T60 as Pi Ethernet-WiFi-Bridge
I used a Lenovo Thinkpad T60 (Model #2008) to supersede the Pi3. Main cause was that the Pi3 is a bit too slow, leading to a load of 4 when around 30.000 packets/minute are transferred whereas the T60's load is just 0.6. And that from a 2006-2007-built computer.
Setup
The setup is exactly the same as this: Raspberry as Pi Ethernet-WiFi-Bridge, with a few exceptions:
enableBridge.sh
The bridge itself is setup by hostapd. But it is only linked to the WiFi-Interface. So this script is launched after hostapd:
DEVWIFI="wlx00e04c0f4ac0" DEVETH="ens2" DEVBR="br0" # generated by hostapd # 1: give the Bridge an IPA /sbin/ifconfig $DEVBR | grep inet | grep 10.178 > /dev/null 2>&1 if [ "$?" -ne 0 ]; then ifconfig br0 10.178.111.242 netmask 255.255.255.0 route add default gw 10.178.111.1 logger "Added $DEVBR IPA." fi # 2: remove ens2's IPA /sbin/ifconfig $DEVETH | grep inet | grep 10.178 > /dev/null 2>&1 if [ "$?" -eq 0 ]; then ip addr flush dev $DEVETH logger "Flushed $DEVETH IPA." fi # 3: Add Ethernet to bridge /sbin/brctl show $DEVBR | /bin/grep $DEVETH > /dev/null 2>&1 if [ "$?" -ne 0 ]; then # do it echo "Adding ethernet to the bridge..." | logger /sbin/brctl addif $DEVBR $DEVETH /bin/sleep 1 fi
hostapd.conf
interface=wlx00e04c0f4ac0 #interface=wls3 #driver=nl80211 #driver=iwl3945 ist in dem hostapd nicht einkompiliert bridge=br0 hw_mode=g channel=7 ieee80211n=1 wmm_enabled=1 macaddr_acl=0 auth_algs=1 ignore_broadcast_ssid=0 wpa=2 wpa_key_mgmt=WPA-PSK wpa_pairwise=TKIP rsn_pairwise=CCMP ssid=HeartOfGold wpa_passphrase=42_42_42_42
If you set driver=, make sure you use the correct one. You can find out which driver is used by the OS by: readlink /sys/class/net/wls3/device/driver
Power Consumption
tbd
Troubleshooting Tips
hostapd not working
service hostapd stop hostapd -d /etc/hostapd/hostapd.conf
Read the output thoroughly. There is a clue!
In my case I needed to mark the WiFi-device (wlx00e04c0f4ac0) as unmanaged in /etc/NetworkManager/NetworkManager.conf:
[keyfile] unmanaged-devices=interface-name:wlx00e04c0f4ac0;interface-name:wls3
RF-Kill?
If you get...
SIOCSIFFLAGS: Operation not possible due to RF-kill
...it might mean the RF-Kill-Switch of your Thinkpad is set on. But it can also mean that you just disabled WiFi in Network Manager[1].
- ↑ Meaning the switch in the UI, where you can disable WiFi (and all WiFi devices)