is.
    I think the device is mainly intended to wirelessly connect devices on which it's not possible to load and configure 802.11 drivers - printers, scanners, webpads, etc.
    The price difference is not great compared to the latest routers from linksys, which feature bridging, but it's much smaller. I was thinking it would be neat to velcro it to the back of whatever you're using it with.
    • Why WET11 to wireless enable the Audrey? Would USB to WiFi bridge work? Last time I checked the Audrey hack FAQs nobody had any info on this so I presume you're doing Audrey -> USB NIC -> WET11. Would be cool to get an Audrey to talk straight to a USB bridge.
      • I don't think one of the USB 802.11 devices would work because you still have to configure it from the device your attaching it to - SSID, etc. The Wet11 you can configure from another PC on the network. And yes, I'm doing Audrey -> USB NIC -> WET11.
  • Perhaps because it's early in the morning....
    but how is bridging a wired to wireless network some kind of 'new' thing?
    isn't this what an access point usually does?

    I know it's what my linksys AP does...

    Wouldn't this work equally well in linux or *BSD if you turn on bridging between, say, eth0 and wlan0?

    • OKay.
      Now I get it.

      Beneath all the hype... they are pushing this as a way to connect devices that can't normally take wireless cards.

      So it's not necessarily even a bridge. It just does some funky layer-2 stuff and the net effect is that it is like your normally wired device has a wireless card.

      You could do this with access points, it's just cheaper.

      So really the only new thing here is that it's cheap and tiny.

    • Re:I'm confused. (Score:3, Informative)

      by eggboard ( 315140 )
      Actually, an AP bridges from wired to wireless. The WET11 can take a pod of up to 30 wired machines (or rather, machines attached to a single Ethernet segment) and bridge all of their traffic to ANOTHER access point. The WET11 is a wired-to-wireless bridge that hooks into a wireless-to-wired bridge.

      Put 30 machines in a room on one side of the San Francisco Bay, plug in a WET11, point an antenna to an AP on the other side, and presto: you're running a large (very latent) Ethernet network.
      • Device > Wire > Hub/Switch > Wire > AP > 'air' > AP > Wire > Hub/Switch > Wire > Device. This is how AP's work as bridges,and no, I will assure you you cannot hook up 30 of these. Maybe I am just biased having worked at Symbol in their lab testing these, before the flood of cheap, apparently can't do two things at once wireless devices came out. You get what you pay for. ftp://symstore.longisland.com/symstore/pdf/downloa ds/Spec24hr_ap4111.pdf Read up on WLAP mode, Wireless, Repeater and Ethernet Bridge.

      • Re:I'm confused. (Score:3, Informative)

        by Gumber ( 17306 )
        What's missing from this explanation is consideration of the WAP11 which can also bridge a wired segment wirelessly to another wired segment via another WAP11.

        The problem is that neither WAP11 can serve wireless clients at the same time. With one of these in place of one of the WAP11s, the WAP11 can both link individual wireless client machines AND bridge to the remote wired segment served by the WET11.

  • WAP11 (Score:3, Informative)

    by NetJunkie ( 56134 ) <`jason.nash' `at' `gmail.com'> on Thursday September 12, 2002 @08:45AM (#4244171)
    If you are using WAP11 APs already it is actually cheaper to buy another WAP11 and put it in "client access mode". That's what I did. The WET11s were going for $130 *IF* you could find one, but the WAP11s were going for $105 shipped from buy.com.

    I just bought another WAP11 and put it behind my home theater, set up bridging mode, and plugged in a hub. Works great with my Rio Receiver, XBox, PS2, etc.... So, it was cheaper and can be used as a full AP later if needed.
  • I read the articlet his time, and I'm STILL confused.

    How is this different than the myriad of AP's out there?

    Even my little linksys (no, I don't mean the NAT features).... if I use the builtin switch, and some wireless devices, I end up with one layer 2 network that works just fine.. what am I missing here?
    • For one, this will bridge with ANY AP. Your little AP will not. Yours will only bridge with another AP of the same type. This bridges with anything. For two, this bridge passes MAC address (30 I believe).

      Dirk
  • This is actually a product I was looking for years ago. I only heard about it's release last week though. It would have been useful to me before last weekend but I found a cheaper solution to do pretty much the same thing.

    I moved into a new place a couple of weeks ago. At my old house, my LAN was half wired and half wireless. I had wired certain rooms before 802.11b was around but then after it appeared, I stopped running new cables when I would move a PC into another room or add a PC to my LAN.

    Now that I've moved, I no longer have a cable running to my old Blue & White G3 or my old beat up linux box. Adding 802.11b network cards to an old mac and an old non-USB pentium pro proved to be a little more expensive and complicated than I had expected. So I went looking for a WET 11 with no luck last weekend. Apparently retail shops haven't had a chance to get them stocked yet.

