Introduction

The Cisco Aironet client adapter cards are versatile wireless LAN adapters that are used to establish network connections between the wireless client node and other Cisco Aironet client nodes or Cisco Aironet wireless network access points (APs). The Wireless LAN adapters are configured to operate in one of two network modes: Infrastructure network mode or Ad Hoc network mode.

When used in the Infrastructure network mode, the cards provide networking capabilities that establish and support communications between the wireless client node and one or more Cisco Aironet APs. You can configure infrastructure clients to communicate with all available wireless APs with preferred affiliations to specific wireless APs. Preferred affiliations provide network architects with the ability to better plan and engineer wireless network deployment taking into consideration issues of client node roaming and redundancy engineering.

Ad Hoc network mode provides wireless client nodes with the capability to establish peer-to-peer network connections with other wireless client nodes. When configured in Ad Hoc, infrastructure components are not required to establish the network connection. Two or more workstations configured to access the same wireless network is all that is needed. The primary use of Ad Hoc network mode configurations is for peer-to-peer file exchange between wireless clients over the wireless radio network.

The Cisco Aironet wireless LAN adapters support the use of one or more security overlays to secure communications. These consist of Service Set ID (SSID) identification, preferred AP configurations, and Wired Equivalent Protocol (WEP) session encryption. The WEP mode...