How Easy is Home Wireless Network

[oncemorealoft]

We've just bought a new Dell Dimension PC and put it into our office at home where it's linked to NTL Broadband. The older Dell Dimension has been moved one of the kids bedroom , so there are now no arguments about access to a p.c. to do homework (what happened to pen and ink or even chalka and slate!). Of course, they now want the p.c. in the bedroom to be internet linked (for homwork Dad, not MSN) but i don't want to tie up our phone line.

How easy is it to build a small wireless network linking the new Dell with the old?

How much would it cost to do it cheaply?

Many thanks in advance for advice received.

[ORAC]

Cheapest option is put a wireless card in each machine and use the Internet Connection Sharing (ICS) built into XP. You can pick up cards on ebay for about £20 each + p&p, so the cost will be about £50. (I'm assuming your new machine is running XP).

That option requires both machines to be on for the kids to use the internet. You will have limited or no parental control.

Option two is to use a wireless router with your machine connected to it by cable and a card in the kids. You can pick up a cheap wireless router on ebay for about £40. Add the additional network cable and your are looking at about £70.

That assumes that your modem has a network connector to plug into the router. If it's a USB modem then you'll need to replace that as well. A cheap combined router/modem is about £65, making the cost about £90.

The advantage of the router is that it will provide a DHCP and NDS service, probably have a firewall, and will allow you to control internet access in a variety of ways. As long as you ensure only you have the admin password.....

[Naples Air Center, Inc.]

oncemorealoft,

Just be careful going wireless. Wireless is always easier than wired to hack.

Take Care,

Richard

P.S. With wireless, the hacker does not need to be inside your house to hack your network, he can be in the parking lot or a side street with a notebook PC.

[freefallfun]

Richard raises a good point with Wireless LANs - Security. The company I work for manufactures WLAN equipment amongst other things. Studies we've seen show that a high percentage of WLANs are installed without any security controls enabled.

It's prudent to enable the highest common level of encryption that all your wireless devices support (In order of strength / preference (802.11i - WPA2, AES, WPA, 128Bit WEP, 40Bit WEP). Also your wireless router / access point may be able to block unknown MAC address (The unique Media Access Control hardware address of your wireless client cards) thus stopping unknown devices connecting to your wireless LAN. Finally disable ESSID broadcast (this stops the "name" of your wireless LAN being broadcast for all to see)

I'm not suggesting that's it common for people sit outside homes trying to hack your data but it's not unheard of neighbours piggybacking internet access from your Wireless LAN. So keep the threat of hackers in perspective but I guess if you have security features then you should enable them.

For more info check out: http://www.weca.net/OpenSection/protected_access.asp

Hope that helps.


Matt - FreeFallFun :ok:

[BEagle]

Surely all you have to do is to restrict your wireless router to enable access only from your specific list of wireless clients? Mine is restricted to just my own laptop's MAC address and I've set the firewall to medium.

Isn't that sufficient security for most home users?

That said, I'm surprised at the number of 'open' hotspots one comes across; how do you tell whether their state is through ignorance or intention?

[freefallfun]

Beagle,

Using "block unknown MAC address" as a basic authentication security mechanism would stop unauthorised devices becoming part of your WLAN (presuming they can’t alter their MAC address details manually – some client card software sets will allow you to do this!). This is normally enough to stop your neighbour piggy backing your internet connection across your WLAN.

However as WLAN’s are broadcast radio based it’s easy to monitor traffic without being a registered node on the WLAN. Hence I’d consider some form of encryption to protect such eavesdropping. So even by blocking unknown MAC’s it’s still possible to sit close to a WLAN and capture the transmitted packets between WLAN client PC’s and Access Point / Wireless Router.

Finally by not advertising the wireless network name (ESSID) you make it hard for people to create a denial of service attack where by they can also advertise the same ESSID and re-direct your WLAN traffic or just let it disappear into a black hole as it can’t differentiate between the real and hackers spoof WLAN.

Like I said, we need to keep the threat to home WLAN’s in perspective. I for one use Encryption and Authentication in my home WLAN. Such features are transparent to me as a user and do not impact performance so I figure why not use them for peace of mind?

Anyway, to get back on topic about the ease of building aWLAN between two desktop PC’s…

ORAC’s already got that covered in his post but an alternative you may wish to consider is to run a length of CAT 5. UTP cable between the two PC’s and a broadband gateway /router (I’m presuming the PC’s will have built in RJ-45 10/100Base-T Ethernet connections). This would save you a few pounds on hardware costs but obviously you gain the hassle of pulling some wire from one room to another.


