[Tfug] OK, some advanced network geekery needed...

[Jim March]

Sadly, my wonderful little Celldata-to-WiFi adapter box appears to be
no longer with us.  I may be able to salvage it by soldering power
connections to the motherboard but...it doesn't look good.

The good news: the PCMCIA Verizon cellmodem that was in it now works
under Gutsy.  So I'm not "down".  But I can't provide a WiFi hotspot
for others anymore...and I actually need that capability for portable
political activism.  I also do user support and used to use the
external router box to provide emergency Ethernet and/or WiFi to do
driver updates or otherwise get somebody up.

So the query is:

How do I gateway/route the cellmodem signal out to my laptop's WiFi
adapter and duplicate the functionality of the dead box in Gutsy?

The parts:

* Laptop with Gutsy (Acer cheapo).

* The cellmodem card is a Kyocera KPC650 in a PCMCIA slot.  Gutsy's
network monitor calls it ppp0.  Gutsy thinks this is some sort of
dialup modem.  The contents of my /etc/wvdial.conf file looks like
(with obvious items x-ed out):

[Dialer verizon]
Phone = #777
Password = xxx
Username = xxxxxxxxxx at vzw3g.com
[Dialer Defaults]
Modem = /dev/ttyUSB0
Baud = 115200
Init = ATZ
Dial Command = ATDT
Stupid mode = 1

* My WiFi is an Intel chipset.  Wicd says it's "eth1".

* I also have working motherboard Ethernet and being able to gateway
from the Verizon card OUT to Ethernet would be damned good too.  It's
Eth0 via the Sky2 module (Marvell chipset).

I'm guessing that passing the cellmodem internet connection to BOTH
the Ethernet and WiFi ports would be tricky.  I can live with "one at
a time", selected via script or similar.

IF the Intel WiFi isn't going to work for this function, I have an
interesting option: when I looked inside the Kyocera router, I found a
mini-PCI slot with a WiFi card exactly like what's in my laptop,
complete with the same antenna ports :).  I don't know the chipset yet
as it's encased in steel plate but since the Kyocera router (RIP?) is
a Linux-based device, odds are it's WiFi card will work right off the
bat, replacing the Intel.  (Remember, this is the laptop that was
Jude's victim <wink!> and lost it's original Atheros mini-PCI card,
and the laptop had no problem with the Intel swapout.)

I assume I need some sort of simple router software?

Any help welcome :).

NOTE: before I posted, I googled and found this:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=376283

At a glance anyways, is this on the right track?

Jim