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TP-Link TL WA7210N Outdoor Access Point as wifi adapter?


hwally

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I have a TP-Link tl-WA7210N outdoor accesspoint.  It has a rt 8187l chip  set, the same as the Alfa awus036h wirteless usb adapter.  This ap is programable as station or ap and can connect to wifi 12 kilometers away.  It sems like it would be very useful if it could somehow be adapted to use as a wifi adapter with Kali (for instance).  One of the problems I've run into is it is connected via ethernet cable.  I tried connecting the ethernet cable to a usb to ethernet adapter but when I run ifconfig in Kali it shows up as eth0 and doesn't show up when I run iwconfig.  Any ideas or starting points.  I live in a remote area and it would be nice to be able to have use of a truly long range adapter.  Thank you for any help or ideas you send my way.  

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I understand the way it functions and when it is set up as a station it is in monitor mode and will tell you all of the access points in the area.  I'm in an isolated area and it would be useful to have a wifi adapter that would work over long distances.  I see it as an interesting challenge and an opportuniity to expand the options of useful wifi adapters.  The solution  may be on the programming side of things.

 

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7 minutes ago, hwally said:

The solution  may be on the programming side of things.

Well, on openwrt there is a USB over ip tool so maybe that could be of use. But if the radio is connected to the router via pci then nothing (yet) exists that I'm aware of to put that hardware over ip to another machine. Does not mean that it can't exist in the future though, right?

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The radio can connect directly to the laptop via ethernet cable, no router needed.  The problem is that it shows up as eth0 when I run ifconfig.  I get the same results with a ethernet to usb adapter.  I'm wondering if there isn't some way to get this to show up as wlan0 instead of eth0.  Perhaps that would be a good place to start.  I appreciate you taking the time to pass on your helpful suggestions.

 

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1 hour ago, hwally said:

The radio can connect directly to the laptop via ethernet cable, no router needed.  The problem is that it shows up as eth0 when I run ifconfig.  I get the same results with a ethernet to usb adapter.  I'm wondering if there isn't some way to get this to show up as wlan0 instead of eth0.  Perhaps that would be a good place to start.  I appreciate you taking the time to pass on your helpful suggestions.

 

I dont think you fully understand what hardware you have. The TL-WA7210 is an AP meant for WISP applications. The Ethernet port on the underside allows you to connect it to your router as a gateway and configure it via its internal web UI. Its radios are connected internally (probably via PCI) to its motherboard running a 400mhz cpu and 32Mb RAM. Its not just a radio device like a USB wifi adapter.

What you are thinking of doing is a bit like saying you want to connect the internal wifi radio of your mobile phone to your Kali box via usb and expect a wlan interface to pop up. it aint gonna happen without routing the internal radio device over the network somehow.

Not saying it isnt possible in the future as I have seen hints of people looking at doing just that, but I am yet to see PoC or examples in the wild.

 

 

Edited by Just_a_User
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