[buug] Regarding wireless access points

[Aleksandr Melentiev]

Hi Claude,

I am a volunteer for San Francisco Wireless running my own public 
wireless node in the city. Everything you have said is pretty much 
correct. Wireless APs (at least most of them) have their own MAC 
addresses, on some you can even change the MAC via web config. So it 
should be no problem registering the MAC address with the IT department 
and plugging it in the rj-45 jack. If you are concerned with security 
beyond what the university offers, APs have their own security settings 
including MAC address filtering and etc.
There are some nice APs available, but having in mind your budget issues 
I would recommend Netgear, 802.11g would be the way to go since "b" will 
  die more or less soon, but intercompatibility between the two is not a 
big issue either.

There are some good resources you can get yourself familiar with:
http://www.sfwireless.net
http://www.personaltelco.net

By the way, you can home-build your own AP if you have some old 
Unix/Linux box available and a wireless card, can be cheaper and much 
more versatile configuration.

Alex

Claude Rubinson wrote:
> I'm wanting to add a wireless access point to our office and I want to
> make sure that my understanding is correct (I'm realizing that my
> understanding of networking is pretty much negligible -- enough to get
> a small home network set up, nothing more).
> 
> Here's the deal: my university provides DHCP access to the network,
> authenticated by MAC address.  You register your machine with IT and
> then you can plug in anywhere on campus.  I assume that this is a
> fairly common setup.
> 
> My cohort all share a single office (there are ten of us but it's a
> big office -- used to be a classroom -- so it's not bad) with a single
> ethernet jack.  Can I simply plug a wireless hub into the ethernet
> jack and bring wireless access to the entire office (and, hopefully,
> the department)?  Or is it more complicated than that?
> 
> And, assuming that I can simply connect a wireless hub to the ethernet
> jack, I'm thinking that I don't need to worry about security since the
> campus network will still be authenticating the individual clients by
> MAC address.  That is, I wouldn't be opening any security holes in the
> campus network.  Correct?  Or no?
> 
> Finally, assuming that all of the above is correct, can someone
> recommend a wireless access point (802.11b or g).  Cheaper is better
> as I'm living on a student's stipend once again.
> 
> Or if I'm completely off the mark, can someone recommend some decent
> reference material so that I can bring myself up to speed?
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Claude
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