Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

Today I tried to set up two Bionic64 computers with an ad hoc wireless connection. Network Manager requires that before you can create a Profile for this ad hoc connection, you have to scan for an existing network.

But for the first computer to start the ad hoc network, there is no existing one to scan for. Once it gets going, It becomes part of a network if another connects to it. But it doesn't exist before that point.

Or do I have that mixed up?

Thanks!

I've tried to read up on ad hoc networks, and there seems a lot of conflicting or at least confusing information about it. Windows handles it one way (or used to) other OS's another. The purposes and uses are varied, but mostly with home computers focused on creating Internet hotspots through one computer. My interest is not in doing that. It's focused on peer to peer networking between two computers using wireless..

It seems that, although it's called a peer-to-peer network, in the ad hoc wireless networks I've read about, not all peers are created equal. At least one has to host or initiate the network. To me it looks like Puppy's Network Manager, though it includes an ad hoc checkbox, can't set up as a host, an ad hoc network, but can only participate in an existing one. Or maybe I still haven't understood how to use NM for this purpose.

I'm still not really clear about what ad hoc means as opposed to an infrastructure run by a host computer. If there's a host DNS and dishing out DHCP IPs and checking WPA passwords, is that really peer to peer?

Ethernet ad hoc seems much more understandable than wireless, in that, If I connect two computers together with a null modem cable (a cable with a few wires switched) and each sets up a static IP address, they can talk directly to each other without mediation through a host, or one of them being a host. No switch or router needed.

There doesn't seem to be an equivalent method for wireless --at least for Puppies.

https://github.com/oblique/create_ap

I have used the create_ap script for lot years, very handy to either share a connection or to create a local only adhoc network. It can share any connection as a wifi hotspot.

there is also a newer more complete one called linux-router

https://github.com/garywill/linux-router

Thanks Mouldy, I'll try it.

@vtpup :-

From what I can understand, "ad-hoc" simply means something is done 'on the spur of the moment', 'temporarily', 'for the duration of'. If you were to set up a permanent ad-hoc network, it would no longer BE 'ad-hoc'.....it would essentially then be a LAN.

I could of course be wrong, but I don't think that's so far out.

-------------------------------

Ethernet would of course be far quicker and more reliable. Had you considered using Powerline adapters, which allow you to use the house's wiring system for networking? Anywhere you've got a socket, there's an access point......

Just a thought.

Mike.

Heh, well Mike, that's the kind of confusion I also have been trying to weed through, personally.

My understanding: yes it is a LAN, it's an ad hoc LAN vs a conventional managed LAN. The ad hoc doesn't necessarily have to do with how long it lasts. I don't know why the words "ad hoc" were chosen, but I think the sense is more like impromptu, put together informally, but not necessarily temporaily. Devices have equal rank and autonomy. A better term would be peer to peer (p2p) in a networking sense.

Or at least that's my story, and I'm uhhhh not necessarily sticking to it.....

interesting about powerline adapters, but unfortunately at some stage in the chain it would have to wireless to work with the laptop conveniently, and the device presently slowing down LAN communications in managed mode is the old DSL Modem/router. Since we are changing to cable "any day now" (the company has taken a month so of hemming and hawing, and may or may not follow through) I was hoping for a simpler ad hoc solution.

@vtpup

the old DSL Modem/router.

Am assuming this is also your wifi AP, what part is slowing you down?

Thanks
wizard

Hi, thanks Wizard.

Yes it's the AP. My guess: it's also the cause. Not 5 ghz capable, and with DSL Internet speeds being what they are, no reason to be. Our internet speed is 3 mbits/sec. So the router at 100 is plenty powerful for that. But not for video editing remotely. Even via ethernet, it is still only routing at 100 Mbits/sec, according to the new server box. That works out to 12 megabytes/sec -- about half the speed of a reasonable USB 2.0 thumb drive.

That's why I wanted to get wireless ad hoc going, since both computers have wifi6 capable cards. If they could communicate directly, speeds over 1 gbit/sec are feasible. And not even necessary -- 300 mbits/sec would probably be sufficient for my purposes, and I'd be happy with that.

@vtpup

I'm sure you've thought of it, but will mention that if your cable doesn't come through you can always connect another router that supports wifi5 or 6 to your existing dsl box. I have two hooked to my dsl that have better wifi range plus it lets me segment the LAN.

wizard

I had thought about that, but we'd really like to get rid of DSL altogether. Comcast Xfinity is presently deciding whether to connect us as there's a 300 foot extension to the house pole and then a short drop to another 300 ft of underground RG6-U.

The old DSL modem is 802.11n so 100 mbits/sec is at its limit. The Comcast Xfinity router is 802.11ac so that alone should push the speeds up plenty. The computer network cards are 802.11ax so they should easily handle the upgrade, and technically be even faster if there was a way of working out an ad hoc network.

The question is how, in puppy, at least? We have the setting in Puppy's network manager, but no clear idea how to use it to actually create an ad hoc network.

Wow, I just found this short and sweet description for one of the 12.x version buntus -- I believe it should be workable with my server box even though on 20.x . Then I can try just working with the Puppy Network Manager to connect......

from https://www.thinkpenguin.com/gnu-linux/ ... oc-network (not only that but this outfit is only 20 minutes from my house!)

1. Right click on network applet in the top right corner
2. Open Edit Connections
3. Click on Wireless tab
4. Click on Add button
5. Enter SSID “adhoc_test”
6. Change mode from infrastructure to Ad-hoc
7. Click on IPv4 Settings tab
8. Change the Method from Automatic (DHCP) to Manual
9. Click Add button
10. Enter 192.168.1.13 and hit tab
11. Enter 255.255.255.0 and hit tab
12. Enter 0.0.0.0
13. Click the Save button
14. Hit the Close button
15. Go to the network applet and click Connect to hidden wireless network
16. Select the Wireless adapter: 1b75 9170 from the drop down list
17. From Connection select Wireless connection 1
18. Click Connect button

Repeat steps for each network- adjust IP as needed to be different for each machine

To test this is working:

1. Open a terminal
2. type ping 192.168.1.xx where xx is another machine that is in the ad-hoc network
3. Wait 30 seconds and hold ctrl key down and while doing so press C key
4. You may see dropped packets- it should be less than 100% packet loss in any event, anything less than 100% packet loss indicates a successful connection has been mad to the other machine(s) in the ad-hoc network