MakeUseOf.com » router

How To Secure Your D-Link Wireless Router

Susan Linton — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 16:01:10 +0000

Security is probably the most important aspect of any computing experience and probably one of the most neglected. With security measures, like many things, one can go as deep as they want to go but a little effort to employ the basics can go a long way. While it is said that locks are only for honest people, you wouldn’t go to bed without locking your door. Let’s lock your door and show you how to secure a D-link wireless Router.

General Networking With D-Link Wireless Routers

After connecting your D-Link wireless router and opening the start page in your browser, you’ll see a login screen. All of these routers come with a default password or no password at all. The first thing you’ll want to do is set one in order to guard against local and possible neighborhood intrusion. While this measure seems a given, many may be tempted to skip this step for convenience. The administrator password is your first line of defense.

Next you’ll configure your network settings according to your connection, hardware, and purpose of the router. In addition, the option to configure remote management is offered so you can access your router from outside your local network. It is not advised to allow this unless necessary as individual internet addresses can be spoofed and leaves your network another opening for intrusion. In the advanced settings of the network there’s a tickbox for enabling WAN (from the internet) pings. Leave this unchecked so that your router will not answer pings confirming its existence.

Wireless Settings

The most important part is under the Wireless Settings. Here you will secure your router connections. The first thing one might want to do is change the default name because most routers ship with their brand name as the default SSID, or broadcast name. While this doesn’t help a whole lot if it’s broadcast across the neighborhood, at least it will hide your brand making it a bit harder to crack.

Next is the Enable Extended Range Mode. Do not enable this unless your equipment is indeed in a large building. There’s no sense in creating a larger circle of coverage to encompass even more neighborhood hackers than is necessary. Most average sized homes and small business settings will not require this option to be turned on. Along these same lines, it’s not recommended that one exchange the factory antenna for a high-range aftermarket replacement for the same reason. If your wireless network card in your computer supports 802.11g, then perhaps you might want to tick the 802.11g checkbox, perhaps excluding some who may not have the latest equipment.

Hiding your SSID aids in security by not announcing its existence. This way only those who know your SSID will be able to use it. While some experienced hackers may own tools to detect your router regardless, it will guard against some. In and of itself hiding the SSID isn’t a strong security measure, but coupled with others decreases your chances of falling victim.

The most important part of securing your router is the Security Mode. Here you will enable encryption and require a password to connect. With most modern routers you have several choices ranging from the least secure to more so. Leaving this disabled allows your information to soar across the air unencrypted inviting others to capture and read it, including credit card numbers, passwords, and private conversations as well as allowing connections from outsiders at will.

WEP, or Wired Equivalent Privacy, provides a modicum of protection better than nothing, but its algorithms were cracked many years ago and anyone with the tools to pull in your transmissions will certainly have these basic conversion tools as well. WPA (version 1), or Wi-Fi Protected Access, was created in answer to the WEP failings, however, it too was cracked several years ago. Again, it’s better than nothing and will keep regular freeloading neighbors from using your connection, but WPA2 is even better. Most modern computer networking cards support this newer encryption standard, but some slightly older equipment may not. If your computer supports WPA2, then that’s your choice.

After choosing WPA or WPA2, you also have the choice of TKIP (Temporal Key Integrity Protocol) or AES (Advanced Encryption Standard) based algorithms. Again, TKIP is the older less secure method and most computers and software support AES, so choose that. Then you have the further choice of PSK (pre-shared key) or EAP (Extensible Authentication Protocol). PSK is the type in which you have to set up your password on each device before encryption begins, so there is a chance someone could have gleaned that information during that process. EAP is more secure but encompasses many different methods and can require specialized software matching the methods of your particular router model. Many businesses use the latter for its increased security, but most home users choose the prior. Be sure to pick a strong password with upper and lower case letters as well as numbers and even special characters.

One last element is the toggle to enable or disable accessing the configuration over wireless. If your D-Link model has this option it is recommended to use it. This way one would need physical access with a RJ-45 cable to try and guess or crack your password to change settings or invade your local network.

While nothing in the computer world is completely safe, things can be made reasonably so. By implementing these simple measures your local and wireless network is much more secure. Along with continued diligence in monitoring activity, your door is safely locked against many would-be intruders.

