Daniel J Miller – Elkhart PC and network help

Archive for the ‘Networking’ Category

Looking for a great backup solution that is simple and reliable. You won’t find this at Best Buy or sold in stores but really is the best I have used. I use a network storage device along with QuickShadow Backup.
http://quicklytech.com/

I do quite a bit of web development and over the years have accumulated close to 700meg of files that represent way too many hours of work to even think about risking loosing. I use a infrant technologies network storage device NAS, (now known as a readynas) and have tried serveral methods of backup. They all had their drawbacks as I wanted something that left the files in their natural state. I also wanted to be able to FTP to this backup area and just drag and drop files. In addition I wanted this to happen reliably and automtically without sheduling a backup and leaving my workstation on. You know HANDS OFF! SET AND FORGET! I have tried them all. QuickShadow backup not only is reliable and hands off but provides revisioning. There are other out there that claim to be able to do the same but the key was reliability.

Don’t take my word for it! Try QuickShadow backup with all advanced features FREE for 30 days. At the end of the 30 day period the standard features are still available.

Basic Wireless Security
OK you got you wireless network up and running. Hopefully which ever wireless router you’ve chosen included a section on security, if so read it, if not, the following information should help you to secure your wireless network. If you have not viewed our article on Networking 101 you can view it here
http://danieljmiller.net/?cat=4

There is a nice flash basic tutorial provided by Cisco posted there. If you have already viewed that or just want to review wireless security, here is a link to the security section

http://www.linksys.com/flash/learn_networking/5_1.html

After reviewing that video, we will pick up our discussion where that left off hopefully adding to your knowledge of basic wireless security.
Even though the video is pretty good it left out a few items I would like to discuss here, and add a little detail.

1st off what is NAT?
NAT is what a router (wired or wireless) uses to isolate your internal private ip addresses used on your home network. NAT stands for (N)etwork (A)ddress (T)ranslation. To communicate on the internet you need what is called an IP, (I)nternet (P)rotocol, address. In a home networks and most business networks we use IP addresses that fall into several private IP address ranges. Most home routers come with a CD that, if you follow all of the steps do the following:

1. Set all clients to use the routers built in DHCP server. DHCP stands for (D)ynamic (H)ost (C)onfiguration (P)rotocol. This protocol sets your clients, (the PC’s on your network that connect to the router), to automatically get IP addressing information from the router. The addresses that the router hands out are in one of the following ranges. These ranges are the Private IP ranges seen below:

10.0.0.0 through 10.255.255.255
172.16.0.0 through 172.31.255.255 and
192.168.0.0 through 192.168.255.255

2. Your home router has 2 IP addresses. 1 that the PC’s on your home network see (called the local IP address, and one that the internet sees. (Your public IP address).
In Home networks, the public IP address of the router is commonly set to obtain the IP address from your internet provider. At some point you must have a public IP address so your privately addressed network can communicate with hosts, (web servers) on the internet.

What NAT does, is to only expose your public IP (your routers IP address) to the internet, effectively isolating your home net work from the internet. If your internal private IP address say is 192.168.15.100, when you connect to www.google.com, google only sees communication from your routers public IP address, which maybe something like 72.193.236.75, not your internal IP address.
Your router strips off your internal IP address and replaces it with your public IP address.
Your routers local IP address has a manufacturer default setting that may be something like 192.168.0.1. DLink and Netgear typically use this address. The documentation that comes with your router will tell you what the factory settings are.

To communicate on the internet every device must have a UNIQUE IP ADDRESS…. Ok, another reason why there are private IP addresses……. THERE ARE NOT ENOUGH IP ADDRESSES in the current IP version 4 IP scheme to give every device a unique IP address. The current IP Version 4 allows for about 4.3 billion IP addresses. There are now over 7 Billion people on the planet. Having these private IP addresses that are hidden from the internet allows these private IP addresses to be shared.

