Wireless In A Nutshell

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Fred Atkinson 21 years ago

I've just added a Netgear 802.11.b/g wireless access point to my home network. I've configured it as best I can with my limited knowledge of wireless.

I previously had a CCNA which expired two years ago. I am within a month of passing the ICND (I already passed the INTRO). And I have completed CCNA 1 and 2 and am currently taking CCNA 3 of the Cicsco NetAcademy program.

Can you please recommend a good Web page to read that will explain Wireless Protocol to me in the proverbial 'in a nutshell' fashion so I will be understand configuring this unit?

I want to understand (and experiment with) the encryption keys. But when I'm done, I want to make this open so that someone visiting my home could use their wireless laptop to access my network.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Fred

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Jeff Liebermann 21 years ago

Oh neato. A mystery. The clues are that it's made by Netgear, it's an access point, and it does both 802.11b and 802.11g. Assuming that it's current production, that would make it a WG602 access point. When do I get my prize?

Cool. Cisco is one of the few certificate factories that hasn't trashed the value of their wallpaper. Best of luck.

By "Wireless Protocol" do you mean 802.11, 802.11b/g, 802.3 encapsulation methods, WEP, WPA, WPA-PSK, and related protocols?

OK. That's WEP and WPA.

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you wanna do some digging, start here:

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important fact that seems to be lost on all the various tutorials is that WPA is nothing more than WEP with an improved key exchange mechanism. Looking at it with a sniffer, they're basically identical.

If you wanna see what the encrypted data actually looks like, I suggest the Linux version of Ethereal. Better yet, get one of the all-in-one bootable wireless cdroms:

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Just give them the WEP or WPA key. With WEP128, think of it as a typing test. You have to type 13 characters of gibberish, twice, to connect. If you're a masochist like me, it's 26 characters of gibberish. I keep mine on a USB dongle and use cut-n-paste as my typing is horrible.

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dold 21 years ago

You could always just tell the person what the key is. If you use WPA on newer cards, this is a simple text phrase, but your visitors might not have WPA. You could disable encryption when someone visits.

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Jeff Mowatt 21 years ago

Fred,

Having just done something similar with a netgear FWAG114 with a service supplier who pay me money for people that aren't friends ; I found the support pages for netgear quite useful in explaining many of the settings There are many documents for specific devices containing a reasonable description of the meaning of each setting

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Have to agree though, there's a need for something more basic to perhaps explain if and how devices using the same protocol talk to each other and how to offer both freedom of access with some element of security.

My aim is to provide free service to nearby community facilities offsetting the cost by charging passing business users.

Jeff

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Fred Atkinson 21 years ago

Well, that's true of course.

But, I wouldn't learn how to do the different tricks when I set one of these things up for someone else.

Thanks,

Fred

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Neill Massello 21 years ago

I noticed that you referred (in another post) to typing in a key on a Mac. Just for reference, although the Mac's wireless connection dialog doesn't permit pasting, Keychain Access (in /Applications/Utilities) and the Network preference pane (the "specific network" fields) do.

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