Broadband - Wireless setup at home ??

mburke

Hi there,

I have got broadband from Esat and am thinking of setting it up so that I can have wireless access in my house.

I am thinking of buying a 3com wireless access point and a 3com wireless pc card.

Has anyone set this up at home and is it as simple as connecting the cable from the broadband router into the access point.

Will the wireless card pick up the signal automatically or is there configurations to be done.

Any help or assistance would be much appreciated.

watty

To do it "wrong" and have it working is easy.

You *MUST* setup a key and secuirity matching on the Access point and all the other WiFi gadgets or else someone down the street can access your broadband and/or all your PC info.

I'd recommend a a standalone firewall for broadband and the most security settings on your WiFi.

Note without a properly configured firewall (Blackice and XP's built in FW arn't much good, it needs to be a separate pc/box expertly configured). Most Broadband "routers" don't have Firewall worth tuppence.

Separate network cable / card recommended for Firewall to Broadband connection. Disable all bindings (esp NETBIOS) other than basic TCP/IP or else stuff can "sneak around" the Firewall Software). I use an old 486 with NT4 and old version of Wingate (NAT and Log Web Server turned off!!).

Don't use Proxy/Firewall clients, instead simply enter the Firewalls trusted/private/LAN IP as the Proxy in your Internet explorer.

If you "proxy" non-standard POP and SMTP ports (say 8025 and 1110) on your firewall and add a cheap mail server, it can stop relaying and using simple content rules even unknown viruses. Then you put the IP address of that mail server (mDaemon is good) as the host for your email programs. If the email server software is set to only allow logged on mailbox to send mail and only to receive mail for mailboxes, then even if you get a emailling virus it can't propagate!

Dlink products are as good or better than the Domestic 3Com and cheaper.

SMC tend to be a bit tricky, but I have used them OK too.

Linksys actually use same chips as Dlink and very highly regarded by WAN/WiFi enthusists.

Aviod Trust / Belkin for such products.

pq2

Ive just set mine up

IOL BB / Zxyel P623 & Officeconnect wireless Router

heres the thread

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=&postid=1495110

mburke

Thanks for the info.
My concern now is that I have a wireless access point instead of a wireless gateway.

I also have an officeconnect box for which at the moment I have the broadband box connecting into and one pc of the office connect. I was hoping to have a wirless laptop of it also.

I shall see if I reconfigure the IOL broadband box to bridge mode if that will help.

Thanks again.

watty

no.. bridging is MoRE than routing, not less...

Make sure yoy write down a big long key (0..9 and A, B, C, D, E and F characters in HEX mode). You enable WEP 128 bit on EVERYTHING.

I think "open" is more secure than "shared" mode, but I forget.

Put this key in. It only accepts the correct number of characters.

Only people with the matching key can connect.


The BSSID (The Airpoint name) is no security at all as various laptop utilities can find out the name or even connect to a base station with NO name!

Make sure your base unit is in Airpoint/Infrastructure mode and not Peer to Peer mode.

Make sure you do all changes via the wired ethernet connection (Using SNMP or WEB based supplied utility and that you change the default password for the administration (write it down in the manual or something that you will keep with the Key). Else someone with the same manual via the the broadband connection might reprogram your box for you :-) !

Disable changes via RF connection too (an option on some boxes)!

On your PCs / Laptop if XP make it that "Only connect to Infrastructure / Only connect to Preffered networks" to aviod your PC / Laptop getting hijacked!