Re: [gentoo-user] Atheros kernel driver and my wireless access point setup

[Grant <emailgrant@gmail.com>]

>>> Leave INTERFACES blank. As you keep the networks seperated, hostapd does
>>> not
>>> depend on any other devices.
>>> wlan0 is initialized by hostapd. So you are good to go.
>>> The accesspoint itself, so to say the wlan part does not have any IP
>>> adress,
>>> at it is merely a connectionpoint for normal wlan systems. The IP adress
>>> to
>>> your device however is defined by the other nics. In your case eth1.
>>>
>>
>> I don't have eth1 set up yet.  For now I just want eth0 on the WAN and
>> wlan0 on the LAN.  eth0 dhcp's from my ISP, but I need to specify a
>> local IP address for my LAN somewhere right?
>>
>>
>
> wlan0 in master mode does _not_ have an IP adress. So far eth0 is the only
> ip adress your device has.
> If you do not spezify a local ip adress on eth1, you will not have any local
> ip adress.

I'm very confused.  I've been running wlan0 in master mode for about 3
years with IP 192.168.0.1 and no eth1.  Here was my entire
/etc/conf.d/net:

config_eth0=( "dhcp" )
mode_wlan0=( "master" )
essid_wlan0=( "networkname" )
channel_wlan0=( "11" )
config_wlan0=( "192.168.0.1 broadcast 192.168.0.255 netmask 255.255.255.0" )

All I'm trying to do is switch wireless drivers from madwifi-ng to the
in-kernel ath5k.  With madwifi-ng, I started net.wlan0, started
hostapd, and started shorewall and everything worked perfectly.  Now
with ath5k, net.wlan0 won't start in master mode.  This causes 2
problems:

1. I can't specify a local IP for wlan0 in /etc/conf.d/net like I've
been doing for years.
2. shorewall checks whether or not net.wlan0 has started because wlan0
is the only device in zone loc, so shorewall won't start.

So I'm required to have an eth1 because I'm switching from madwifi-ng
to ath5k?  That doesn't seem right.

>>> For the shorewall business, you have to tell, what you want to do with
>>> shorewall exactely.
>>> I dare say you have a wlan zone as your AP and a loc zone with eth1. As i
>>> am
>>> using bridging i can not tell you if and how shorewall responds.
>>> But if you want to keep eth1 an wlan0 seperate, what so you need
>>> shorewall
>>> for?
>>>
>>
>> Since the AP system is also the router, I use shorewall for NAT, port
>> closing, port forwarding, and packet shaping.  shorewall gives an
>> empty loc zone error if I don't have net.wlan0 started because wlan0
>> is the only loc interface.
>>
>> - Grant
>>
>>
>
> You can let shorewall depend on hostapd, so your shorewall starts after
> hostapd and your wlan0.
> Check the "depend()" section in shorewalls rc-script.

I'm confused here too.  shorewall seems to be checking whether or not
net.wlan0 has started, not whether the wlan0 interface is up.  Trying
to start shorewall after hostapd has started results in the same error
described above because net.wlan0 hasn't been started.

- Grant