Mark Nash wrote: > What hardware is preferred to run the StarOS on? Most interested in the > AP, but for CPE as well?
The neat thing about StarOS is that it's Linux-based, so it'll probably run on just about any old computer you've got sitting in the closet. :D If your traffic will stay under, say, 10Mbps aggregate at a given location, a WRAP board, or a Routerboard 200, will work splendidly. (Both those boards start hitting the limits of the CPU around there.) I prefer the Routerboard 200s, personally; they're a bit more expensive, but I like having PCMCIA slots and the option to add more RAM if I ever need it. And they seem to be a bit more tolerant of the OMG COLD weather, though I've seen a few of them get flaky when the temperatures fall below -10 degrees Fahrenheit. For CPE, I'd probably stick with WRAP boards. They're smaller and cuter. And wisp-router.com sells the indoor cases in a wide variety of colors to match most any carpet and drapes scheme. > I'm highly interested in bandwidth shaping and routing at the AP, and if > routing is available at the sector, then bonus. Bandwidth shaping works well, but can be a bit processor-intensive. With routing multiple subnets, running two separate wireless cards, and doing bandwidth shaping, a RB200 should be able to handle most of a hundred clients (one of my boards in that exact setup has about 70 clients and stays at 30-40% CPU usage). > Does the StarOS at the AP allow for: > > 1. Public IPs? We use all public IP's (usually kept to 1 per customer). Yep. (IPs are IPs, the software doesn't care whether they're public or RFC1918-private.) > 2. Static IPs? We route /30 subnets out to customers who require static > IP > addresses. That way they will never change even if the network does. So, > a > sub-question here is can we route multiple subnets to a single AP sector? Shouldn't be a problem. We route our network a bit differently - sending a /27 or so to a given location, and assigning static addresses out of that block to the customers - but in theory you should be able to put a larger quantity of /30s on an interface and it'll work just the same. > 3. DHCP reservations? (We use DHCP reservations...a low-cost low-security > solution to tell who's using what IP address without authentication.) It's in there, though the configuration syntax is a bit ugly until you're used to it. (You'll basically be editing a Linux dhcpd.conf file, and learning all its quirks will probably take a very small amount of trial-and-error.) Good luck! David Smith MVN.net -- WISPA Wireless List: [email protected] Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/
