3 ms·
Makes me excited to try &nsee how far AP mode can go these days. After running 802.11n OpenWRT on cheap-ish routers for many years (Netgear WGT634U), I started
by rektide 4y ago
Makes me excited to try &nsee how far AP mode can go these days.
After running 802.11n OpenWRT on cheap-ish routers for many years (Netgear WGT634U), I started wanting to just run Debian, and was trying a bunch of different Alfa adapters. Supposedly really good chipsets & most would go into AP mode but some had quite frank limits (realtek would reject clients after the 7th), or reset semi-regularly even with really really well conditioned usb hub power. I spent probably 3 years trying to make it work & accepting some truly forsakenly bad wifi before finally going back & buying a netgear r7800 for AP.
There's a lot more chipsets these days & it might be worth exploring again. The appeal of being able to add passable wifi APs via usb remains alluring to me. And alas the pcie addin market is also not well suited here either... there's only sparse & expensive exotic gear seemingly targetting APs, like Compex cards.
- Denatonium 4y agoIntel cards in particular will flat out refuse to work in AP mode on the 5GHz band due to a poorly implemented regulatory domain check. On the other hand, my generic AliExpress Mediatek MT7612U works in AP mode. If I recall, it was passable, but it didn't perform that well compared to my dedicated AP; I think it was the range that wasn't as good (probably had something to do with my antennas). I also didn't test it with a lot of clients.
- flotzam 4y agoIntel's Location Aware Regulatory sucks, but: "when LAR actually works, the real issue isn't LAR, but rather hostapd not scanning before setting up the AP." "after some trial and error, I was able to get [patched] hostapd to start in the 5GHz band on an Intel [AX210] card with LAR enabled" https://tildearrow.org/?p=post&month=7&year=2022&item=lar https://tildearrow.org/?p=post&month=7&year=2022&item=lar