Wireless Networking - a short story
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Wireless Networking - a short story
I thought I'd take the opportunity, while working at home, to enjoy the spell of fine weather I was anticipating. More of the waether later, but I decided to fork out on some wireless gear to do it.
A quick word about the pre-wireless setup. I have a 3Com ISDN TA which has 4 10Mb Ethernet ports, and the home PC and laptop plug into there. It's a basic router, so if any PC connected tries to send a packet to the outside world it brings the ISDN up. This is ideal as it's intelligent enough to bring the line up and down as needed, and bring the 2nd channel in if I'm downloading. Plus it's a DHCP server as well.
Of course, I'm limited to staying in the office if I'm working from home as this is where the ISDN TA is. And yes, I didn't want the hassle of 30m flyleads.
I did some research on wireless access points and NIC cards, and decided on a ZoomAir 4165. This allows various methods of connecting to the internet and allows direct connection to an existing LAN. I also ordered a ZoomAir PCMCIA wireless card. Total cost - just short of £300 from Inmac.
So, ordered Friday pm, arrived Monday 9:30am, installed and working by 10:30 - but how ?
Having read the documentation, it turns out the access point has a default IP address of 192.168.123.234 - my network is 192.168.1.0 ( the TA does NAT ).
Plugged the access point in to the TA, plugged NIC into laptop, loaded drivers for the NIC, rebooted, gave NIC static IP address. Changed IP address of access point to 192.168.1.253, disabled its DHCP server, told it NOT to try connecting to the internet but just work as an access point.
Reset the wireless NIC to get a DHCP address, and after a bit of trouble getting an IP address, I reset both the access point and the TA - bingo.
So if I;m using the laptop, when I fire it up the NIC talks to the access point, using it as a bridge. The TA issues an IP address, and acts as the default router. Any traffic not destined for the local network ( which at the moment consists of a laptop, PC, TA and a Nokia IP120 router/firewall ) goes over ISDN to work's RAS.
So, I can now PPRuNe, check work mail, private email, from anywhere in the house. Signal strength goes down a bit in the dining room, but 100% in the room directly below. Works a treat, saves annoying the missus by tapping away in the office, which is right next to the bedroom. Which at 5am this morning was a real treat.
And why am I not typing this from the laptop, downstairs, without power cable and Ethernet lead ? Because the weather is crap, and looks like it intends to stay that way so I'm up in the office. Ah well.
A quick word about the pre-wireless setup. I have a 3Com ISDN TA which has 4 10Mb Ethernet ports, and the home PC and laptop plug into there. It's a basic router, so if any PC connected tries to send a packet to the outside world it brings the ISDN up. This is ideal as it's intelligent enough to bring the line up and down as needed, and bring the 2nd channel in if I'm downloading. Plus it's a DHCP server as well.
Of course, I'm limited to staying in the office if I'm working from home as this is where the ISDN TA is. And yes, I didn't want the hassle of 30m flyleads.
I did some research on wireless access points and NIC cards, and decided on a ZoomAir 4165. This allows various methods of connecting to the internet and allows direct connection to an existing LAN. I also ordered a ZoomAir PCMCIA wireless card. Total cost - just short of £300 from Inmac.
So, ordered Friday pm, arrived Monday 9:30am, installed and working by 10:30 - but how ?
Having read the documentation, it turns out the access point has a default IP address of 192.168.123.234 - my network is 192.168.1.0 ( the TA does NAT ).
Plugged the access point in to the TA, plugged NIC into laptop, loaded drivers for the NIC, rebooted, gave NIC static IP address. Changed IP address of access point to 192.168.1.253, disabled its DHCP server, told it NOT to try connecting to the internet but just work as an access point.
Reset the wireless NIC to get a DHCP address, and after a bit of trouble getting an IP address, I reset both the access point and the TA - bingo.
So if I;m using the laptop, when I fire it up the NIC talks to the access point, using it as a bridge. The TA issues an IP address, and acts as the default router. Any traffic not destined for the local network ( which at the moment consists of a laptop, PC, TA and a Nokia IP120 router/firewall ) goes over ISDN to work's RAS.
So, I can now PPRuNe, check work mail, private email, from anywhere in the house. Signal strength goes down a bit in the dining room, but 100% in the room directly below. Works a treat, saves annoying the missus by tapping away in the office, which is right next to the bedroom. Which at 5am this morning was a real treat.
