Wireless Network with 30 clients

  • Thread starter Thread starter brendacchio
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brendacchio

Hello all,

I am running a small wireless network (30 users) at my school and it
seems that my D-Link 624 Wireless Router just can't cut it anymore. I
am getting about 5-10 outages a day when the lab fills up. I am
thinking I need to upgrade to a more powerful router. I tried to take
an old PC, install FreeBSD (failed!) and Ubuntu (failed!), and get it
to do NAT and Masquerading but I wasn't able to figure it out and I
don't have the time to do all of the research. Perhaps Suse would be
a viable option?

Does anyone know how I can use this old computer as a simple router and
hook up an access point? What about the Apple Airport Extreme? Should
that be able to handle the load? What's a good high-powered router
that I can find in the €500 range? The students do not do anything
out of the ordinary besides downloading and uploading photos and
printing.

Thanks in advance.
 
Hello all,

I am running a small wireless network (30 users) at my school and it
seems that my D-Link 624 Wireless Router just can't cut it anymore. I
am getting about 5-10 outages a day when the lab fills up. I am
thinking I need to upgrade to a more powerful router. I tried to take
an old PC, install FreeBSD (failed!) and Ubuntu (failed!), and get it
to do NAT and Masquerading but I wasn't able to figure it out and I
don't have the time to do all of the research. Perhaps Suse would be
a viable option?

Does anyone know how I can use this old computer as a simple router and
hook up an access point? What about the Apple Airport Extreme? Should
that be able to handle the load? What's a good high-powered router
that I can find in the ?500 range? The students do not do anything
out of the ordinary besides downloading and uploading photos and
printing.

Thanks in advance.

Try Smoothwall free from http://www.smoothwall.org/ runs on anything from a
486 upwards (pentium with at lease 128mb RAM better though - with 30 users a
PII might be better.)

Easy to set up and use. Just connect to an access point and away you go.
 
Look at adding "access" points to the router. It seems that the built-in
wireless access point can not handle the amount of individual requests.

Also, please note that most wireless networks devices are not "secured" out
of the box.


Hello all,

I am running a small wireless network (30 users) at my school and it
seems that my D-Link 624 Wireless Router just can't cut it anymore. I
am getting about 5-10 outages a day when the lab fills up. I am
thinking I need to upgrade to a more powerful router. I tried to take
an old PC, install FreeBSD (failed!) and Ubuntu (failed!), and get it
to do NAT and Masquerading but I wasn't able to figure it out and I
don't have the time to do all of the research. Perhaps Suse would be
a viable option?

Does anyone know how I can use this old computer as a simple router and
hook up an access point? What about the Apple Airport Extreme? Should
that be able to handle the load? What's a good high-powered router
that I can find in the ?500 range? The students do not do anything
out of the ordinary besides downloading and uploading photos and
printing.

Thanks in advance.
 
Hello all,
Click to expand...

4 newsgroups? I just love to participate large cross postings.
I am running a small wireless network (30 users) at my school and it
seems that my D-Link 624 Wireless Router just can't cut it anymore.
Click to expand...

How can you tell? Have you measured the reouter thruput? Have you
sniffed the traffic between the unspecified broadband connection and
the DI-624? Do you have *ANY* idea what's moving on your network?
I am getting about 5-10 outages a day when the lab fills up.
Click to expand...

Outages or spectacular slowdowns? There's a big difference.

My rule of thumb for wireless loading is:
100 light web and email users.
10 business type users.
1 file sharing user or worm infected computer.
How many *ACTIVE* laptops are running? Are you sure there aren't any
users that you don't know about such as students in the parking lot or
nearby neighbors? Have you looked at the log files or syslog? Do you
have
I am
thinking I need to upgrade to a more powerful router.
Click to expand...

Powerful? Is the processor overloaded? Got any numbers as to how
many bytes/sec is going in each direction? Is your unspecified
broadband connection shared with other users or wireless contrivances
in the skool? Are they hogging the bandwidth?
I tried to take
an old PC, install FreeBSD (failed!) and Ubuntu (failed!), and get it
to do NAT and Masquerading but I wasn't able to figure it out and I
don't have the time to do all of the research. Perhaps Suse would be
a viable option?
Click to expand...

That's a little like polishing the chrome to make the car go better.
Perhaps you had better take a close look at what's moving on your
network, who's on your network, what's causing the slowdown, and
what's buried in the log files, before you tilt at windmills.
Does anyone know how I can use this old computer as a simple router and
hook up an access point?
Click to expand...

