Wireless Router Configuration

Now we can start to configure wireless router, and I will use Linksys WRT54G Wireless Router as an example. This router supports 802.11g and backward compatible with 802.11b standard. The authentications supported are WEP, WPA/WPA2 authentication with pre-shared key or RADIUS server.

Read the router manual before starting to configure it. This is useful for you to understand the router features and how to configure it. If the manual is not came together with router, you can download it from vendor website.

Sometimes the vendor will prepare some quick setup wizard to expedite router configuration, but I’m not going to explain this method here. I will explain some important and common setting which will be found in most of the wireless routers from different vendors, so you can use wizard to start the installation and then check out the details here.

Also register your product at vendor website if possible. You will be notified of firmware update, security alert and also product related information.

Open your popular web browser (Internet Explorer, Opera, Netscape Communicator), then type http://192.168.1.1 and press “Enter”. This IP address is factory default IP assigned to the router, you will be able to find it in wireless router manual. That’s why I said it’s important to read the manual.

You need to set computer with the IP sits in the network same as wireless router, so you can only access and configure it. In this scenario, I set computer IP as 192.168.1.10 (you can set 192.168.1.X, X= number between 2 and 254), netmask as 255.255.255.0 and gateway as 192.168.1.1.

After that, the logon screen will pop up, type in default user and password you found in router manual also. You will then log on to the router web-management page.

Here are the router settings that similar to wired network router.

WAN (Wide Area Network) Setting
LAN (Local Area Network) Setting
DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol) Setting

These are additional setup that required to make wireless router works.

SSID and Other Basic Wireless Settings
Wireless Network Authentication

WAN (Wide Area Network) Setting

First go to Setup tab and click Basic Setup, this is the place you set public IP address provided by your ISP in order to access Internet. It can be one of these 5 options:

Automatic Configuration – DHCP - Choose this option to obtain an IP address automatically from your ISP. (For most cable modem users). Optionally key in a name for this router. The default MAC address is set to the WAN’s MAC address on the router.

Sometimes you will need to clone MAC address under MAC Address Clone tab. This feature is required by cable modem users with the service registration via computer network card’s MAC address. That means the ISP will authenticate your network card’s MAC address whenever you use the connection service. If so, you will need to click clone MAC address in order to clone the computer network card’s MAC address to your network router. If you are not sure, check with your ISP technical support. Click here to check MAC address of network card.

Static IP - Choose this option to set static IP information provided to you by your ISP. You will required to type in all network information manually if select this option. This option is mostly used by business users. Lot of works if use this option, try to avoid this if possible.

PPPoE - Choose this option if your ISP uses PPPoE. Your ISP will provide you with a username and password. This option is typically used for most DSL services.

PPTP - Same as PPPoE, This option is mostly used by DSL service users with provided username, password and IP information.

L2TP - This option is mostly used by DSL service users is Europe with provided username, password and L2TP server information.

Telstra Cable: This option is mostly used by DSL service users with provided username, password and Heart Beat server information.

As a cable modem user, I will choose Automatic Configuration – DHCP option. I won't clone MAC address because the service registration is tied to cable modem's MAC address.

LAN (Local Area Network) Setting

At the same setup page, set up the IP address for the router. This will be the router/gateway IP address that you will set on your network computers. The LAN IP address is private in your home network and cannot be seen from the internet. I set my router with IP 192.168.1.1 and subnet mask 255.255.255.0.

DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol) Setting

Most of the routers has built-in DHCP server, so does this router. The DHCP server will automatically assign an IP address to the computers in your wireless network. At the same setup page, you must specify the starting IP address, number of users and lease time. Lease time is the length of time for the IP assigned to the computer.

For my case, the starting IP Address is 192.168.1.2, maximum dhcp users is 50 and I set the Lease Time for 1 day (0 minutes).

SSID and Other Basic Wireless Setting

Now click Wireless tab and you will see Basic Wireless Settings. These are unique features for wireless router, it’s not available for those wired routers:

Wireless Network Mode – 3 wireless operating modes are supported, it can be 802.11b (B only), 802.11g (G only) or both (Mixed). I select Mixed, so that wireless client with 802.11b or 802.11g wireless network adapter can join the network.

Wireless Network Name (SSID) – The SSID is the network name of this wireless network and must be identical for all devices in the network. When wireless clients first start up, they scan the wireless frequency band for special beacon frames that content SSID sent by wireless routers or access points, finally connect to the network that preferred by users.

SSID is case-sensitive and must not exceed 32 alphanumeric characters. Change it and don’t use default SSID due to security concern. I set it as home-network.

Wireless Channel - There are 13 wireless channels (1-13) supported. All devices in your wireless network must use the same channel in order to function correctly. I select 13.

