Need help setting up a WAP on a D-Link DWL-G510 (rev B) on Edgy Eft

[Jérôme Loisel]

Hello everyone,

I have a small home server that manages the local network and is connected to 
the internet. A few months ago, I bought an Atheros-based D-Link card, the 
DWL-G510. (Ubuntu reports it as a "D-Link AirPlus G DWL-G510 Wireless" based 
on an "AR5005G 802.11abg NIC".) I was running Fedora at that time and hoped I 
could set up a Wireless Access Point with the card. It did not work.

I just switched to Ubuntu because I had read that Ubuntu had "out-of-the-box" 
support for this card (through Madwifi-ng, which Fedora does not ship). 
However, I have not had more luck than with Fedora so far. I read quite a 
bit, did some web searches, but it still does not work. Here is the relevant 
part of my attempt at a /etc/network/interfaces file.

"""
auto ath0
iface ath0 inet manual
  wireless-mode master
  wireless-channel 11
  wireless-essid Gendo
  wireless-key 0t0906

auto br0
iface br0 inet static
  address 192.168.1.1
  network 192.168.1.0
  netmask 255.255.255.0
  broadcast 192.168.1.255
  gateway 192.168.1.1
  bridge_ports eth1 ath0
"""

This gets me as far as I got with Fedora: I now have a working bridge that 
includes a non-working ath0. ath0 only comes up in "managed" mode, not master 
mode. In my last tests, I took ath0 out of the bridge to see if I could make 
it come up on its own. I couldn't.

"""
root at gendo:~# iwconfig ath0 essid Gendo
root at gendo:~# iwconfig ath0 mode managed
root at gendo:~# iwconfig ath0
ath0      IEEE 802.11b  ESSID:"Gendo"  
          Mode:Managed  Frequency:2.462 GHz  Access Point: Not-Associated   
          Bit Rate:0 kb/s   Tx-Power:0 dBm   Sensitivity=0/3  
          Retry:off   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
          Encryption key:off
          Power Management:off
          Link Quality=0/94  Signal level=-95 dBm  Noise level=-95 dBm
          Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
          Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:0   Missed beacon:0

root at gendo:~# iwconfig mode master
Error : unrecognised wireless request "master"
root at gendo:~# iwconfig ath0
ath0      IEEE 802.11b  ESSID:"Gendo"  
          Mode:Managed  Frequency:2.462 GHz  Access Point: Not-Associated   
          Bit Rate:0 kb/s   Tx-Power:0 dBm   Sensitivity=0/3  
          Retry:off   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
          Encryption key:off
          Power Management:off
          Link Quality=0/94  Signal level=-95 dBm  Noise level=-95 dBm
          Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
          Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:0   Missed beacon:0
"""

With the madwifi-ng drivers (that Edgy Eft ships with, if I understand 
correctly), the madwifi web-page recommend using wlanconfig to set up access 
points, not iwconfig. However, I do not have wlanconfig installed and cannot 
find it in a package.

Can anyone help me? I need something relatively simple, and detailed 
instructions will not be wasted, especially if compilation is required, but I 
am willing to make tests and report results here.

Thanks very much in advance.

Jerome Loisel
-- 
Jérôme Loisel
http://www.loisel.org/jerome/