network

this is a chronological account of my personal networks. the latest is first and the oldest at last. included are wireless bridges and a variety of antennas. enjoy.

february 2006

game over. i gave up on struggling with openbsd's wi(4) driver for my prism 2.5 card with the rp-sma connector. so i tore down the pole, the antenna, the cabling, and halted the box. want any of this crap or have a solution to my problems i posted on misc@? let me know.

january 2006

pictures to show off my wiring

this is at my mom's house, since i stole the ups, switch, and openbsd box.

december 2005

the plan

this is at my apartment in bozeman, mt. i didn't want to pay for internet, so i decided to use some wifi gear to borrow some internet from MSU (specifically the EPS building), which is about two blocks away from my front door. i erected a 20 foot pole on my landing with a directional antenna atop the pole. unfortunately, i can't get a good signal from MSU. for the time being, i'm connected to a sorority. the antenna is run from a bsd box running openbsd and pf. this does some nat into a switch, where my roommate and i tap in. the main problem i'm having right now is that there are three APs with a linksys nwid, and since openbsd's wi(4) doesn't support bssid selection, my router will jump between the linksys access points, disconnecting me from any sessions.

i still would like to connect to MSU's wifi access (massive bandwidth, and they are on internet2), so i'm gonna try to add another 10 feet to the pole to help me clear some trees. if this doesn't work, i may invest in a better antenna or an amplifier. comments and suggestions are welcome.

insane pictures

december 2003

the logical topology

                           /----------\
                           | crisco-1 |
                           \----------/
                                | |
   /-----------------\     /----------\      /-----------\
   | allisfulloflove |-----| crisco-0 | -----| remmus_jr |
   \-----------------/     \----------/      \-----------/
                                | 
cable       /--------\     /--------\        /--------\
============| wingie |-----| switch |--------| oliver |
256/64kbps  \--------/     \--------/        \--------/
                            /
                           /
                          /
                         /
                 /--------\              % % %  % % }
                 | remmus |   ((     % %  %   %     |
                 \--------/  ((    %              /-----------\
                        \   (                     | gyroscope |
                         \{ ( 802.11b             \-----------/
                            (
                             ((
                              ((

the devices

wingie - 10.6.1.1/8

cisco 806 router this router runs nat, some acl rules, ntp, and other protocols i occasionally play around with. here is the config!

remmus - 10.6.1.3/8

openbsd 3.4 (i386) this is my home server. it runs dhcp, dns, ntp, www, and some shell accounts. it is very stable and a lot of fun. it also has a prism2 pci card under host-ap mode to provide 802.11b access to my house. here are the configs.

crisco-0 - 10.6.1.6/8

cisco catalyst 3100 the first switch in the second room, it connects the 10/100 switch to allisfulloflove (10basetx), remmus_jr (10basetx), and crisco-1 (etherchannel 2x10basetx).

crisco-1 - 10.6.1.7/8

cisco catalyst 3100 the second switch in the second room, it connects to crisco-0 (etherchannel 2x10basetx), and it has every other port open for guests (beastie, hindsight, et cetera.)

picture archive

february 2003

the “nutwerk” picture archive

november 2002

the wireless lan project

wlw-wireless - 10.6.1.2/8
d-link dwl-900ap+
this used to be a large part of our network. in october of 2002, we successfully connected my house to d.c.'s house via a wireless link. we both had tin cans as our antennas. i was using a d-link access point, with a reverse sma pigtail, to connect to a homemade cantenna. 900 feet away, d.c. had the same setup on his roof. we had a solid 2mbps connection between our houses. we had multiplayer doom (and counter-strike) games, internet sharing, and file sharing running fine.

i upgraded my antenna to a 12dbi omni-directional antenna. i also built a glass box (insulated) to weather-proof my access point. the ap survived (and was fully functional) during -20°f temperatures. d.c. upgraded to a directional antenna, and d.p. bought a 24dbi directional antenna. unfortunately, due to excessive tree growth between my house and d.p.'s house, we could never make a solid connection. we have since sold most of the equipment (a large portion to d.b.), but this project may return someday.

map

this is a map of billings heights, centered on my house (1109 babcock, red star.) david currie's house is the blue star, dan peterson's house is the yellow star, matt adams' house is the green star, and mike schuld's house is the purple star.

picture archive