Matt - FreeFallFun
:ok:

[LunchMonitor]

At present I have a wired lan for 3 pcs and a laptop. I wish to go wireless but not for all the machines. Just the laptop and one desktop initially. I have at present an 8 way hub, XP and ME using ICS. Is it possible to connect a Wireless access point to the hub somehow to connect these two machines or does it have to be one thing or the other. ie all wired or all wireless.

Sorry if this is a stupid question.

[Naples Air Center, Inc.]

LunchMonitor,

You can mix and match wired with wireless. You will find wireless routers with 4 wired ports:

http://images10.newegg.com/productimage/33-127-132-03.JPG

http://images10.newegg.com/productimage/33-127-132-04.JPG

http://images10.newegg.com/productimage/33-127-132-01.JPG

Take Care,

Richard

[PPRuNe Towers]

Taking option one from orac and the percolation of computers into kids' rooms I've a suggestion for some brutally effective parental control of surftime.

I've just spotted the latest wireless cards that look identical to usb memory sticks. Assuming the rugrats' computers are usb equipped an extra tenner buys you a wireless card for their machine that is only on when you want it to be - i.e. a simple, and if needed, dramatic withdrawal of said link to the outside world.

If I disappear from the site without trace you can take it my little dears didn't like the idea:uhoh: :uhoh:

Regards
Rob

[oncemorealoft]

Thanks for everyones help.

oncemorealoft

[JUMBO400]

I bought a Wirless router for my home lAN thinking it would work with AOL but no such luck.

[The Nr Fairy]

Jumbo:

I don't know about the AOL software, but if it can be set to dial automatically, and the wireless LAN is used as an adjunct to Internet Connection Sharing, it shold be possible.

But to be honesty, any ISP which installs as much junk and so pervasively as AOL I wouldn't touch with a bargepole.

[freefallfun]

Unlike the majority of ISPs I'm pretty sure that AOL uses a proprietary WAN client as apposed to a standards based one (PPP / SLIP / PPPoA / PPPoE etc.) Your router will most likely support a selection of these standards based wide area protocols but AOL will not talk to them. If this is the case then I doubt that you'll get the router working directly with AOL. :sad:

All may not be lost as I think that The Nr Fairy's suggestion makes sense and is worth a try. Get your PC with the AOL client software to directly connect to AOL on start up (i'm presuming you're on broadband?) and then use some of the Microsoft internet connection sharing features to give other machine's in your network internet access. You could then use your wireless router as an DHCP Server, Ethernet switch and wireless access point by plugging your PC into one of the LAN ports of your wireless router.



Matt - FreeFallFun :ok:

[ORAC]

AOL uses PPoE on DSL, they only use a propriety format on cable modems. They recommend Linksys, Netgear or Actiontec routers, but any should work. You will have to create accounts for both the router and all the PCs however.
Log on to AOL with a Broadband Router (http://www.personalhomenetworks.com/introduction/overview/AOLrouters.html)

[BEagle]

Is there any one good reason to use AoL? I've yet to hear anything good about it...

[FJJP]

I've installed a wired/wirless mix recently and it now works fine. Initially I had mind-boggling set-up problems but they've now been resolved.

My PC (the main one) is hard-wired to a D-Link wireless router. The PC belonging to She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed is fitted with a D-Link wireless card, as is my laptop. Top tip (learned the hard way!) - before placing your laptop in its carrying case, remove the wireless and any other cards that stick out the side. If you don't, it's liable to get mangled if the case gets knocked...

And no, I haven't heard much good about AOL either - at least 3 friends have dumped them and gone BT.

[BOAC]

Beagle - there WAS a good reason while I was on dial-up and for £14.99/month I had a reliable, no-disconnect ISP AND access to the world-wide low/free access numbers, but now they have decided to price this facility at £34.99/month for b/band, I am looking at alternatives for travelling.

[pilotwolf]

OK some answers for this scenario would be good...

As AB and I use our laptops to connect to the internet - me AOL and her Freeserve - whilst watching Tv etc and I have a desktop with AOL too... All run XP.

I was looking to install a wireless system for the laptop useage to avoid the modem leads trailing around the house. What is the best way and cheapest way of doing the wireless bit?

Seen above AOL is a problem with wireless...

If I buy a router now will it still work if BT ever bother to upgrade to broadband here or do they only work with broadband?

PW

[Saab Dastard]

Word of warning to those about to buy PCI wireless network cards for older PCs - check very carefully what version of PCI the card is and what version of PCI the PC supports...

SD