There were a couple of other related posts on MakeUseOf before:

- How To Set Up Your Own Secured Wi-Fi Hotspot
- How To Secure Your Wireless Network Connection

Please share your comments below. If you have other suggestions on how to secure a D-link router we would like to hear them as well.

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

Related posts

How To Troubleshoot Weak Wireless Connections

Guy McDowell — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 16:00:51 +0000

A few months ago, our dog chewed through the cables for our satellite TV. That’s her in the picture. She also chewed $300 worth of computer cables, but that’s not the point. A few weeks ago, we got sick of not having television, so we bought a D-Link DivX Connected device that allows us to play media content from our laptops on our big TV in high definition wirelessly. It’s pretty cool.

The problem is that our wireless connection would keep dropping for no apparent reason. I would reset the router, reset the wireless adapter on the laptop and reset the DivX device. That would work for awhile and then it would happen again. So I fired up the Xirrus Wireless Wi-Fi Inspector that I wrote about awhile back, and went through troubleshooting my weak wireless connection through that. Turns out I forgot that a lot of my neighbours have the same crappy modem/router combination my ISP assigned me and they all like to talk on the same channel at the same time. Now, I would change the channel on my router manually to one that wasn’t being used.

But the weak wireless connection problem still continues. Sometime I forget that I am a college-trained computer technician. Once I recalled that little tidbit, I started digging into how I could manipulate my wireless adapter to work better, hopefully.

Keep in mind that my wireless adapter is a an Intel device. Yours may differ, however the principles should be the same.

I opened up my Intel wireless adapter by clicking on the Start button, then the Connect To link and then the Wireless Network Connection link. Up pops the Wireless Connection Status window.

Then I clicked on the Properties button. Voila! Here’s the Wireless Network Connections Properties window. Now we’re getting to the meat and potatoes, or tofurkey and potatoes for our vegetarian friends.

Clicking on the Configure button took me to the Intel Pro Wireless 2915ABG Network Connection Properties window. Try to say that 3 times fast!

Notice that I highlighted the Intel Throughput Enhancement option in the Property select box. The default value of this is Disabled. When it’s disabled, the adapter uses a packet burst mode known as Wi-Fi Multimedia mode (WMM). This mode is ideal when you use your computer in a wireless network with other computers doing ordinary uploading or downloading of music, video, text and any other type of file. Hence the name – multimedia.

When the Intel Throughput Enhancement is enabled, this packet burst method is meant more for streaming video and audio. Hmmm, I’m trying to stream audio and video to my DivX Connected device! So, I enabled it. Now, if you enable it, and there are other computers using the same router as yours, you will be hogging the bandwidth! Make sure that’s okay with your other users. If you’re the Dad, like me, you just go ahead and do it. After you get Mom’s permission, of course.

Then I checked on the Power Management mode. Mine was defaulted to the Lowest end of the slider. Well, that’s great if I were using my laptop without it always being plugged in. However, I always have it plugged in, so power management is not an issue. By setting it to maximum, I’ll get higher performance! This should assist in noisy environments as well. I don’t mean kids and dogs, I mean lots of other Wi-Fi signals, like the ones from my neighbours. Darned noisy neighbours!

I scrolled down a bit further and found the property Roaming Aggressiveness. Mine was set to be as aggressive as possible. What that means is that if my router has a weaker wireless connection than another signal in the area, the adapter will try to jump to that. For me, that means it tries to connect to a neighbour with a stronger signal. Well, I don’t want that so I dialed it down to lowest.

The last thing I did was to check the Wireless Mode property. Originally, it was set to 802.11B and 802.11G mode. I don’t think changing this will make that significant a difference, but since my router, adapter and DivX device are all capable of 802.11G mode, I saw no sense in leaving it mixed. So I changed it to that exclusively.

Did it work? So far, so good! Unless the microwave is on, the connection hasn’t been dropped between my laptop and the router. Sometimes it gets dropped between the router and the DivX Connected device… but that’s another article!

How do you usually troubleshoot dropped wireless connections? Do you have a solution of your own? Share them with us in the comments!

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

Related posts

Technology Explained: How Does a Router Work?

