[lug] Dumb Wireless Networking Questions

[Nate Duehr]

That Wake-on-LAN thing is intriquing... trying to think up ideas for that
one.  Ntp client rocks too.

The Wake-on-LAN -- can you trigger a WOL from an incoming port... like have
the internal machine turned OFF until someone tries to access it and the
router wakes it up?  That's kinda neat if it's a lightly used machine that
you just access once in a while or a desktop machine that you forgot to copy
a file off of or something... or is it only a manually triggerable event by
logging into the router?  It'd be nice not to leave the desktop machines on
all the time at home "just in case" I need into them.

This might be the first REAL application of WOL I have ever "needed"!
(GRIN)  So far to me it always seemed to be a technology looking for an
application.

I'm glad you posted about this gadget to the list... I hadn't realized USR
was making access points!

As a side-question to the group (and I'm sorry this isn't really a Linux
question), I'm wondering how many of the latest crop of Access Points have
Linksys' feature where you can set one of their AP's to be a full "client"
of an existing wireless network and it will then serve IP's out via the
ETHERNET port... allowing you to "wire" a room by adding an AP.  And who's
AP's interoperate in this mode.

I *love* this feature... this is how I get connectivity to my garage...
Linksys AP out there connects to the existing wireless LAN in the house and
I end up with a wired Ethernet jack out there that looks like it's on the
internal LAN.  However this is NOT bridging mode... it's logging in on the
wireless side like it was a regular CLIENT machine and then doing NAT for
the machines on the Ethernet port.

As another "for everyone's info" piece of information -- I found this
weekend that Mac OSX has this feature built in also.  A Mac running OSX can
connect to a wireless LAN (if it's equipped with an Airport card) and bridge
machines or "share" its network connection out its internal Ethernet port.
Very cool.  Haven't hooked a machine/hub/switch up to the Mac yet, but I
enabled the feature.

(Oh it also has a full firewall involved in this process also, configurable
with a GUI that appears to work correctly.)

I'm having fun playing with OSX... gorgeous GUI and full Unix/command-line
support under the hood.  Very cool.

Nate Duehr, nate at natetech.com

> The next cool one is ntp support.  It set its time from a server.  I don't
> think it serves time, but maybe the next firmware update...
>
> There are other cool things.  It can send wake-on-LAN signals to a
machine;
> it can send syslog messages, it can filter packets (incoming and
> outgoing).