Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

sindi · Joined: 16 Aug 2009 Posts: 186

How do I set up Puppy 4.31 on a laptop with pcmcia wireless card
to connect with my neighbor's wireless signal and then transmit
it via wired ethernet to a hub? We want to share the signal since
we keep different hours anyway and AT&T keeps raising the price.
I have done this in basiclinux (which would work in much less
RAM - under 10MB console mode), but basiclinux (circa 2001)
does not have drivers for the cardbus wireless cards and I
need cardbus or USB for WPA support (and greater range).
I have a nice 200MHz laptop (with erratic LCD screen) and
enough memory for Puppy, and two others that will take 96MB
to run Pulp, (one of which only boots from floppy drive the
other with keyboard problems but this is all irrelevant for
a bridge). The neighbor is diagonally across the street and
I can put the laptop in the front window of an empty apartment
next door then run an ethernet cable to my apartment.

In basiclinux

ifconfig eth0 192.168.1.1 on gateway (with wireless card)
ifconfig eth0 192.168.1.2 on client (plugged into hub)
route add default gw 192.168.1.1 on client
echo "1" > /proc/sys/net/ip_forward

This sets things up for the gateway to forward to the client.

Is there a simpler way to do this with puppy linux?

This would save the cost of a bridge and make use of
an otherwise not very useful laptop.

sindi · Joined: 16 Aug 2009 Posts: 186

There are other postings about this.
I got it working fine with Basiclinux as gateway
and Puppy as client. Edit /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_forward to read 1 instead of 0 on the gateway.
My method uses ipchains as firewall but puppy does not have ipchains.
My neighbor can probably set his
router to connect only to his and
my IP numbers and MAC addresses for
added security instead.

This HP N5415 onboard wired ethernet
works with Basiclinux not Puppy linux - why?
Dead PCMCIA so I cannot use it as gateway except
with USB wired and wireless cards
(and a USB hub - they are too close)

tempestuous · Joined: 10 Jun 2005 Posts: 4944 Location: Australia

gcmartin · Joined: 14 Oct 2005 Posts: 2640 Location: Earth

Got an idea. What type of ATT router is your neighbor using. What type of ATT router did you have before you got rid of them? Maybe a way to utilize thiem to accomplish your objective wihout have to use the electricity to run your laptops. Might save a little more money.