Wireless SSID Broadcast - If you enabled this feature, the router will broadcast SSID and would be detected by wireless clients in the network. For security concern, I would recommend you to disable it.

Wireless Network Authentication

Although wireless client can join wireless network without authentication, but it’s dangerous! So please set authentication on wireless router, so that wireless client can only join the network after successful authentication. This router supports legacy WEP and WPA/WPA2 authentication with pre-shared key or RADIUS server.

Usually home users will use WEP, WPA personal or WPA2 personal security mode. WPA/WPA2 features are only available on 802.11g router, whereas WEP is the only authentication feature supported by 802.11b router.

Use WPA personal or WPA2 personal mode if supported by your wireless adapter. You need to supply pre-shared key for authentication. Choose AES as your WPA or WPA2 algorithm.

You can only use WPA-enterprise or WPA2-enterprise if you have set up RADIUS server. This is the WPA/WPA2 authentication with RADIUS server instead of pre-shared key .

If your network card is 802.11b standard, you need to choose WEP option, then set passphrase with 64 and 128 bits encryption.

You can leave group key as it is. This settings determines how often your group key changes.

Since my wireless network card can support WPA2, I use following setting.

You don't have to follow all settings I used, tune the wireless router as according to your needs.

Quick Guide to Configure Wireless Router as Access Point

Ok..Here is the quick guide to configure wireless router as access point. You usually need to do this for creating a wireless network attaching to existing Ethernet home network without using additional access point.

Here is how we make the network connection, just connect the wireless router’s LAN port to Ethernet router’s LAN port by using a crossover cable. If one of the router supports auto MDI/MDI-X feature, you can make the connection by using straight or crossover cable. This will create a hybrid network that comprises wired and wireless network. Don’t make any connection to wireless router’s WAN port; you won’t use it in this case. After that you can proceed to make router configuration.

For the Ethernet router, you basically just keep the existing settings without changes. Assuming your Ethernet router IP is 192.168.1.1, and this will act as gateway for entire network. If you would like to enable DHCP, then just enable the DHCP setting on Ethernet router.

Ok… Now we are focusing on how to configure that wireless router as access point. Basically it’s pretty easy. There are only 2 configurations you need to do: LAN and wireless settings.

First configuration is to configure the LAN setting on wireless router, means you need to assign an IP address and netmask to this router. In this case, I label it as 192.168.1.2 with netmask 255.255.255.0.

After that, proceed to make wireless configuration by assigning the mode, SSID, wireless channel, SSID broadcast and other settings as according to your needs. Also you need to configure the wireless encryption to encrypt the wireless data and improve wireless network security.

That’s the entire configuration; you can just ignore DHCP and other WAN related settings. It’s now the time for testing.

The computer with DHCP enabled in wireless network will be assigned the IP and network information from Ethernet router. It will then able to ping the wireless/Ethernet router and access to Internet.

Internet Connection Sharing (ICS) in Windows XP

You can connect computers in your home network to the Internet by using Internet Connection Sharing (ICS). The main benefit of this approach is you don't need to buy new router to share Internet connection at home.

In order to make it works, you will need a Windows XP computer set up with 2 network cards with one connects to Internet and the other one connects to home network. This computer can be enabled with ICS feature and is called ICS host computer.

ICS host computer will act as a router to route the traffic from other computers to Internet, also means other computers at home can point to this computer as gateway in order to go to Internet. The ICS host computer must be turned on whenever other computers need to access Internet.

Here is typical home network that client computers access Internet through ICS host computer.

If you do not have network switch but all computers are equipped with wireless adapter, then you can set up ad hoc wireless network between computers and share the Internet connection.

If you only have one client computer, you must connect it to ICS host computer using crossover cable.

Setting Up Ad Hoc Wireless Network in Windows XP

Do you know that you can set up ad hoc wireless network to share Internet Connection at home without using router and switch? Of course you can also use it to share files or printer between 2 or more computers wirelessly.

Please note you can have up to 9 wireless clients in an ad-hoc wireless network, which the computers send their data directly to each other. The only drawback of this approach is its limited wireless range support. You would need to have wireless router or access point for better wireless coverage. Click here to learn more on ad hoc wireless network and other types of wireless network.

If you check the diagram below, you have a computer connecting to Internet and also equipped with wireless adapter. You also got computers equipped with wireless adapter or notebooks with wireless PCMCIA card. Ha.. then you can set up ad-hoc wireless network to share Internet Connection without using router or switch. Kindly click this link to learn Internet Connection Sharing if you are not familiar.

IP Address Allocation

You need to allocate the IP address to each computer that involves in this ad-hoc wireless network. If you have 3 computers, you can simply assign 192.168.0.1, 192.168.0.2 and 192.168.0.3 to each computer with netmask 255.255.255.0. Check how to set IP here if you are not too sure.

