[lug] WAP support in latest kernel

[Jonathan Corbet]

Michael J. Hammel <mjhammel at graphics-muse.org> wrote:

> I was talking with Jon Corbet last week and he mentioned that the
> upcoming 2.6.14 was supposed to include support for making a Linux box a
> wireless access point.  I might have misunderstood what that meant, but
> does anyone have any background on that?  Does that mean I'll be able to
> hook a wireless client directly into the Linux server without buying a
> Linksys box to go between them?

What got merged in 2.6.14 is the hostap code:
http://hostap.epitest.fi/.  It works mostly with Prism chipsets, but is
being made more generic over time.  From the web page:

	Intersil's station firmware for Prism2 chipset supports a so
	called Host AP mode in which the firmware takes care of time
	critical tasks like beacon sending and frame acknowledging, but
	leaves other management tasks to host computer driver.

In the end, if you have the right hardware, you can do without the
access point and let the Linux box handle that task.

jon

Jonathan Corbet
Executive editor, LWN.net
corbet at lwn.net