Use PC to serve wireless internet?

[Logistics]

I have a wireless card sitting around that I just need to buy an antenna for. And I don't have a wireless router. Can I just put the wireless card in one of my systems and hard-wire that system through it's on-board LAN to our internet setup and somehow use that PC to serve wireless in the house? And have it be secure so people don't try to leech it?

[Paul S]

Re: Use PC to serve wireless internet?

Maybe.
mode as an option
It depends on the chipset in the card, and the driver used. I only use Linux, and some of the wireless chips have AP mode as an option. Take a look at this site for a list of drivers that support AP mode. This is only a list of open source drivers.
http://linuxwireless.org/en/users/Drivers
vers that support AP mode
Adding the MadWifi proprietary driver, here is a list of Linux drivers that support AP mode.

b43
ipw2200
libertas_tf
p54
rt61pci
rt73usb
rt2400pci
rt2500pci
rt2500usb

To find out what chipset your card has, you would run this command (in Linux), for a PCI card:

lspci

Or for USB cards:

lsusb

You can use a Linux LiveCD, like Ubuntu, to run these commands. I think that I actually heard of a LiveCD that will do exactly what you want, but I will have to look into it further.

Of course, if you want to stick to windows, I can't help you.

[Paul S]

Re: Use PC to serve wireless internet?

I think m0m0wall is the LiveCD that I was thinking of, not sure.

http://m0n0.ch/wall/