    What I did end up with was a returned Belkin access point. I only ran me $70 and I was able to set up my Linksys WAP11 as a bridge. I'm having a few problems getting encryption to work right now but otherwise it works great. For now I've locked stuff down by MAC address which is probably just as good considering how easy WEP is to break.
  • I've been using the WET11 for a couple weeks now and it's working much better. I recently moved into an apartment that has wireless ISP. I contacted Linksys before this product came out and they told me to purchase thier BEFW11S4. But oncei received it it didn't work. I called them back and they said that "No, that won't work for what you need." And even though I purchased it from them, they won't give me my money back..

    But anyways, this product is working GREAT for me. I like linksys in general. But good luck getting ahold of a live person when you call!
    • This is why you pay by credit card. If they sell you something under false pretenses (it helps to have it documented), and refuse to take responsibility, dispute the charge.
  • Whats the difference between this and hooking up an access point for point to point or point to multipoint?
  • So I'm working on a new police technology vehicle in which I was going to setup a wired/wireless network throughout the car. The laptop would have a wired connection to the trunk into a wired/wireless router. If I want to be able to hit my wireless network in the apartment when I get near the apartment would I need 2 of these bridges? 1 to sit in the apartment on the wireless broadband router and one plugged into the router in the trunk?

  • This article was full of more 'you coulds' and not ANY 'I dids'. Had he ever thought that the 'costly' versions of access points have actual stress tests ran on them in bridging mode, that there are limits on how many nodes for a reason (actual processing power inside the access points). All any access point does is acts as a bridge. It is a wireless bridge between wired and wireless devices. Anyone who has access points has them wired into a switch to begin with if they have muliple devices. Ad-hoc mode was designed for connecting two actual clients together, never for connecting access points together. Just looking at the configuration screen and seeing that you can only change the channel when in ad-hoc mode made me feel like they had no clue what the hell they were doing. This product is not an AP. APs work with IPX, Netbeui, IP, etc.. already, what the hell is this protocol independence crap he is saying they don't do. Get a clue, go buy a real access point (Symbol, Cisco, Lucent) or even better just go to their sites and RTFM before posting a less-than-Tech TV worthy 'review' and submitting yourself to slashdot.

    Tommorrow on slashdot! Wireless Bridge powered by Tesla Coil made from Legos reviewed by a sourceforge AI rolling broom!
    • You know a lot of the terminology, but I'm having trouble believing you read the article or looked at what the product does.

      The WET11 can be used for a single device (hence the ad hoc mode option) or to bridge up to 30 devices to an AP wirelessly.

      If you've got a bunch of wired devices plugged into a switch and want to connect to another wired network somewhere else that already has an AP attached, you can use this to bridge those devices onto the other network.

      Very simple idea, very simple product. Most of what you're complaining isn't something the article does.

  • I run a WISP that covers four counties. I've seen the spectrum analyzer output on the '100mw hack' for the WAP11 - 31mw in channel, 69mw of crap spattered all over 2300MHz - 2550MHz. I don't doubt the WET11 will be the same high quality product :-(

    Use it for what its meant to do and don't try to run it outdoors any further than across a parking lot.

    • Uhm.. you're complaining about an unsupported hack? A bad one at that, nobody should be putting the WAP11's at 100mW anymore. It's not tweaked to run at 100mW and of course it's going to splatter all over the band.

      http://www.maokhian.com/wireless/wap11.html
  • This may be obvious to some people, but I've had a whole pot of coffee this morning, and my brain is running past concepts too fast to actually figure anything out.

    Is this doing anything special with the access point to make this work? I'm in the process of reconfiguring my wireless network at home because I have a need now to have wireless access to my internal network from a bridged lan, instead of the current setup which has the hub in a DMZ.

    Right now its basically Linksys firewall/gateway onto a DMZ network, through a locked down linux box to the internal network, so I use SSH to get to internal boxes, and a couple services are accessed via SSL links using port forwarding. The wireless hub is in that network, so I have to SSH to internal boxes, which is fine because I don't use the wireless for anything but surfing 99% of the time.

    In my new house, however, I need to bridge two different seperated internal networks, because its turned out to be a huge mess to try to run ethernet cables between my second floor office and the devices on the first floor that don't support wireless (Tivo, WebPlayers, Rio Players, etc). My plan had been to use FreeSWAN to run an IPSEC VLAN between the two subnets, so all the boxes in the office sit behind a wireless gateway, connected through the firewall thats plugged into the access point downstairs, to get access to the internal network on the first floor.

    So my question, related to this article, is this... Would a box like this be easier to use, or would it be better to just find a linux-compatible PCI wireless card and pop it in whatever box is running the IPSEC tunnels upstairs? Has anyone seen any write ups of building a network with this sort of topology? (I'm wondering about any gotchas I'm not thinking of right now...)

    This would be a lot easier if the joists between floors in my condo weren't two sandwiched 2x12's, preventing any possibility of running wires between floors through the walls...

  • This thing runs linux. So it must be better.