And why am I not typing this from the laptop, downstairs, without power cable and Ethernet lead ? Because the weather is crap, and looks like it intends to stay that way so I'm up in the office. Ah well.
Join Date: Mar 2001
Location: Seattle, WA USA
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WLANs are brilliant...
Here's what I think is an interesting story:
I take the train to work and it takes about 45 minutes. Quite often, I'll be using my laptop during my commute and I have a wireless LAN card in it. I also have a free program called NetStumbler that goes off and looks for available wireless networks. I use this when I'm at another location and want to see if there's an available WLAN I can camp out on (to enjoy free Internet access). Anyway, at the end of the train journey, NetStumbler had picked up around 50 WLANs, of which about half had no security enabled whatsoever, which means I could get access to the Internet through their network (assuming the train stayed in one place for long enough).
Here's what I think is an interesting story:
I take the train to work and it takes about 45 minutes. Quite often, I'll be using my laptop during my commute and I have a wireless LAN card in it. I also have a free program called NetStumbler that goes off and looks for available wireless networks. I use this when I'm at another location and want to see if there's an available WLAN I can camp out on (to enjoy free Internet access). Anyway, at the end of the train journey, NetStumbler had picked up around 50 WLANs, of which about half had no security enabled whatsoever, which means I could get access to the Internet through their network (assuming the train stayed in one place for long enough).
Join Date: Mar 2001
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Yes, or had a list of valid MAC addresses for their network, etc.
But given that a bunch of them had clearly default settings for their ESSID and other info, the likelihood is that they were wide open.
But given that a bunch of them had clearly default settings for their ESSID and other info, the likelihood is that they were wide open.
Join Date: May 2002
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BAL,
Yeah, you'll find a lot of AP owners who for whatever reason don't bother with the encryption keys, and any other security for that matter. Oh well, means more surfing for us eh? lol
NR,
I have a similar setup at home. The exception being, my kit is all 3Com and cost me a grand total of £0.
FBW
Yeah, you'll find a lot of AP owners who for whatever reason don't bother with the encryption keys, and any other security for that matter. Oh well, means more surfing for us eh? lol
NR,
I have a similar setup at home. The exception being, my kit is all 3Com and cost me a grand total of £0.
FBW
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A tough guess, I bet. lol
I have the fun job of trying to find the faults in the equipment before the customers do, so it keeps me topped up with equipment. Nice perk, I guess.
I have the fun job of trying to find the faults in the equipment before the customers do, so it keeps me topped up with equipment. Nice perk, I guess.
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Well I put in a Linksys 802.11 wireless router to unify my internet connection around the house last month.
Very simple to install and really the best thing since sliced bread for internet and simple file sharing. Good reception even through a large concrete and steel beamed house. Even the smallest of rooms now allow 500K Internet access on the PDA !!!
The utility is good on the desktops, but it is with the portable thingies that WiFi really makes you take notice. It ain't that cheap on the face of it, but prices are coming down fast. It is certainly (in my case at least) cheaper than drilling lots of holes and laying cable. And the Linksys USB Tx/RX boxes are so incrediby simple to install and hook up.
Security is an issue as there seems to be about 5 WiFi networks in range of my system, but we all now have the WEP security enabled and there is no conflict. Two or more separate systems on the same channel causes a stutter, but there are 11 channels to play with so with the limited range, it is easy to find a vacant channel number for your system.
If you are thinking at all about a network - take a look at WiFi - it rocks.
MG
Very simple to install and really the best thing since sliced bread for internet and simple file sharing. Good reception even through a large concrete and steel beamed house. Even the smallest of rooms now allow 500K Internet access on the PDA !!!
The utility is good on the desktops, but it is with the portable thingies that WiFi really makes you take notice. It ain't that cheap on the face of it, but prices are coming down fast. It is certainly (in my case at least) cheaper than drilling lots of holes and laying cable. And the Linksys USB Tx/RX boxes are so incrediby simple to install and hook up.
Security is an issue as there seems to be about 5 WiFi networks in range of my system, but we all now have the WEP security enabled and there is no conflict. Two or more separate systems on the same channel causes a stutter, but there are 11 channels to play with so with the limited range, it is easy to find a vacant channel number for your system.
If you are thinking at all about a network - take a look at WiFi - it rocks.
MG
