Is it possible to set up PFsense (stable or beta) as a WLAN aksesspoint?
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Hey,
Is it possible to set up PFsense (stable or beta) to provide a WLAN acesspoint, given that it access to a wireless connection? For my application it would be running inside VMware and accessing the hosts WLAN card.
If yes - where should I look for more info? PFsense has so many menus and options thats its easy to get a little confused :)
I haven't quite decided on wether to use the beta or the stable release yet - wichever has best support for this (if any) may decide it for me.
-Stigma
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That depends on your wireless card. pfSense supports a lot of wireless cards, but there are many more that it does not support. Knowing the chipset on the card would help. Even then, there are a lot of cards that will work as clients but not as access points.
There is a bit of info on the doc wiki (see the link in my sig) as well as the wireless subforum here, and of course in the book.
You're probably better off using 1.2.3 unless you really need a feature in 2.0-beta2, such as support for a newer card.
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Thanks - il give it a good read. I havent actually purchased the hardware I plan to run pfsense on yet. im just testing with an old PC right now to get to know the software and see how it works in practise so I can plan ahead better.
I don't quite understand why the chipset would matter though - when run in VMware, dosn't the virtualization layer make it so that the software inside of VMware never interacts directly with it anyway? Im probably just not well enough educated into virtualization yet … ;) I'l read the links you suggested.
-Stigma
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I don't quite understand why the chipset would matter though - when run in VMware, dosn't the virtualization layer make it so that the software inside of VMware never interacts directly with it anyway? Im probably just not well enough educated into virtualization yet … ;) I'l read the links you suggested.
If pfSense controls the wireless LAN card then pfSense needs to have a driver for that type of card (or the chipset on the card) and thats why the chipset on the wireless card is important - pfSense includes drivers for only a SUBSET of known wireless cards. If you try to use any old wireless LAN card you are likely to run into one of the following problems:
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The card is not supported by pfSense.
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The card is supported by pfSense BUT pfSense doesn't support using the card in access point mode.
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I read around and found some nice guides to how to set up a WLAN, but im missing a list of supported WLAN chipsets - is there such a thing? It would be nice to know in advance which cards will probably work with PFsense before I buy.
-Stigma
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pfSense 1.2.3 is based on FreeBSD 7.2 which provides the operating system including device drivers. See http://www.freebsd.org/releases/7.2R/hardware.html for list of supported devices including wireless chipsets. The corresponding information for pfSense 2.0 BETA (based on FreeBSD 8.0) is at http://www.freebsd.org/releases/8.0R/hardware.html
