I have been trying to make a Linksys WAP11 a client on my wireless network for a couple hours now with no luck. My acces point is an SMC Barricade Router. I have gotten PCMCIA cards to connect to this thing, but the WAP11 seems lifeless. For testing I am trying to see my empeg with a static IP. The empeg is not pingable, emplode doesn't see it, and it's not online in the Barricade's logs. I am using the newest WAP11 firmware (1.4i.1). Pics of my configuration are available here:
http://spmicro.com/gallery/wap11

I am hearing that there is an SMC firmware that I can flash to this thing to allow what I want to do. However, it seems to be supported in the offical Linksys firmware. Does anyone have any experience with these things? Thanks!

The WAP11 will need to be set to access point client, rather than access point.
Have you tried this?

pca

Yes, The images I have posted show my exact setup.

Are you using a regular ethernet patch cable? I had to use a crossover cable to get my Rio Receiver to connect to my WAP11. (I've never understood why a crossover is needed in some situations but not others. If someone reading knows why can you enlighten me? )

I've got two WAP11's. One of them is an AP and the other is an AP client. If the problem is something other than needing to use a crossover cable we can compare our configs.

One thing you can do to isolate the problem is to have the WAP11 that is the AP client use DHCP over the wireless network to obtain an IP. If it's able to obtain an IP than you know that it is communicating with the AP. I would also suggest disabling WEP while you are trying to get this to work. The less variables the better.

-Dylan

I've never understood why a crossover is needed in some situations but not others. If someone reading knows why can you enlighten me?

Actually a crossover is needed in all cases, so that the transmit wire of one device is the receive wire of the other device, and vice-versa.

The trick is that most hubs already have all of their ports crossed over. All except the uplink port which is designed to daisychain into another hub.

So you use a straight cable when plugging into a hub, or into any port that's already been crossed over. And a crossover cable into any port that hasn't been crossed over at the port.

Probably makes it clear as mud for you... Sorry...

The WAP11 will be on Ebay tomorrow. Yes, I am using crossover. It is obvious that it is designed to communicate only with another WAP11 that is in Access Point mode. To use it like I want, i would have to use different firmware. Not a total pain in the ass, but I would rather do it the right way. I broke down and bought an Orinoco Ethernet Converter ($190 plus pcmcia card).

The instructions do imply that it requires another WAP11 but it's not clear if that's a requirement or it's like when the Duncan Hines cake recipe specifies that you should use Duncan Hines frosting. I did find a mistake in the help file. They say that the AP client should use the same channel but a different SSID from the AP. This was not true for me. I could only get them to communicate if I used the same SSID. If you haven't given up yet I would suggest trying it both ways.

I don't understand why they can't make an Access Point client mode that truely behaves like a regular client 802.11b card that doesn't have to know the MAC address of the AP.

-Dylan

In reply to:

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Probably makes it clear as mud for you... Sorry...

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That made perfect sense. Thanks!

-Dylan