Wireless

[Мастер]

Any recommendations for wireless internet equipment for home use? At present, we have one pretty new laptop, although will likely soon have one or more desktops that do not currently have wireless. So we have to decide whether to wire up and use wireless only for the laptop, or to rig up the desktops...

[Lance]

Well, wired is roughly double the bandwidth of wireless, but only between computers on your local LAN. There would be no advantage in speed for an internet connection. If you don't plan on moving large amounts of data between your laptop and desktops, I'd go wireless.

A wireless router should have several wired (likely 4) ports on it that you can optionally use. Your laptop could be wireless and you could wire the desktops that it would be convenient to reach. They will all appear on the same local subnet (LAN) regardless.

[Мастер]

I found this one. It looks like this device does not replace the DSL terminator (or modem, or whatever it is called) that came with the DSL service, and in fact, the router doesn't even know that it's connect to a DSL line - it just has an ethernet port, where that ethernet comes from, it doesn't care. Does that sound right?

[Lance]

That's the same router I have on my cable modem. Yeah, it's a good one, and will server you well.

Did you know Tiger Direct is located just off of Ogden, behind (a little) the POST (old Nabisco) plant?

[Мастер]

That's the same router I have on my cable modem. Yeah, it's a good one, and will server you well.

Did you know Tiger Direct is located just off of Ogden, behind (a little) the POST (old Nabisco) plant?

I thought it was on Diehl, but maybe I am misremembering. I have been in exile for some time now.

[Dragon Star]

... your local LAN.

Hey Lance, what does LAN stand for, again?

:wink:

[The Beer Slayer]

Llama Area Network

[Lance]

Hey Lance, what does LAN stand for, again?

:wink:

Bite me.

[troubleagain]

I have that same Linksys, and it works well for me, too. Once in a blue moon, though, I do have to go reset (power off and on) it, because the laptop'll say it's connected to the network, but can't connect to the internet. Rebooting the laptop doesn't fix it, so when it happens, I just habitually reset both DSL and router.

[The Beer Slayer]

I have the same problem with my regular lynksys router.

[Мастер]

Hmm. Not the best advertisement for Linksys, is it? Too late though, I already ordered one...

[troubleagain]

The other options that are affordable are worse.

[Dragon Star]

The other options that are affordable are worse.

Indeed. I had issues with Linksys with the wireless receivers saying it has a signal but isn't connected, just right click the signal icon in SysTray and select "Repair" and it usually fixes the problem in moments.

[Lance]

Interesting... I don't have a problem with my Linksys router like that at all.

Make sure you're running the latest firmware.

[Мастер]

Well, I just ordered mine, so it seems like it should have the latest firmware. But perhaps that is too bold an assumption...

[Lance]

Oh, duh. I was directing that at the people having trouble with them. You can upgrade the firmware easily from within the menus of the router.

[Мастер]

Oh, duh. I was directing that at the people having trouble with them. You can upgrade the firmware easily from within the menus of the router.

Understood, I was just speculating that my first thought on the matter, "well that doesn't affect me because mine is new" might be wrong after all :)

[Lance]

ACK! I "eta'd" the wrong post. I went back and added this to your post instead of mine (now corrected):

But still, firmware can rev several times while an item is in the supply chain if a bug pops up that needs to be resolved.

[Мастер]

Well, my wireless router is installed and working, I am using it right now.

It looks like it has some sort of firewall capability. I have to learn how to use that, I had been planning on putting an actual PC between the DSL modem and the wireless router, with two LAN cards, but maybe that's not necessary.

So, I changed the administrator password, disabled remote administration, installed MAC filtering on the wireless end, putting in only a single MAC address (the computer I am using now), enabled the security (whatever the public key thingy is that goes with the SSID). I also disable broadcast of the SSID, since some people didn't think al-Qaeda was a very good choice. Is there anything else I should be doing to secure this?

How difficult is it to fake a MAC address? Would you need to build your own hardware, or could you do it with a store-bought ethernet card, with sufficiently low-level programming?

Also, there is a "Router Name," which shows up in some places as a "Realm." Is this something that has meaning in some manner of windows networking? I assume it has no IP meaning, there is no mini-DNS server running here (I think).

I guess I have to figure out how to use DDNS, which seems necessary to run a server now. Does that sound right?

Thanks in advance for any wise words...

[Мастер]

Still more...

I also turned off administration through wireless, I think the only way to administer the thing now is to plug directly into the back of it with an ethernet cable.

I have also discovered that people who tend not to turn security on also tend to leave the administration page enabled with the manufacturer's default password.

On the firewall issue - it occurs to me that, for inbound connections at least, this thing is probably already pretty solid. Any computer connected to it, either through a cable or through wireless, has an IP address in the 192.168.X.X range, which can't be routed across the internet. So the only way an unsolicited TCP connection could be made from somewhere on the internet to my machine would be if it came into the wireless router's IP address, and the router then forwarded the connection to my computer's local 192.168.X.X address. And it looks like that forwarding has to be turned on on a case-by-case, port-by-port basis. So if the router itself is secure (that is, hostile forces cannot get into the admin page), then the computers behind it cannot be touched unless *they* initiate the TCP connection. Does that sound right?

[Lance]

Does that sound right?

Yes, that is exactly right. Just being behind the router makes you pretty secure. The biggest vulnerability is that you inadvertently download something that installs itself and then has the ability to "phone home". Then the harmful connection is initiated from behind the router.

[umop ap!sdn]

So if you see an et.exe, it's probably best to avoid it.

[Lance]

Yeah...

Probably...