In reply to your PM (which is probably the least appropriate use of a PM I've ever seen), you should use words that seem relevant (for instance, "stable" or "scale").  You may have to do multiple searches to find relevant threads, trying different words.

You should keep the use of PMs for things that shouldn't be posted in the forum.  Asking simple questions can certainly be done in the forum, that's what it's for.

@wallabybob:

Sorry I didn't spell it out. My configuration in an earlier post in this topic is configured as an access point and acts as an access point.

Not all wireless LAN NICs that are supported by FreeBSD (and pfSense) are supported as access points. The Atheros PCI chipsets supported by the ath drivers are supported in infrastructure mode (uses an external access point) and "access point" mode.

That's cool, preferably I would like a wireless NIC to be configured as a AP - I didn't think that would have to be configured but it makes total sense.  Prior to my first post I new I had to get a Atheros PCI chipset and that's the plan.  I just need to figure out which NIC is most effective for my home.  I've been doing some searching but I'm not doing so well :P….  wireless PCI NIC with a Atheros chipset that supports being an AP and can handle decent amount of load + have good range!

Adam

You can't just stick an antenna on and expect to get 500m of effective range, even outdoors with clear LoS. If you're lucky and have good visibility across your site you might manage with poor signal at 1mbps, but I'm doubtful. Antennas work by focusing the energy more - it becomes a more directional signal. 'Omnidirectional' antennas really aren't - they attempt to focus the energy into a plane instead of radiating in all directions, but they only gets you so far (not very). You can't just up the power due to FCC regulations (or your local radiotelecom regulator). What might work for you is using several radios at the same location, each with sector antennas to each cover a portion of the radius.

I would suggest that you contract a local wireless consultant to come take a look at your site and figure out a plan that will work for you and your particular site. Getting what you seem to need working is definitely non-trivial and probably not doable with a single radio/AP. It would also be a good idea to make sure you don't run afoul of any telecom regulations, as there are some complications when you get into high gain antennas and multiple colocated radios.

but I can't understand why there is no option for WAN acting as a wireless client with options to choose which access points to connect to

The way you tell pfSense which access point to connect to is to give pfSense the wireless parameters used by the Access Point: SSID, wireless channel, encryption type, standard (802.11b, 802.11g, etc), etc

Your access point may "hide" some of these parameters by having a set of defaults. That configuration technique works OK until you need to have multiple access points or your close-by neighbour uses the same access point in default configuration.

@waiwai:

Multiple Radio APs  share the same SSID would really share the load?

It depends.

@waiwai:

or just using AP build-in function WDS (Wireless Distribution System)?

Nope, WDS is a totally different journey and not what you need!

I get the impression you know alot about engines or gear-boxes but your car is still missing tires and such.
Get some professional service frm your area to solve your needs, really!

I have run into a similar problem. In order to have the LAN be available on two ports, I have bridged LAN and OPT1 (Referred to as LAN2). However I can only access external FTP servers from a machine connected to LAN, but not from LAN2, I have tried with the FTP helper both enabled and disabled, in either case FTP doesn't work.

Does anybody know if there's a problem with bridged interfaces and the FTP helper?

You could either create a diff and send it to someone on the core team, or create a git clone and submit the changes for review. You would just need to add an interface for the mac: commands and maybe have the wireless status also show the list mac output.

Okay… lesson learned!

I'm by far no expert so I figured it could be bad to put a rule such as: ******

It works with the two rules:

protocol: UDP,
source: any,
sourceport: 68
destination: any
destination port: 67

and

What is the best option? the pass all only rule or the set of two rules?

thank you very much!

Thank you ipfftw:

what model of wireless airlink101 you used?

Ok, thank you :)
i hope so it will be all these stuff available in near future :)

Reboot. You can clear protocol stats by netstat -z -I ath0 (or whatever interface name you have), but this will not clear input/output errors.

It is not normal for it to rotate. Sound like you have the wrong connectors for that cable. Most connectors are cable specific.

pfSense is built on FreeBSD which providse the device drivers. The FreeBSD supported hardware list at http://www.freebsd.org/releases/7.1R/hardware.html doesn't list the Realtek 8185L as a supported device. You will probably need to get another device, preferably one thats on the FreeBSD supported device list.

If you want to use the pfSense box as a wireless access point you will need to choose a device with access mode support (not all supported wireless devices support operating in access mode).

I often have this problem too - it seems to have gone away once I specified the pfsense box's IP in the DHCP server section as the default gateway and DNS server.  It should pass that through by default but I've noticed it doesn't always.  My SSH connections are fast again for the time being.

You can set lan as 192.168.1.1 and wifi as 192.168.2.1.  Then in the Firewall Rule of LAN interface set rule to allow your wifi subnet to access only to the IP of samba shares on the LAN.

Set your netgear AP into routing mode (NOT NAT mode).
Also create a static route on the pfSense for the 192.168.1.1/24 subnet pointing to the 192.168.0.5 IP.

No sooner than when the underlying version of FreeBSD does ;)