Edimax EW-7318USG as Access Point?

Edimax EW-7318USG as Access Point?

[Jon Fairbairn]

I'm looking for a USB dongle with an external antenna that
will serve both as an access point on my home router (an old
IBM PC running linux off a CF card), and as a WPA capable
station for my IBM X30 laptop when not at home. The Edimax
EW-7318USG looks promising, but the wiki at
<http://wireless.kernel.org/en/users/Drivers> has but a
qualified yes under AP for the rt73usb driver.

Before I buy one, please can someone give me an idea of what
yes[footnote: under development] means? Is it an optimistic
version of "no[footnote: under development]", or a
pessimistic version of "yes, it works barring a minor hitch
or two"? I'm not averse to building kernel modules, possibly
applying experimental patches, but I don't want to keep
having to do that for years, and if it doesn't work at all
now, I'd rather wait for further developments before
choosing (maybe a different dongle is more likely to work?).

The other side of the issue is WPA: the airo card on the
laptop works OK with WEP, but there doesn't seem to be any
prospect of WPA on that, unless I mis-googled.

--=20
J=C3=B3n Fairbairn                                 Jon.Fairbairn@cl.cam=
=2Eac.uk

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rt73usb Access point status

[Jon Fairbairn]

Since no one responded to my previous post, I thought maybe
the subject line wasn't attractive enough...

On the wiki at <http://wireless.kernel.org/en/users/Drivers>
in the AP column it says "yes" with a footnote to the effect that
it's "in development".  Please can someone clarify this for me?

Can I reasonably expect to get an AP going with a usb dongle
that requires this driver? Building the latest patched
version of the driver is fine, but modifying the driver code
would be beyond my (present) capabilities.

If someone can say what "in development" means, I can modify
the text of the wiki to reflect this.

--=20
J=C3=B3n Fairbairn                                 Jon.Fairbairn@cl.cam=
=2Eac.uk


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Re: rt73usb Access point status

[Luis Correia]

Hi,

On Thu, Apr 30, 2009 at 10:39, Jon Fairbairn <jon.fairbairn@cl.cam.ac.u=
k> wrote:
>
> Since no one responded to my previous post, I thought maybe
> the subject line wasn't attractive enough...
>
> On the wiki at <http://wireless.kernel.org/en/users/Drivers>
> in the AP column it says "yes" with a footnote to the effect that
> it's "in development". =A0Please can someone clarify this for me?
>
> Can I reasonably expect to get an AP going with a usb dongle
> that requires this driver? Building the latest patched
> version of the driver is fine, but modifying the driver code
> would be beyond my (present) capabilities.

Yes, you would manage to get it going without major hassles, but as
always YMMV...

I know that the Portuguese Classmate-PC clone, Magalh=E3es, has a
rt73usb and the guys have managed to get it going with a 2.6.27 kernel
+ hostapd. I can ask for specifics if you need.

> If someone can say what "in development" means, I can modify
> the text of the wiki to reflect this.

It may be a description about an older status :)

> --
> J=F3n Fairbairn =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0=
 =A0 =A0 Jon.Fairbairn@cl.cam.ac.uk
>

Luis Correia
rt2x00 project admin
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Re: rt73usb Access point status

[Luis Correia]

Jon,

got the specifics.

On Thu, Apr 30, 2009 at 10:51, Luis Correia <luis.f.correia@gmail.com> =
wrote:
> Hi,
>
> On Thu, Apr 30, 2009 at 10:39, Jon Fairbairn <jon.fairbairn@cl.cam.ac=
=2Euk> wrote:
>>
>> Since no one responded to my previous post, I thought maybe
>> the subject line wasn't attractive enough...
>>
>> On the wiki at <http://wireless.kernel.org/en/users/Drivers>
>> in the AP column it says "yes" with a footnote to the effect that
>> it's "in development". =A0Please can someone clarify this for me?
>>
>> Can I reasonably expect to get an AP going with a usb dongle
>> that requires this driver? Building the latest patched
>> version of the driver is fine, but modifying the driver code
>> would be beyond my (present) capabilities.
>
> Yes, you would manage to get it going without major hassles, but as
> always YMMV...
>
> I know that the Portuguese Classmate-PC clone, Magalh=E3es, has a
> rt73usb and the guys have managed to get it going with a 2.6.27 kerne=
l
> + hostapd. I can ask for specifics if you need.

The solution they have found is not optimal, b ut works in their scenar=
io.

You will need to modify hostapd, according to this blog post:
http://eznemegy.blog.hu/2008/12/14/using_rt2x00_wireless_driver_with_ho=
stapd

HTH

>> --
>> J=F3n Fairbairn =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =
=A0 =A0 =A0 Jon.Fairbairn@cl.cam.ac.uk

Luis Correia
rt2x00 project admin
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Re: rt73usb Access point status

[Johannes Berg]

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> The solution they have found is not optimal, b ut works in their scenario.
> 
> You will need to modify hostapd, according to this blog post:
> http://eznemegy.blog.hu/2008/12/14/using_rt2x00_wireless_driver_with_hostapd

Based on that information, I have removed the "Yes (under development)"
note from the driver page since it doesn't really support it... In fact,
I'm surprised it works even with that hack since hostapd usually polls
the station with nullfunc frames and waits for an ack.

johannes

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Re: rt73usb Access point status

[Christoph .J Thompson]

On Thu, 30 Apr 2009 12:05:10 +0200
Johannes Berg <johannes@sipsolutions.net> wrote:
> 
> > The solution they have found is not optimal, b ut works in their scenario.
> > 
> > You will need to modify hostapd, according to this blog post:
> > http://eznemegy.blog.hu/2008/12/14/using_rt2x00_wireless_driver_with_hostapd
>
> Based on that information, I have removed the "Yes (under development)"
> note from the driver page since it doesn't really support it... In fact,
> I'm surprised it works even with that hack since hostapd usually polls
> the station with nullfunc frames and waits for an ack.
> 
> johannes
> 

Another success story with this hack:

I've been using the very same USB dongle Jon is speaking about with a patched hostapd on my AP for over 2 months and so far I didn't have any problems whatsoever with it. WPA2 works fine too. I'm using stock Linux 2.6.29.2 and hostapd 0.6.9 patched. The client machine is never far away from the AP (so that limits possible problems) and it's also running stock Linux 2.6.29.2. The client's wireless card is an ath5k.

-- 
Christoph .J Thompson <cjsthompson@gmail.com>