Recommendations for powerline ethernet adapters

Hi-
There aren't any recent posts on this topic, so...

I am looking at getting a powerline ethernet adapter for my
linux/windows home network (old house, poor wireless reception, etc.).
While all the powerline ethernet adapters on the market seem to be
plug-and-play for linux if you don't need special configuration, I
would want to configure it to use encryption. So I'd need some sort of
linux utility, provided by the vendor, to do so.

Any recommendations on the best adapter to get? I want to support the
good guys!

-Rolf

rkaiser@gmail.com wrote:
> There aren't any recent posts on this topic, so...
>
> I am looking at getting a powerline ethernet adapter for my
> linux/windows home network (old house, poor wireless reception, etc.).
> While all the powerline ethernet adapters on the market seem to be
> plug-and-play for linux if you don't need special configuration, I
> would want to configure it to use encryption. So I'd need some sort of
> linux utility, provided by the vendor, to do so.

Devolo provides a text based LINUX tool for configuring adapters and
checking status, and AFAIK there's also a LINUX kernel module for their
USB-Adapters. You can download the tool from Devolo's web site and check
it out. At home we use the following devices:

* 2 x MicroLink dLAN Ethernet (bought a "Starter Kit" which includes two
such adapters)

* 2 x MicroLink dLAN i (same functionality as the MicroLink dLAN Ethernet
but mechanically more robust and only slightly more expensive when we
bought them)

--
Felix E. Klee

rkaiser@gmail.com wrote:

> Hi-
> There aren't any recent posts on this topic, so...
>
> I am looking at getting a powerline ethernet adapter for my
> linux/windows home network (old house, poor wireless reception, etc.).
> While all the powerline ethernet adapters on the market seem to be
> plug-and-play for linux if you don't need special configuration, I
> would want to configure it to use encryption. So I'd need some sort of
> linux utility, provided by the vendor, to do so.
>
> Any recommendations on the best adapter to get? I want to support the
> good guys!
>
> -Rolf
My recommendation would be to buy on condition it works. I tried
some of these and found that in some villages it worked a treat, in
others it was so intermittent as to be useless.

There are some command line utilities for Linux which will do
encryption, but remember that the theory is that the signal will
not get out beyond your electricity meter - but I have never
tested it. So unless you are using shared electricity no-one else
should be able to see what you are doing.

David
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David Goodenough wrote:
> There are some command line utilities for Linux which will do
> encryption, but remember that the theory is that the signal will
> not get out beyond your electricity meter - but I have never
> tested it.

The electricity meters do damp the signal considerably. However, e.g. if
cables of different circuits are running in parallel, then the signal may
"jump over".

For example, the house that I'm living in has two different circuits and
communication with homeplug between the two circuits does work. However,
when transmitting data from one circuit into another, the data rate jumps
from, I guess, 10MBit/s to sometimes much less than 1Mbit/s.

--
Felix E. Klee