Hey everyone. 

Okay, so most of you probably know what an Ad Hoc network is.  It's where a computer with a wireless adapter acts as a router.  People connect through that computer, and can share files, connect to the internet, play games, etc.  A common method in using one is to have a computer with a wired internet connection, fix it with a wifi adapter, and connect other computer through there, without having to spend money on a wireless router, which can run over a hundred dollars (sometimes cheaper, I know, but you get the point for my example). 

One of the key features both in an Ad Hoc, and the standard network connection (with a wireless router), is that they have the standard Server-Client approach.  Another method being pursued these days is the Mobile Ad Hoc Network.  Which is a true P2P network.  In this approach, every computer on the network acts as a Server and Client.  In this way, a person can move around amongst every computer, and never lose connection, because the computer automatically connects to a computer with a good signal, and everyone else's computer does the same.

So, my question to you guys is, how the #@!! do you set one of these networks up in Windows?  Using either Windows XP, or if somehow you already know, in Windows 7  (NO VISTA!!!).  I've been browsing the web for several hours, and can't find squat as to how to set one up.  Several people have mentioned needing specific software, which is okay with me, or either tweaking a few settings to get it working, which is again, okay with me.

Right now I would really like to figure out how to do one just using what comes in Windows, but if any of you guys know the code for doing this in either C# or C++ that would be amazing.


Thanks guys,
Archistrage

You typically don't actually set up your network by writing code. You set up the network via the Network Connections interface in Control Panel (in Windows XP anyway). The relevant Ad Hoc settings should be found somewhere in the properties of the wireless network connection, depending on the design of the driver for your particular wireless adapter. There is also a Network Setup Wizard in Control Panel that I believe will walk you through the relevant settings.

Once the network is set up and functioning properly, which you can test with command prompt tools like PING, then the code you write which needs to communicate over the network does not need to have any special knowledge of how the network is set up. You simply write your code to establish connections to the relevant computers using either their computer name or IP address and things should just work at that point.

Yes, but with that (at least what I've found), that still uses the standard Host-Client approach.

Imagine five computers, 100 feet away, all in a line.  


A----B----C----D----E

Computer (A)'s signal cannot reach computer (E), which is too far away in the regular Host-Server setup.
However with MANET, computers' (B),(C), and (D) all act as Hosts to transmit the signal down until it reaches computer (E).

That's what I want to know, if anyone here knows how to set that up.  I think some of it is dependent on the drivers.


Archistrage

Well typically you would use wireless access points to broaden the coverage area that you want to support. To my knowledge, I don't believe there are any commercially available wireless adapters or drivers that support a MANET. From my brief searching on Google on the subject, it appears to be a subject of research only at this time, although I could be wrong. In my opinion, even if such a network type were available, I doubt such networks would become very popular because it seems that they would be highly inefficient at transferring information because there would either be too much repeating of transmissions or else there would be a lot of network and CPU bandwidth consumed by maintaining and updating a virtual topology that enables each node to know how to route packets. The negative impact of all this overhead I think would far outweight any benefit of achieving a wider coverage area without wireless access points.

To find out if your wireless hardware supports this, refer to the documentation for the hardware or contact the manufacturer.

Read this article and tell us if this is what you want: http://www.istartedsomething.com/20090516/windows-7-native-virtual-wifi-technology-microsoft-research/

The terms you should be searching google for are IP routing and IP gateway.

Standard Windows isn't suited to the type of P2P connections described at the start of this thread.  It is handy for sharing files once you have the network connection.  I strongly recommend you spend the US $100 and buy the wireless router that does exactly what you want.

With standard Windows you could probably fudge the routing protocols to do what you want and you can enable acting as a gateway, it was just a tickbox last time I looked.  You will get in a mess with circlular routes though if you try to do it on all the PC's.  What you are trying to do is routing.  You could download some software to act as a router but that's more common on Linux.

This is not the forum to go in to that sort of training.  Start with a networking book (something from O'Reilly) and then try some more specific hardware techy web sites. Put it this way. I probably have enough knowledge but because of that I know I would not want to spend the time necessary to get it all working. Good luck if you try though, you'll learn a hell of a lot about networking.

Regard