[MLB-WIRELESS] stats on minitar was hardware of choice for a client.

[David Ashburner]

Hi Rob,

I haven't looked in a while but there were two commands that may be useful,  
iwcontrol ( no source released, probably a custom version of iwconfig?) and 
iwpriv. iwpriv is used in the init scripts to set the radio parameters. If 
these don't give us the information we want then it may be available in 
/proc/net/wireless (link quality, signal level noise level).

How are you thinking of getting to the stats? via a web page or through a 
remote syslogd?

The tricky thing though is how to get at the information in the standard 
firmware. It may be a simple shell script that is polling using iwpriv but 
you need to get the script onto the device (i.e. into the firmware). I have 
hacked the ramdisk in the past and been able to successfully change the 
contents but re-attaching it to the kernel is problematic. The minitar linux 
image uses an embeded ramdisk so any change in the length of the compressed 
ramdisk causes an error during uncompress. ( it would be ok if the kernel 
wasn't configured for an embeded ramdisk but it is ...)

Perhaps the best way to get this would be to use a slightly modified ramdisk 
contents based on the most recent firmware but attached to a kernel built 
using the rtl8181.sourceforge.net stuff. The wireless driver there is 
shaping up pretty well now.

cheers,
dna

>From: "Rob Clark" <clark at freenet-antennas.com>
>To: <melbwireless at wireless.org.au>
>Subject: RE: [MLB-WIRELESS] hardware of choice for a client.
>Date: Thu, 2 Dec 2004 17:51:51 +0800
>
>David,
>
>Bit off topic...but in your playing with the internals of a Minitar
>AP....have you seen any way that we might be able to extract things like
>signal strength etc at run time - assuming it is using factory firmware?
>
>Cheers
>
>Rob
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: owner-melbwireless at wireless.org.au
> > [mailto:owner-melbwireless at wireless.org.au] On Behalf Of
> > David Ashburner
> > Sent: Wednesday, December 01, 2004 2:15 PM
> > To: melbwireless at wireless.org.au
> > Subject: RE: [MLB-WIRELESS] hardware of choice for a client.
> >
> >
> > he he I've done the port but I'm pressed for time. I can let
> > you have it to
> > try if you want.
> > Bigest problem I have had with the Minitar is lack of RAM -
> > you loose 2MB to
> > the kernel and another 3.5 to the RAMDISK. disen't leave much
> > to run apps
> > in. been looking at cramfs and NFS to free up some RAM
> >
> > I have a pretty simple (read using it as a link device)
> > ramdisk image almost
> > ready to go if there is anyone who want's to collaborate on
> > testing it out
> > and maybee helping me finish hacking it into shape. Any takers?
> >
>
>---
>Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free.
>Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com).
>Version: 6.0.802 / Virus Database: 545 - Release Date: 11/26/2004
>
>
>
>To unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo at wireless.org.au
>with "unsubscribe melbwireless" in the body of the message
>



To unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo at wireless.org.au
with "unsubscribe melbwireless" in the body of the message