The State Of Wireless Linux
The days of adding new clients to an LAN with yards and yards of extra cable are, thanks to the arrival of wireless Ethernet, a distant memory, but for business owners running the Linux OS, setting up wireless Linux is just one more thing for which they must rely on their oh-so-busy Linux network administrator. But that's why the NA was sent to Linux certification school anyway. Wireless Linux is really no more of a big deal that wireless Windows. It works well, and it has the underlying support of all those thousands of dedicated Linux open source programmers. But like all things Linux, wireless Linux can have security issues. And even today, finding the necessary hardware to support wireless Linux can be problematical, even with all the free drivers being written by that tireless crew of Linux geeks. Take the case of the Atheros wireless 802.11 cards used with the Atheros wireless chipsets favored by many device makers, and therefore important to the success of wireless Linux. Until very recently, for instance, any Linux-based network attempting to use Atheros 802.11 wireless cards required the installation of Atheros' proprietary HAL, or Hardware Abstraction Layer to make the cards operable. Proprietary is not a word which sits well on the open source Linux mentality, so it was not long before OpenHAL, courtesy of the wireless Linux developers, appeared as the open source wireless Linux challenger to the Atheros HAL. Atheros squawked, saying that OpenHAL infringed on their copyright of proprietary HAL, and the developers of wireless Linux sought counsel from the Software Freedom Law Center. The SFLC audited the source codes of the HALs, and ruled that no copyright infringement existed. OpenHAL development, therefore, will continue on its way, as long as the Linux wireless developers can keep its code free of any traces of Atheros' HAL. Eventually, if things works as intended, OpenHAL will meant that the Linux kernel contains full support for the Atheros wireless card 802.11, making wireless Linux an option on many more devices. The HAL vs. OpenHAL conflict is typical of the growing pains though which wireless Linux continues to pass. In March of 2004, Intel launched its ipw2100 open source project designed to enable wireless Linux to use their 2100 Network Connection Adapter. Two months later, they followed with the ipw2200 project and 22000 Adapter, and later added the 2915ABG adapter. Intel has continued to add wireless Linux drivers, but at the Linux Wireless Summit held in London in February 2007, the consensus was that wireless Linux may not see more widespread adoption until a set of FCC regulations is clarified. Those regulations seem to indicate that wireless drivers must have some proprietary features which will prevent those using them from being able to alter their devices' radio frequencies. Because wireless Linux is open source, those requirements, if they exist, will not work. The SFLC said that the clarification of the regulations will take time. As far as wireless Linux security goes, there are currently at least fifteen open source detector and sniffer applications capable of intruding on a wireless Linux network. So set your network admin to the task of beefing up the security of every computer connected to your wireless Linux, by adding the most advanced encryption and using devices which can support lengthy, random, complex passwords. |
