How to know if Wifi USB stick support Server and Client mode?

torontob

Hi Everyone,

I am not sure if I am using the right term or not but I understand that a wifi USB dongle can be used in either client mode where it connects to a wireless router and obtains IP or it can itself act as a Wireless access point where other clients can connect to it.

That is what I am looking to achieve with a Cisco WUSB54GC ver.3.

What commands can I run to check if the this USB dongle support both modes mentioned above?

Thanks

cmb

It's generally chipset and hence driver-specific, so just look up the driver your card uses here.
http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi

For AP, you're looking for hostap. They all support infrastructure mode (what you're referring to as "client"). If hostap isn't listed in the driver's man page it's not supported, likely because the hardware doesn't support it.

wallabybob

@torontob:

That is what I am looking to achieve with a Cisco WUSB54GC ver.3.

Do you know what chipset is used in this stick? Or the pfSense driver? My source suggests its probably a Ralink chipset supported by the FreeBSD run driver in which case Access Point would be supported.

torontob

Thanks CMB and Wallybob.

So, I checked and I have a Ralink RT2070L chipset. I am not sure how the man page search works as it didn't return neither of WUSB54GC version 3 or RT2070L even though it's supported in pfSense 2.0.

To get things straight, "Hostap" is for acting as a wireless router and that is when you put Infrastructure mode in pfSense wireless tab?

Thanks

jimp

This sheet we maintain is also a good point of reference:

https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AojFUXcbH0ROdHgwYkFHbkRUdV9hVWljVWl5SXkxbFE&hl=en

Searching on the "cards supported by drivers" tab shows that chip should be supported by the run(4) driver, which supports hostap.

Search the forum for more on that driver. I seem to recall some people were getting panics when trying to use that driver with certain chips.

wallabybob

@torontob:

To get things straight, "Hostap" is for acting as a wireless router and that is when you put Infrastructure mode in pfSense wireless tab?

On a pfSense wireless interface, configure Mode as

Access Point if you want it to behave as an access point
Infrastructure if you want to use something else as an access point