If you insist, I use Freesco.
http://www.freesco.org
What about the Apple Airport Extreme? Should
that be able to handle the load? What's a good high-powered router
that I can find in the €500 range? The students do not do anything
out of the ordinary besides downloading and uploading photos and
printing.
Click to expand...

Incidentally, the DI-624 can do about 35Mbits/sec TCP thruput LAN to
WAN connection. If your unspecified broadband connection is that
fast, you might consider a different router. Meanwhile, Yves Leclerc
has the right idea. Go shopping for 2 more access points (or routers
configured as access points).

--
Jeff Liebermann 150 Felker St #D Santa Cruz CA 95060
831.336.2558 voice
http://www.LearnByDestroying.com AE6KS
http://802.11junk.com Skype: JeffLiebermann
(e-mail address removed)-cruz.ca.us (e-mail address removed)
 
Jeff said:
4 newsgroups? I just love to participate large cross postings.
Click to expand...

Just trying to be nice, that's all...
How can you tell? Have you measured the reouter thruput? Have you
sniffed the traffic between the unspecified broadband connection and
the DI-624? Do you have *ANY* idea what's moving on your network?
Click to expand...

I've checked the logs and nobody seems to be doing anything out of the
ordinary. I'm in Italy and my internet connection is pretty basic.
Testing it now I've got 300! The most significant strains seem to be
when the students upload/download their dig photos to sites such as
snapfish and ofoto.
Outages or spectacular slowdowns? There's a big difference.
Click to expand...

Outages. The router locks up and has to be restarted.
My rule of thumb for wireless loading is:
100 light web and email users.
10 business type users.
1 file sharing user or worm infected computer.
How many *ACTIVE* laptops are running? Are you sure there aren't any
users that you don't know about such as students in the parking lot or
nearby neighbors? Have you looked at the log files or syslog? Do you
have
Click to expand...

No, we share the building with elderly priests and there is no
indication that they are stealing our connection. It's password
protected.
Powerful? Is the processor overloaded? Got any numbers as to how
many bytes/sec is going in each direction? Is your unspecified
broadband connection shared with other users or wireless contrivances
in the skool? Are they hogging the bandwidth?
Click to expand...

I turned off the log because the Dlink support site says that it may be
hogging the router's resources.
 
Outages. The router locks up and has to be restarted.
Click to expand...

Holdit. That's a total failure and should not happen. I've
staturated the RF bandwidth of my assorted routers in various
benchmark tests and only the defective routers lockup. Searching
Google for "DI-624 overheats", I find that your lockup problem is
apparently not uncommon.
http://dslreports.org/shownews/46612
http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,11973289
This may be of interest:
http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,11716779

I don't think it's the quantity of traffic that's causing the hangs.
300kbit/sec is really slow. A faster router will not help if you're
using this particular DI-624 router as an access point, and will
probably produce identical lockups. I suggest borrowing a differnt
router or a later model DI-624 and trying a substitution.
 
Holdit. That's a total failure and should not happen. I've
staturated the RF bandwidth of my assorted routers in various
benchmark tests and only the defective routers lockup. Searching
Google for "DI-624 overheats", I find that your lockup problem is
apparently not uncommon.
Click to expand...

Here's one person that had to add a fan on their WGT-624. I drilled
the case of a DI-604 rev B1 into Swiss cheeze to improve cooling.
These are different model but you might be the same problem.

Also, for another PC based router replacement, see:
http://www.ipcop.org
I just started playing with it and it looks really nice. Documentation
also available in Italian.

--
Jeff Liebermann 150 Felker St #D Santa Cruz CA 95060
831.336.2558 voice
http://www.LearnByDestroying.com AE6KS
http://802.11junk.com Skype: JeffLiebermann
(e-mail address removed)-cruz.ca.us (e-mail address removed)
 
Here's one person that had to add a fan on their WGT-624. I drilled
the case of a DI-604 rev B1 into Swiss cheeze to improve cooling.
These are different model but you might be the same problem.
Click to expand...

Oops. I forgot to include the URL.
http://forum1.netgear.com/support/viewtopic.php?t=4435

--
Jeff Liebermann 150 Felker St #D Santa Cruz CA 95060
831.336.2558 voice
http://www.LearnByDestroying.com AE6KS
http://802.11junk.com Skype: JeffLiebermann
(e-mail address removed)-cruz.ca.us (e-mail address removed)
 
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