Hi everyone,
First off, you will need a few bits of hardware. I'll put everything for a small, cheap wlan in the first group, and then, for a more sophisticated setup, that's easier to maintain, in the second group:
[All hardware can be bought from Miro (www.miro.co.za) in Montague Gardens].
<b>Cheap Option:</b>(At the start of our wireless lan we used this, but it quickly became to much of a hassle to administer, and set up, so we moved over to the other option):
<i>In Central Location (all clients must have line of sight to this):</i>
* Access Point in central location (Senao Access Point works great)
* Omni-directional antenna (8dB's - the 15dB ones are VERY big).
* LMR 400 cable to connect the two don't go for more than 10m's)
Things to keep in mind: The access point shouldn't be placed outside - mount the omni antenna outside, with the LMR400 cable running to the Access Point inside. The access point has one Rj-45 connector for connection to an ADSL modem, or server if you want a more advanced setup.
<i>At Clients</i>
* You will need an antenna (flatpanel or yagi works for small < 1km distances, otherwise go for a parabolic dish (40 or 60cm) with 2.4Ghz feed.
* PCI wireless adapter to go to client's pc
* Cable to connect antenna / dish with (Again, max of about 10m's).
This is by far the cheapest solution to get a few guys on a wireless network, the total cost of the Access Point side would be about R2000, and a client should end up at about R1400.
The problem with this implimentation is that sometimes the computer is more than a few (max 10) metres away from the antenna on the roof. Or you want to actually limit the traffic over the wireless (be it internet or p2p traffic) going through the access point. Or perhaps you want to connect your wireless to another one?
This is were option 2 comes in to play.
<b>More expensive (but better) option:</b>
<i>Access Point Side</i>
* Omni directional antenna
* Instead of an Access Point, buy a standard Atheros (or Prism, but I prefer the Atheros chipset) PCI adapter.
* Old Pentium II or Celeron PC with 64MB ram, and 200MB hard drive.
* MikroTik router OS (www.mikrotik.com) - Level 5 License (about R600)
* Cable to connect the Omni Antenna with the PCI card in the PC.
The MikroTik router will actually put the Wireless Adapter card in "access point" mode. This will allow you to control EVERY function and to set up things very specifically. You can also have multiple adapters in the PC, both as access points and bridges. MikroTik even has a Windows-based administration tool, so to set it up for basic use shouldn't be much of a problem.
For those of you familiar with Cisco routers, the MikroTik-PC can do about everything you can with one of those, plus a LOT more.
If you don't want to use a PC, you can buy a "MikroTik Router board" from Miro, with a level 5 license included. But it's a little more expensive, and you don't really gain anything.
<i>Client Side</i>
* Instead of using a PCI adapter in the client's computer, buy a cheap access point with external antenna socket (about R920 incl.)
* Again, get a antenna (yagi, flatpanel or dish).
* Connect the two together with as short a cable as possible.
* Now run normal ethernet cabling to the client's computer, from the access point (You configure the access point to run in Client mode).
This installation is much easier, and if there are more than one computer at the client's premises, the ethernet cable can go into a hub/switch, and be connected to all the PC's involved.
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As far as the hardware go, that is it.
Just remember that you always have to make sure that the adapter or access point you buy, has an external antenna socket.
Also, some of the cheaper pci adapters on the market, only transmit at about 25mW while the senao cards do between 100 - 200 mW.
The standard connectors are as follows:
Senao Access Point: Reverse Polarity TNC
PCI Adapter: Reverse Polarity SMA
All Antenna's and LNB's: N-Type connectors
Miro will also crimp cables to your specifications, so just ask them to make sure the cable will fit both you products.
You will also notice that I mentioned the use of LMR400 cable. There are actually two common types of wireless cabling:
<b>LMR195:</b>
Thin cable, quite a signifigant signal loss if used for more than 3m's.
SMA plugs and n-types will fit on these cable.
<b>LMR400:</b>
Thick (almost military style) cable.
Will work for up to 10 - 12m's.
A bit more expensive than LMR195 (about R30/m).
TNC and N-Types will fit on these cables.
For any other combination of connectors, you will need a "pigtail" (Ex. You have a LMR400 with N-Type connectors running from an antenna, use a pigtail to convert this to a Reverse Polarity SMA).
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As far as installation go, that's it.
To set up the networking part, you will have to have a basic knowledge of TCP/IP:
If you don't want to share an Internet connection over your wireless link, the setup is easy. Just give everyone on the wireless an IP address in the same subnet.
For example, make the IPs:
192.168.20.1 -> 192.168.20.254
And SUBNET:
255.255.255.0
Or, if you want to be fancy, and your access point supports this (The MikroTik router DEFINATELY does):
Use DHCP to automatically give each person on your network an IP address. Set up the DHCP pool to give addresses from 192.168.20.1 -> 192.168.20.254 with subnet of 255.255.255.0.
To share internet becomes a tad more difficult:
You will also start off by giving everyone on your network an IP address.
Also give an address in this range to your ADSL router.
Now, you also need to set everyone on the network's GATEWAY and DNS to point to the ip of the ADSL router (if the ADSL router's IP is 192.168.20.5).
Then you will set up each client:
IP (between 192.168.20.1 -> 192.168.20.254 (excluding .5).
Subnet MASK: 255.255.255.0
Gateway: 192.168.20.5
DNS: 192.168.20.5
If you have an internal ADSL modem, just share the connection with Internet Connection Sharing and then enter YOUR computer's IP address as the gateway and DNS of other pc's on the network.
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If someone has a network running, and has some more advanced questions, I'll try to answer them instead of cluttering this basic explanation with unnecessary details.
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Just a brief note of what can be done (my setup currently):
A MikroTik router with 3 Wireless Adapters and one LAN Adapter.
The LAN adapter is connected to a mail and web server.
Two of the wireless adapters function as access points for clients.
The other one links our wireless to another WISP's wireless for international bandwidth.
A few clients are distributed between the two AP's.
Two of them have Access Points at their premises (with omni antenna's), thus bridging the connection to allow further clients to connect to them.
We also have an ADSL connection and all local traffic is routed through it, with all international traffic and incoming connections coming in on our static IP with our Wireless Internet Service Provider.
We also run an Asterisk PABX server (Linux Based) so that people with IP telephones can phone each other on our network free of charge. We also have some dial out capabilities, and the ability to charge users for the total time spent dialing out through our telkom line - thus eliminating the need for a telkom line at your premises.
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If you have any questions, let me know.
I'd hope to have a few linkups to our network some time in the future.
Greetings,
Solar
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