Advice wanted regarding setting up WiFi

Thu Apr 1 11:36:22 PST 2004

David Wolfskill writes:
>>Either way, I would also want to set up something to provide
>>authentication (NoCatAuth?) so only authorized users can use it.
>
>I use a combination of:
>
>* WEP
>
>* Set the access points to not broadcast the SSID
>
>* Only permit listed MAC addresses to connect
>
>but even together, they only really constitute an "Authorized Personnel
>Only" sign.  (I figure that if it comes down to it, some one can
>certainly connect without my authorization; claiming to have done so
>accidentally will, however, strain the imagination somewhat.)

I want to make it painless to get online with my wifi setup, so I
don't think I want to restrict by MAC address.  And that's easy to
spoof anyway.  NoCatAuth still sounds pretty cool to me.

>>I have very little spare time to mess with this, so I want something
>>that can be set up easily.  I also don't have the budget to be buying
>>a lot of hardware.
>
>If your existing firewall can accept another NIC, I suggest at least
>considering the approach.  (I expect that Linux could do this
>reasonably, though I don't know from experience.  I tend to be rather
>more BSD-oriented.)

As I said earlier, my existing firewall is a little box from Linksys.
But I could scrape together one using either a laptop or an old 486
tower case with two NIC's and put it in line ahead of my existing
firewall.

--Bill.

-- 
William R Ward            bill at wards.net          http://www.wards.net/~bill/
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