this wireless stuff

[Yaka]

right now ive got a fully wired set up with a few of the rooms in the house wired with net work cables all connecting to the router in my room. now we have a pda that is wifi capable and a laptop that is wifi capable as well. what would be the best and most secure way to add wireless connectivity to my current setup?

 

[Vae]

Change the router to a wireless one. I use the Netgear DG834G v2 which works ok. I'm sure other people have their own preferences for wireless routers.

 

[inactionman]

I have this, it's a fairly good inexpensive gateway with wireless. Does ADSL2+ as well.

http://www.broadbandbuyer.co.uk/Shop/MFR/ShopDetail.asp?ProductID=2233

 

[anattic]

Personally, if you have a spare network port in a switch/'router' somewhere, I'd leave the existing infrastructure as it is and buy a wireless access point. That way, you have the option to switch the wireless network off when you're not using it.

For link encryption, WPA is a great improvement on WEP, although has its problems too. WPA2 (802.11i) is better still, but is still a bit uncommon (list) - in reality, I suspect you'll be limited by what the PDA will support.

As to which manufacturer, I use a Linksys box at home, it's ok, but each to their own (like most PC gear, alot of the product out there is based around a couple of chipset reference designs anyway).

 

[WPKenny]

I've nothing to add really.

I just wanted to to show you that I care. In a manly way.

(btw wifi AP is the way to go with minimal hassle)

 

[Yaka]

alot of peeps i have asked have said AP would best for me. so im looking at doing it that way. the pdas are dell X51v,

anyways what AP would peeps suggest seeing that i have around £200 to buy one and im preety clueless when it coems to net working stuff

 

[inactionman]

The one I recommended is a DSL gateway with wireless, which would replace your router, it's only £45 as well, so would save you some cash.

 

[Yaka]

would that require adsl or something? im on ntl atm

 

[Athan]

If the cost difference is minimal then you may as well get an AP that does DSL too, but otherwise don't bother, especially given you're on cable atm. We have a netgear WG602 AP here and never have any trouble with it, although there's only the one laptop that uses it.

The thing to check is what encryption the two wifi devices support. As others have said WEP is crap, and WPA not much better. Obviously with the devices you have using a full 'real' VPN probably isn't an option. Change the wireless id of the AP from the default to something randomish, and set it to not broadcast it (assuming all your devices can be told to use a specific one).

In short, be as paranoid as possible .

-Ath

 

[inactionman]

Oh. In that case you can just get a wireless AP, I assumed you had ADSL as you mentioned a router!

Looking at the prices of AP's though, it's cheap enough to just use it as a wireless access point without the ADSL functionality, you'll just have to set it's default route via your NTL router

Another option is to replace your router with one with built in wireless like this one.

http://www.broadbandbuyer.co.uk/Shop/MFR/Features.asp?ProductID=2210

 

[nath]

What inactionman posted is exactly what you need since you won't really find an access point cheaper, may aswell get the accesspoint/router combo.

If you're relatively confident with configuring these things go with the linksys as it's a decent enough make, but they're not that intuitive.

I'd recommend a netgear as they're very straight forward to set up, and everything is pretty self explanatory.

 

[Ch3tan]

While netgear is easy to setup, they are extremly bad at dropping connections.

I have one of the grey ones, and my cousin has a white one. They both drop connections at least once or twice a day.

 

[nath]

The grey ones are just bad, they're known for being utterly shit. The white ones however are usually very reliable. If your cousins one drops connections once a day, it's faulty and should be replaced.

I dealt with the white netgears about 3 times a week for over a year, sure there were some faulty ones here and there but overall they're very reliable devices. Plus, I use one at home and it drops its connection every few months at the most.

 

[Rubber Bullets]

I have white Netgear DG834GT and I guess I have to reboot it roughly once a month. I'm pretty happy with that.

RB

 

[Yaka]

http://www.linksys.com/servlet/Sate...803676&pagename=Linksys/Common/VisitorWrapper

is this one anyone any good?

 

[inactionman]

It looks fine, but it's more expensive than the cable router with wireless that I recommended, and does the same thing. Feel free to get it, but a waste of money imho (cost and ongoing power costs).

 

[Hawkwind]

I have white Netgear DG834GT and I guess I have to reboot it roughly once a month. I'm pretty happy with that.

RB

Same, nice bit of kit tbh.

 

[nath]

Yeah, what inactionman said Yaka, the router does everything the access point does, and more, and for cheaper. Makes no sense to go for the AP.

 

[Yaka]

well i took your advice guys and got the linksys wrt54g router. currently step up as an AP preety good as well.. now my brother has DS and like a few peeps on FH is DS nutz i recently got him the DS browser which only does WEP.

atm i got my set up as CM->wired router->wifi router my pcs are connected to the wired router but how prone would i be from being hacked or attacked with this setup

 

[Athan]

How prone you are to attacks all depends on your firewall setup.

Ideally you want to at least set the IPs that the wifi router gives out to wireless clients as NOT TRUSTED AT ALL by anything else on your network. Add in exceptions to this for what you really do need access to (i.e. windows file sharing?), but then use as strong auth as you can for those things (i.e. require windows user+passsword and disable the guest account).

Note that this still leaves any wireless client as able to access anything out on the big bad internet (assuming you're NATing things appropriately), it's just treating any wireless client, for purposes of accessing your other machines, the same as if it was a random machine on the big bad internet.

Oh, and to all the people saying whatever routers are shit, realise that there'll always be someone having problems with any given make and model of a piece of hardware. Plus in the case of wireless there's a long list of things that can go wrong including sucky drivers on the client side, in-need-of-an-upgrade firmware on the AP itself, interference from other local APs or anything else putting out EM radiation. If you have problems with using wireless go outside and see if there's any suspicious aerials around, you might find you have some HAM or CB user around ....

-Ath

 

[Yaka]

dunno about you shit routers but linksys build is bad and good. the case is a snap and click screwless thing i dropped it on the loor in the jkitchen and it came apart

i guess this is niether good or bad as quick google searched shows that peeps modify certain versions of this router. still it works ok so im happy