AirPort with Software Base Station (sort of)

[Brian P. Alston]

Hello all

=09I have an interesting set up with my computers at my house and I am ha=
ving=20
some trouble getting YDL to work there. I will describe my setup. I have =
a=20
PowerMac G4 450MHz (sawtooth) running Mac OS 10.1.5. It has the built in=20
ethernet as well as an AirPort card installed. I have DSL service with=20
BellSouth running into a Netgear broadband modem. The modem performs NAT =
so=20
the IP address into my G4 is the standard 192.168.0.xxx .

As you all know, Mac OS X up until 10.2 did not come with the Software=20
Basestation software. Early on when using OS X I found a way to run a=20
software basestation with a few tweeks to my system. I had to modify my=20
hostconfig file and set up my network manually. I set up my AirPort card =
in=20
the G4, under the "Network" preference pane with the following static=20
settings:

Configure: Manually
IP Address: 10.0.1.1
Subnet Mask: 255.255.255.128
Router:

Now, before I installed YDL on my iBook (dual USB) I had 10.1.5 on it as =
well.=20
For the iBook I also had to set up the AirPort card manually in the "Netw=
ork"=20
preference pane. The settings were:

Configure: Manually
IP Address: 10.0.1.2
Subnet Mask: 255.255.255.128
Router: 10.0.1.1
Domain Name Servers: 205.152.45.254 & 205.152.0.5
Search Domain: bellsouth.net

What I would do then was to create a network on the G4 and then enable th=
e=20
settings on the iBook and everything worked great.

Now, enter YDL. I followed the tutorial on the YDL site for configuring=20
AirPort using the 2.4 kernel at=20
http://www.yellowdoglinux.com/support/solutions/ydl_general/airport24.sht=
ml

I have two ifcfg-eth1 files that I use. One for school and the other for =
home.=20
The one for school works great. I was up and surfing in no time. Their=20
wireless network uses DHCP but the one at my place has to be configured=20
statically in order to work. So, here is the ifcfg-eth1 for my house:

NAME=3DG4
DEVICE=3Deth1
IPADDR=3D10.0.1.2
BOOTPROTO=3Dstatic
ONBOOT=3Dyes
NETMASK=3D255.255.255.128
GATEWAY=3D10.0.1.1
DNS1=3D205.152.45.254
DNS2=3D205.152.0.5

After I switch out the files I run

    /sbin/modprobe airport
    /sbin/iwconfig eth1 essid "G4"
    /etc/rc.d/init.d/network restart

This should work but it doesn't. The weird thing is that I can ping the G=
4 but=20
I cannot ping outside of the G4. I cannot ping the Netgear modem at=20
192.168.0.1 nor can I ping anywhere on the internet or use WWW or anythin=
g=20
else.

Well, that's the whole ugly story. Any help you all can be would be GREAT=
LY=20
appreciated!

Thanks :-)