Is it Possible to have 2 Wireless Connection Protocol ?

Leiva

Hi,

I use my Laptop (win XP Pro sp3 ) for work & home use .
Only thing is I have to change my wireless network IP Protocol every time I use my Laptop at home or work .

My home wireless setup is secured using fixed I.P address's (Laptop , PS3 , iPhone ) and router as DNS .
My work wireless setup obtains IP Automatically .

Every time I am at home I have to change my wireless connection protocol to the fixed I.P setup , then back in work set it to "obtain automatically , back home enter fixed IP's etc .:o

Is there a way to setup 2 wireless setups so I dont have to keep changing the IP protocol ?

Ta In Advance.

M.

CrinkElite

I think you should be able to open your network connections folder from the control panel, right click the empty space in the window and select "NEW" then "Wireless connection", you should be able to configure one for your home setup and one for work.

I haven't used xp for a few years now but i think it should work.

bhickey

mixednuts wrote: »

My home wireless setup is secured using fixed I.P address's (Laptop , PS3 , iPhone ) and router as DNS

Is there any particular reason why you use static IP's on your home network?

Leiva

bhickey wrote: »

Is there any particular reason why you use static IP's on your home network?

Security .. I have all 3 devices (laptop , phone , ps3 ) on static i.p , I have also configured the wireless router to only allow these 3 connections .

bhickey

mixednuts wrote: »

Security .. I have all 3 devices (laptop , phone , ps3 ) on static i.p , I have also configured the wireless router to only allow these 3 connections .

Does the router have the facility to only allow the MAC addresses of those devices? Then at least you could just use DHCP on the home network. You don't necessarily need static IP's for security.

kmick

You could write a batch script to switch between the two.

Leiva

kmick wrote: »

You could write a batch script to switch between the two.

Elaborate Please ..in play school language

Alun

You can also use DHCP reservations on the router to always associate the same IP address with a particular MAC address. It's totally transparent to the device whether it's getting a dynamically allocated address or a reserved one.

maggy_thatcher

mixednuts wrote: »

Security .. I have all 3 devices (laptop , phone , ps3 ) on static i.p , I have also configured the wireless router to only allow these 3 connections .

Fixed IP Addresses do nothing for security (and neither will locking to particular MAC addresses). If you are using an unencrypted line, the "valid" IP addresses/MAC addresses can be determined, and an intruder can just use one of those addresses. If you want some half-decent security, just turn on WPA on the router, and enter the encryption key on your devices.

Once you have done that, switch on DHCP addressing, and then you can just leave your computer on automatic, and it'll switch to/from home/work depending on where you are.

jspuds

What about using the alternate IP address setting under TCP/IP properties for the fixed IP

Zab

maggy_thatcher wrote: »

Fixed IP Addresses do nothing for security (and neither will locking to particular MAC addresses). If you are using an unencrypted line, the "valid" IP addresses/MAC addresses can be determined, and an intruder can just use one of those addresses. If you want some half-decent security, just turn on WPA on the router, and enter the encryption key on your devices.

Once you have done that, switch on DHCP addressing, and then you can just leave your computer on automatic, and it'll switch to/from home/work depending on where you are.

Yeah, this. Just use WPA or WPA2 with a unique SSID (even your street would be fine) and a 20+ character passphrase that's truly random. WPA isn't flawed like WEP where the time to bruteforce a key only increases linearly with length. Nobody is getting into your network and anybody who did would easily bat aside unnecessary measures like MAC or IP filtering anyway.

If you meant that IP filtering is the only security you're using then you have basically no security and need to fix this asap.

axer

mixednuts wrote: »

Security .. I have all 3 devices (laptop , phone , ps3 ) on static i.p , I have also configured the wireless router to only allow these 3 connections .

Why not setup the router for DHCP assigning IP addresses based on the MAC address requesting an IP. I don't understand how using static IP addresses is helping security.

Leiva

UPDATE :

I switched to DCHP on the router .
I changed my SSID
I am using WPA2 .
My WPA2 encryption key is a 10 digit number .

All connected devices ..Laptop , iPhone , PS3 connected ,and now using dynamic IP ... no need to switch between fixed and Dynamic IP address's (work / home)

Anything else I can do or improve on please let me know .

Also ; thanks to all for help .

M

bhickey

mixednuts wrote: »

Anything else I can do or improve on please let me know

That's fine. The only thing I'd probably change would be the key format - a key with both letters and numbers would be better.