HOW DOES THIS ALL WORK ON THE INTERNET?
NOTE: I am going to over simplify this next part to keep this posting a reasonable length.
Packets are the chucks of data we pass back and forth on a network or the internet. All packets, just like letters sent via the mail, must have a source address (Return Mailing Address) and a Destination address, (mail to address). Effectively the router strips off your source address (return mailing address) and replaces it with its address. It also adds some additional information to the packet and stores this mapping information in memory, so when the packet returns it knows what local IP address to send it to.

Optional: For more information on NAT (N)etwork (A)ddress (T)ranslation
http://www.howstuffworks.com/nat.htm/printable

OK Now back to Wireless Security. There are many ways to improve security on a wireless network.
What was mentioned in the video was:

1.) Change the default password for the administrator on the router. If possible change the administrator username.

2.) In the video it suggests changing the default SSID (Service Set Identifier) That does nothing to improve the security of network. All wireless networks routers have this turned on by default and usually have a SSID the same as the manufacturer of the router. That’s why scanning your local wireless network may show many linksys or netgear SSID’s. By renaming the SSID to something like yourlastname, all you’re doing is telling others who’s network it is. To me that is worse than leaving it Linksys.
BETTER SUGGESTION…. TURN IT OFF! It’s not needed. When you or someone wants to connect to your wireless network they must now know the SSID as it is not broadcast.

3.) Implement WEP, WPA or WPA2 Security. These utilize encryption through the use of a passkey. – See your router documentation. Of the 3 WEP is the weakest and WPA2 the most secure. NOTE all devices connecting to your wireless network must support the security chosen; older devices may only support WEP.

4.) Use Mac address filtering. A MAC Address (Media Access Control Address) is a unique identifier assigned to network communication equipment by the manufacturer for identification. By turning this feature on only communication devices with their MAC address registered can communicate on your network. Keep in mind however, a knowledgeable hacker can easily get past this.

5.) Always Disable Remote administration. Enable it only if needed and only if you can define a specific IP or range of IP addresses allowed.

6.) Disable DHCP on your wireless router, Assign your IP addressing manually.

I Hope this helped you to make your wireless network a bit more secure.
See you after the Holidays!

Dan

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The basics of home networking.
You don’t have to be a computer guru or hire the geek squad to enjoy .
What is a network? A group of connected computers or devices connected together to share resources.
By resources, I mean Printers, Shared folders on other PC’s, share internet connections, stream music, play games, make phone calls, share video and more. I personally do to play games but I have grandkids that do so I also have an Xbox360 and a Playstation 3 system. The Xbox I use as what is called a media center extender. You can also purchase a dedicated media center extender but they are usually more expensive than an XBOX 360. I know I told you I do not play games, so why would I want an XBOX?

I use the Xbox to extend my media center PC, which has a TV tuner card in it, to record TV programs, and then stream them over my network to my XBOX360 connected to my TV. I never worry about missing a show and also have a huge selection of shows to occupy the kids.
Your home network can be wired using UTP (unshielded twisted pair) or wireless. What’s better? Always wired, but that is not always easy to accomplish in an existing home so you will probably be looking at a (wireless router.)

Note: This is Home Networking 101 so I may introduce some terms that maybe unfamiliar to you but stay with me as we add additional materials to the site hopefully things will make sense.

The wireless router is what not only makes wireless communication possible in your home, but also allows you to share internet connectivity. If you want to go the wired way, you will still need a router but it need not be wireless. Most wireless routers, however will have a built in 4 port switch for your wired devices and most all new PC’s have what is called a RJ45 (Registered Jack) connector that is the physical connection to your NIC card, pronounced “NICK”, installed in your PC. Don’t worry if you have an older PC that does not have a NIC card, a quick trip to Walmart and $20 will get you one. If you want to go the wireless way the NIC may run around $40. If you have a fairly new (with 2-5years) old notebook, it probably already has wireless in it.

The link I am going to give you is a very good and covers much of the basic information.
In my next post I will be covering Wireless s Security expanding on the video contained in the link.
http://www.linksys.com/flash/learn_networking/1_1.html

Until then, God Bless and be sure to subscribe to our RSS feed or bookmark this site.
Dan