Re: Stable wireless home router?

John Navas <spamfilter0@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> hath wroth:

On Thu, 29 Jun 2006 14:16:39 -0700, Jeff Liebermann
<jeffl@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in
<i0g8a2d1scbf3g8amioicro16o436rrv85@xxxxxxx>:

You might also seriously consider using an ethernet router and a
wireless access point as seperate boxes. The main point of failure
inside conglomerated wireless routers seems to be (my guess) the
router section. Get a superior router/firwall (e.g. Cisco PIX) and
probably any old wireless access point (or wireless router using just
the access point section) will work just fine.

I'm not so sure -- I've seen a fair number of access point failures due
to such things as ARP table overflow.

Ummmm.... Wireless access points don't have ARP tables. There's no
need to map the MAC address to an IP address since wireless access
points don't know anything about IP addresses.

However, you're correct. The learned bridge table (MAC address to
network port mapping) is a potential problem. Most cheezy bottom of
the line access points can only handle perhaps 32 MAC addresses total.
That's normally not a problem with home access points, but gets messy
with corporate LAN's and public hot spots. Even 256 MAC addresses
became a problem at a hot spot because of all the transient wireless
devices that would drift by, grab a slot in the learned bridge table,
never move any traffic, and drive away into the sunset. I had to hack
the firmware (DD-WRT) to violate some RFC and expire the bridging
table (and ARP table) earlier than usual.

Very few cheapo bridges support STP (spanning tree protocol) which is
another potential problem. (I'm not sure I understand exactly what
can go wrong, so I'll avoid trying to explain something I don't
understand).

Also, the buffer located between the ethernet port and the wireless
port can overflow.

--
Jeff Liebermann jeffl@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558
.

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