[CALUG] asus wifi

[Walt Smith]

hi all, 

to recap,  I have an Asus wifi I'd like to  connect to
a Fedora-12 PC.  I use a dialup connection normally,
but there is an open wifi close by I'd like to use occassionally.
In all the following, correct me where necessary.

I'm keeping the present firmware on the ASUS.  Aside, I see the
firmware is GPL code, but I'm not installing the software by the
name dd-wrt.  A little research shows that DD-WRT apparently
has other features such as being able to telnet or ssh into the router.

The ASUS WL-520-GC has a WAN, 4-LANS and antenna.
It's apparently a router, not a switch.

I'm not connecting the WAN.  I want to connect a desktop to the LAN
and let the antenna go elsewhere.  I can solidly connect to the ASUS
using the LAN over eth1 using both ifconfig/route, and 
System-Config-Manager.  (A little more education sems to have
removed  Previous Problems ).  I see that I'm not supposed to use
any wlanX or ethx with wireless extensions.  Looking at those
briefly merely confused the issue.
The Asus has a web page setup on 192.168.1.1

problems:

The Asus seems to have found one station.  And it sticks.
Refresh doesn't change anything.   This is the part I'm not
sure about.  Need to prove the RF is working.

By comparison, use of a linksys wifi card on a XP laptop has confused
things.  For example, I can see about 10 systems.  Of those, I often
get 4 or so "open" that have low signal strength, so they "come and go";
they have different SSID names. However,
they each have a different IP  at 192, but each has the same MAC
number ( or physical number ).  This I do not understand.

Using XP software ( not linksys ), I also cannot tell which channel 
each connect over.  The setup I believe is "auto".  I wanted the 
channel numbers most used so I could set the Asus.  Setting the ASUS 
to one channel allowed it to find one signal.  Curiously enough,
the XP laptop see's the ASUS as a signal: sig strength is max, it goes
away when I disconnect the ASUS power, but again, the Physical Number
of the ASUS seems to be the same.. UNLESS the physcial number is the
number of my linksys card ?  I've been unable to find a Windows
control-panel or other status to find the XP linksys mac number.

To something more specific, if I get a channel to another wifi,
I see the wifi addresses may be 192.168.1.x or 192.168.2.x.
I assume that I can see the IP number of the foreign wifi.
IF it's a 192.168.1.2 or such and my ASUS is 192.168.1.1, it looks
like a peculiar routing problem.  OTOH, on number that shows up
( as IP as well as GW, and DNS server ) is 192.168.2.x.  THis
looks OK as I should be able to setup a route: 

ifconfig eth1 192.168.1.10   ( this adds route 192.168.1.0 automatically)
route add eth1 192.168.1.1 gw 192.168.1.10
route add eth1 192.168.2.5 gw 192.168.1.1 (Asus)
route add eth1 default 192.168.2.5

( fix precise syntax ).

So there a are 2 problems:
Controlling a wifi connection on the ASUS to another wifi.
getting the packets to flow correctly.

Am I getting close ?


Walt.......