    Linux based Access Point [instant802.com]

  • It can be difficult to find websites pertaining to your local area sometimes. Just letting everything know about http://www.azwardriving.com [azwardriving.com] , if you're local to Arizona you might be interested.
  • I used to work at a PDA dev shop that used 802.11a, and when people complain on various forums about the WAPs, the underlying problem isn't the WAP, it's the cards in your laptop/computer. Get ones based on the Orinoco, they may cost slightly more, but their range, performance, and speed were far superior to the, for example, Linksys PCMCIA cards.
  • i got one of these, and the problem i had was getting the WEP to work on it. i have it bridged to a linksys wap 11, but could not get security to work on it.. so i have an unsecure wireless ap now... good thing i live in Nowhere.

    otherwise, it works well with my replayTV and PS2

    • I had the same problem, until I booted into linux, did iwconfig and found the 10 digit key for my 64-bit WEP network. I skipped the password section of the setup, pasted in the 10 digit WEP key I glommed from linux and viola! WEP on the Linksys.
  • Alvarion (formerly BreezeCom) equipment: in particular their BreezeNet/BreezeAccess bridge units mentioned in the article are not proprietary devices. They are 802.11 FHSS devices, and as such they do not operate with 802.11b DSSS devices. Granted, they have extra non-standards-compliant features on them such as RADIUS authentication, but these will simply be disabled if they are talking to a non-alvarion AP.

    Frequency Hopping is still a very good way to go onto unlicensed 2.4GHz bands for the last mile from carrier-grade ISP's and the business WAN's that do not want to worry as much about interference from consumer-grade DSSS equipment.

    Honestly, have none of you out there actually tried (ie failed) to DEPLOY any 802.11b for WAN in a densley packed downtown area? I mean, you can't even do it. 3 non-overlapping channels makes it hard enough to deploy it for seamless roaming in a two story building! You can get about 26 concurrent cells in FHSS without significant problems.
  • This thing has been getting mentioned in the various video game magazines for months now. And if you read the Linksys page for this product you'll see what market it's intended for.

    Say you've got broadband in your den and your Playstation 2 (with Network Adapter) is in the living room. Your PS2 obviously can't accept or configure a traditional wireless card. That's where the WET11 comes in. I bet these little suckers will sell like hotcakes once "consumer device" owners learn about them. They came along at the right time too, with SOCOM and the PS2 NA being released. The price isn't too bad either.

    I'm using one with my PS2 myself, along with a BEFW11S4 ver 2 router.

  • I'm surprised no one's compared these products. The DWL-900P+ [dlink.com] does the same thing as the WET11, but includes 256-bit WEP and it uses the new TI 802.11b chip that can do 22 Mbps. It's only $115, too (retail).

    I just bought two of them so that I could share the DSL line with my upstairs neighbor. (I hadn't heard about the WET11 when I bought the D-Links.)

  • Before this, the only generic Wi-Fi bridge was proprietary ...

    I've had two 3Com Wireless LAN Workgroup Bridges [3com.com] connected to my Linksys AP for about 8 months now. The only difference I see is that the Linksys product is quite a bit cheaper.
  • http://www.cisco.com/warp/public/cc/pd/witc/ao350a p/prodlit/a350b_ds.htm
  • Has anyone had any experience (good or bad) with Linksys 5GHz wireless access points?

    They advertise up to 72Mbps turbo mode (with other Linksys 5GHz only .
    They even have a Dual Band WAP that has both 5GHz and 2.4GHz Bands and is Wi-Fi and Wi-Fi5 Compatibility with 802.11a and 802.11b Technology. WAP51AB [linksys.com] WAP54A [linksys.com]

  • Doh, almost missed this headline. Anyways, I modded the WET11 to use USB power. It actually works quite well. At full transmit power consumption hovered around 490mA at 5V, just squeezing under the USB max. Haven't had a chance to put a how-to up yet, but it's quite easy. If you want to get in touch with me just reply to this thread. WET11 is pretty alright :)
    • Very cool! Would you mind posting this (and a few pics if possible) over at DSLReports? We would love to see them!

      http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,4408776~r oo t=dslalt~mode=flat

      Dirk
    • Hey, I'd love to hear how you do that. I use the wet11 do hook up my 3COM Audrey to the net and I'm annoyed by the big extra power adapter I have to squeeze behind my bread box... sounds very cool
      chrism@idealab.com
  • While some will say that the WET is so cool.. it esstinally is a WAP11 stuck in client ap mode. Wait.. my wap11 does client AP mode. OK.. so the WET
    must be much cheaper since my WAP11 will do all other forms of bridging and I could turn it into a regular AP later if i needed to. So wets are cheaper.. uhh NOPE.. WET is listed at $129. I just picked up a new WEP11 at frys for $99. So while you may have a point about RF strength, the WAP gives me
    2 antennees.. It looks like the WET has priced it self out of the usefullness. Linksys marketing should not get their asses kicked by their own products. Rather they should sell the WET at half the WAP11 and then its starts to look like a deal.
    Until the WET is $40 Ill continue to buy WAP11's
    • No, the WET11 can handle up to 30 devices and bridge them to any access point. The WAP11, when turned into client mode, replicates a single MAC address as a single-device bridge. If you've figured out how to bridge multiple devices with a WAP11 to any access point, call the newspapers!

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