On Tue, 23 Aug 2005 15:29:41 -0400, Skip Gundlach said:
...
How come/can my computer see and talk to shore points without knowing all
the Mac stuff, but a bridge can't?

It doesn't need to. On any network, machines see each other's MAC addresses,
that's what is established when you join the network.

Probably my advice is somewhat confused by your use of the word bridge. In
networks, you might find it easier to think of a bridge as a two-port hub.
Packets that come in one end are duplicated at the other. A bridge that
joins a wireless network and a wired one is not different in this regard,
just the "ports" are internal to the unit, which probably has a wireless
"hub" and an ethernet switch, joined by the bridge.

The problem as I understand what you are trying to do, is that you want
to run the device as an access point in infrastructure BSS (basic service
set) mode, so that your laptop can talk to it as a client, but also to act
as a client and communicate with another access point.

For your laptop to comminucate with your access point, the access point
must be configured to offer a wireless network to join. The "local" wireless
network is identified by a SSID, which really is the mac of the wireless
interface on the access point. On the other hand, to join another wireless
network would mean not doing that, but rather acting as your laptop does
when it joins to your local network.

This is why I suggested the simplest solution is to use two wireless devices
connected *to each other* by ethernet. You have one device configured to
act as the BSS mode access point, and the other to act as a wireless
ethernet client. You'd configure your local wireless network on the first,
and join it with your laptop. You should then be able to communicate with
the other over the wireless link to the access point, and then the ethernet.
You'd then be remote-controlling the masthead "client" device, and use it
to connect to other networks. Realistically, one or other of these devices
would need to also be a router that can do network address translation (NAT)
once the data link layer is established, but that's beyond the scope of
getting that link established in the first place.

It is certainly possible for all this functionality to be combined in one
device, but I'd strongly suspect that no such device exists. Consider the
material above, and the very specific context you are outlining.

I acknowledge being just smart enough to be dangerous but implicitly, if
some other device can do it, another should be able to, no?

Well, you didn't answer my question earlier about whether you were trying
to connect two network devices with a straight through or a crossover cable.
It shouldn't be complex: you can buy pre-made crossover cables as readily
as you can straight through ones.

--Damian