Wireless Access Point Vs Wireless Card

[7h3kk1d]

What would you advice for a home network. If you had a smoothwall router like the one darren built would you put wifi into it or buy a wireless N router and hook it up as a wireless access point? any other ideas post below.

[Infiltrator]

What would you advice for a home network. If you had a smoothwall router like the one darren built would you put wifi into it or buy a wireless N router and hook it up as a wireless access point? any other ideas post below.

For security reasons I would rather connect a wireless AP to Smoothwall instead of turning it into a hotspot.

Secondly, I would beef up the wireless security with WPA2 and radius authentication to ensure security is effective. And to add another layer of security, I would deploy IDS by turning the Snort option on in the Smoothwall settings.

Edited June 26, 2010 by Infiltrator

[7h3kk1d]

For security reasons I would rather connect a wireless AP to Smoothwall instead of turning it into a hotspot.

Secondly, I would beef up the wireless security with WPA2 and radius authentication to ensure security is effective. And to add another layer of security, I would deploy IDS by turning the Snort option on in the Smoothwall settings.

Is there any other reasons than security. I would definitely like WPA2 but realistically I don't need extreme amounts of security for the purpose of my network and my environment.

[Infiltrator]

Is there any other reasons than security. I would definitely like WPA2 but realistically I don't need extreme amounts of security for the purpose of my network and my environment.

That's how I would deploy my smoothwall and the wireless AP both isolated from each other. But if security is not a major requirement for you and as long as you maintain smoothwall up to date with all the latest patches, there is nothing preventing you from installing a wireless adapter.

I guess in terms of managing the number of devices on the network, having Smoothwall providing internet/file access via a wireless adapter makes perfect sense to me, besides you don't have to spend money to buy a wireless device when you can have SmoothWall providing.

Hope that helps.

[7h3kk1d]

That's how I would deploy my smoothwall and the wireless AP both isolated from each other. But if security is not a major requirement for you and as long as you maintain smoothwall up to date with all the latest patches, there is nothing preventing you from installing a wireless adapter.

I guess in terms of managing the number of devices on the network, having Smoothwall providing internet/file access via a wireless adapter makes perfect sense to me, besides you don't have to spend money to buy a wireless device when you can have SmoothWall providing.

Hope that helps.

It sure does, thank you very much. I'm just trying to figure out what card fits my needs.

[Infiltrator]

Try one of these wireless cards, if they are appealing to you

D-Link DWA-556 Xtreme N PCI Express Desktop Adapter

ASUS PCE-N13 WLAN PCI-Express 11n Wireless Adapter Windows 7 Support, PCI-E x1

Edited June 26, 2010 by Infiltrator

[VaKo]

The main reason for not using smoothwall as your wireless AP, and hanging a WAP off of one of the optional interfaces is because smoothwall has shit wireless support.

[barry99705]

The main reason for not using smoothwall as your wireless AP, and hanging a WAP off of one of the optional interfaces is because smoothwall has shit wireless support.

+1000

Just use a wap, much easier to implement in the long run.

[Infiltrator]

The main reason for not using smoothwall as your wireless AP, and hanging a WAP off of one of the optional interfaces is because smoothwall has shit wireless support.

Apart from Shit support, does it offer a good performance when it comes to using a wireless card. Or the performance would be equal, if you were using an AP