Note: If you have Internet Connection Sharing enabled on host computer, you can just set each client computer to obtain an IP address automatically, then these computers should be able to access Internet.

Host Computer Configuration

1) Let’s start with the configuration, here I will choose one computer to start the configuration, right click wireless adapter and then click properties.

Note: Please enable this host computer's ad hoc configuration on ICS host computer if you want to use Microsoft's Internet Connection Sharing feature.

2) Wireless Network Connection Properties will appear. Click Wireless Networks tab, here I tick Use Windows to configure my wireless network settings. After that click Advanced button.

Note: You can also use the configuration tool provided by wireless adapter manufacturers to configure ad hoc wireless network.

3) Advanced window will appear. Select Computer-to-computer (ad hoc) networks only option. Click Close at last.

Note: Don’t tick Automatically connect to non-preferred networks in order to ease the configuration.

4) After that, click Add to add new ad hoc wireless network.

5) Name your ad hoc network, here I use home-adhoc. Try to use open authentication without encryption first. After tested it works well, only proceed to enable WPA or WEP encryption. Click OK at last.

6) Now you will see your created ad hoc network (PC card icon) in preferred networks list. Wooo.. You have finished configuring this host computer.

Client Computer Configuration

1) On other client computers, you only need to set its wireless adapter to use Windows to configure its network settings and enable Computer-to-computer (ad-hoc) networks only. Simply follow step 2 and 3 on host computer configuration above to get it done.

2) You then right click wireless adapter to view available wireless networks, you will see your ad hoc wireless network, proceed to connect to it. At this stage, you should be able to connect to this ad hoc wireless network!!! Have fun… :o)

Note: If you have Internet Connection Sharing enabled on host computer, you can just set each client computer to obtain an IP address automatically, then these computers should be able to access Internet.

Microsoft bows to pressure on XP

Customer demand has forced Microsoft to extend the shelf life of Windows XP by five months.

Microsoft was scheduled to stop selling the six-year-old operating system on 30 January 2008 to leave the field clear for Vista.

Now the date on which many sellers of XP will no longer be able to offer it has been lengthened to 30 June 2008.

Microsoft said the change was to help those customers that needed more time to make the switch to Vista.

Sales profile

In a statement Mike Nash, Microsoft's Windows product manager, said: "...maybe we were a little ambitious to think that we would need to make Windows XP available for only a year after the release of Windows Vista."

He added that most of the other operating systems that Microsoft has produced were available for about two years after a new version shipped.

The newest Microsoft operating system, Windows Vista, had a staged release between November 2006 and late January 2007.

In some quarters Vista had a lukewarm response and in April 2007 PC maker Dell was forced by customers to re-start sales of computers with XP installed. In January of that year the computer firm switched to Vista on almost all of the machines aimed at home users.

Software giant Microsoft does run a scheme that lets people rollback installation of Vista business and ultimate edition to Windows XP by ringing a customer support centre and getting an activation code.

Microsoft denied that the policy change was due to slow demand for Vista. Mr Nash said that up to the summer of 2007 Microsoft had sold more than 60 million licences for Vista. This put it on track to be the fastest selling operating system in Microsoft's history.

The XP date change applies to retailers and other manufacturers who sell Microsoft products. Independent firms that use Windows XP when installing and maintaining computers and networks for businesses can continue to offer it as an option until 30 January 2009.

Microsoft is also extending the availability of the cut-down version of XP, called Starter Edition, until 30 June 2010. It said this was because it was seeing increased demand for the software to run on low-powered devices made specifically for the developing world.

<>

Apple iPhone warning proves true

Users may not be able to add Apple features to an unlocked phone

An Apple software update is disabling iPhones that have been unlocked by owners who wanted to choose which mobile network to use.

Earlier this week Apple said a planned update would leave the device "permanently inoperable".

Thousands of iPhone owners hacked their expensive gadget in order to unlock it for use with other mobile carriers and to run a host of unsupported programs.

There are also reports of the update causing issues with unaltered iPhones.

On Monday Apple issued a statement in which it said many of the unauthorised iPhone unlocking programs caused "irreparable damage" to the device's software.

The company said this would "likely result in the modified iPhone becoming permanently inoperable when a future Apple-supplied iPhone software update is installed".

That warning has now proved correct as many owners are reporting their phones no longer work following installation of the update.

Apple requires iPhone owners to take out a lengthy contract with AT&T in the United States but there are a number of programs on the net that unlock the device for use with other networks.

Some owners are reporting on technology blogs and Apple's own forums that the update is deleting contacts information, as well as photos and music, on iPhones that have not been modified in any way.

<<>>