WDS setup questions

[Craig Foster]

Okay, I extracted a volatile 1.5.6 firmware from the Intersil drivers and got 
it loaded into RAM so that I can hopefully get standards-compliant WDS 
going.  But I can't seem to get my linux hostap machine to talk to my Netgear 
AP or anything associated with it when its in Master mode.  If I unplug the 
Netgear AP, everything reassociates with the linux box, so the linux AP 
itself seems to be setup right.  Now if I can just get WDS working....  I've 
read README.prism2 and followed the example for WDS there, but still no 
luck.  My topology is a little different from the example though, so I could 
very well be doing something wrong.  So...

1) Do the low-end AP's (like my Netgear MR314 router/AP) even support WDS?  
If so, do I likely need to do anything to enable it, or will it just pick up 
the WDS link from the linux box and go with it.  Right now, when I scan 
access points from one of the machines on the wireless LAN, I see that the 
Netgear AP (on channel 11) adds the channel of the linux AP (3) whenever it 
is up (so that the AP listing shows channels 11 & 3 for the Netgear AP and 
channel 3 for the linux AP), but I still can't communicate between machines 
associated with the Netgear and the linux host setup as an AP, nor can I ping 
the Netgear from the linux box.

2) All I need the linux box to do is extend the range of the wireless network 
(and also act as a server on the wireless net).  It has no ethernet 
connections.  Can someone give me a hand with the 
iwpriv/ifconfig/brctl/prism2_param command sequence that will get the linux 
box up as an AP with WDS and an IP address on the wireless net for the linux 
box itself.

3) What about channels: Should the Netgear AP and linux AP be on the same or 
different channels?

4) I'm a little confused aboutt he different interfaces that seem to be 
involved in all of this (i.e. wlan0, wlan0wds0, br0).  Which interface is 
used for traffic for the linux host itself?  Should both wlan0 and wlan0wds0 
be in Master mode?  On the same channel?  Which should be in promiscuous 
mode?  Which should be part of the brindge?

Thanks in advance!

-- 
Craig Foster
craig at wiw.org