Guy McDowell — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 16:01:49 +0000

Lately, the Technology Explained articles have talked about the Internet and communications in general. This article will add to that series by explaining a very important piece of equipment – the router.

In order for a computer to connect to more than one other computer, you need a router or a hub. Two very different pieces of equipment that perform somewhat similar jobs. We’ll focus on the router since you very well may have one in your house.

Let me take a moment to explain to the more technically inclined that I understand that there are such things as token ring networks that don’t require a router or a hub. Yet, our average Internet user isn’t going to employ a token ring, so leave that alone, please.

Many of you will have wireless routers, a few of you may have wired routers. How the information gets to and from the router isn’t that important to this discussion. What is important is how does a router work – what happens inside the router with all that data coursing through it. To keep it simple, I’m going to use a 3 computer network to explain the routing principles.

So, let’s say you have three computers in your home and a connection to the Internet. This will give us a network that looks like such:

In the middle of that, is the wireless router. I know you knew that, but it had to be said. Wirelessly attached to it are a laptop, a PC, and a Mac (just for you Jackson!). Actually, the Mac is in there to show that the computers don’t necessarily need to be the same kind or platform. One might be sending up a file to work, one might be downloading something from YouTube and one is reading MakeUseOf.com – of course. All this information is coming down from, and up to, the Internet.

Believe it or not, the router can only talk to one of these things at a time! The process I’m about to talk about just happens so fast that it seems to happen all at once.

Let’s say that the Mac is uploading a file to work, the laptop is watching YouTube and the PC is surfing MakeUseOf.com.

Each communication happens in small packets of data. You might recall this from the How the Internet Works article I did awhile back. The IP address in that article was the important thing that allowed packets to find their way to your computer. Here’s a packet:

The important parts, for this article, are the Source Address and the Destination Address. These will be Internet Protocol (IP) addresses.

However, if you are using a router, your computer’s IP address is going to begin with either 198.168.0 or 10.0.0. This is because the powers-that-be decided that those IP address would be reserved for local network use. Like in a home network.

Here’s the catch. There are millions of local networks out there. So, at any point in time, there are millions of people using an IP address exactly like the one your computer is using on your home network. Your router will have to keep track of that AND tag the outgoing packets with the true IP address that your Internet Service Provider has given to your modem. I’ll call that the external IP address. How does the router do that? That’s the question.

I am going to oversimplify this, not to speak down, but to keep this article a reasonable length. The router takes your computer’s local IP address out of the packet’s Source Address and puts it in a table. It then puts the external IP into the packets Source Address space. The router also copies the Destination Address IP from the packet and puts it in the table associated with your local IP. Confuzzled? Me too. I really had to think about how to say this in everyday speak and not geek-speak. Here’s a picture:

When the packet comes back from that server somewhere out on the Internet, the Destination Address IP is now your external IP and the Source Address IP is now the IP address of the server sending you a packet. (Note: that is the IP address of Telus.com – not my home IP address.)

Think of it like a letter. You send a friend a letter and the return address is yours, and the send-to address is theirs. They write a letter back and the return address is theirs and the send-to address is yours. See how that works? We should write more letters.

Well, the router looks at the Source Address IP of the incoming packet and looks it up in the table as a former Destination Address IP. When it finds it, the router says, “Aha! Guy’s computer sent a packet to that IP address. His computer must be waiting for a reply! Here’s Guy’s local IP address so I’ll pull out the external IP address, pop his local IP address in and send it on its way!” That’ll do router, that’ll do.

You can imagine, with how many thousands of packets travel in and out of your home every minute, how fast this sorting process has to be! It happens so fast, you never even notice the fact that at one moment the router is talking to the Mac, then the laptop, then maybe the Mac again, and then the PC. Miracles everywhere – just stop and notice.

I hope you enjoyed this article on how a router works, and now have a better appreciation of what’s going on in that silly box of electronics next to your modem. If there are any other technologies you’d like me, or our other great writers, to break down for you, I’d be glad to hear about it in the comments!

Image Credit: A.Mohsen Alhendi
Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/
Related posts

Technology Explained: Understanding The Internet Speed (29)

Technology Explained: Open Router Ports & Their Security Implications (8)

Technology Explained: How Does Wireless Internet Work? (31)

How To Secure Your D-Link Wireless Router (13)

How To Connect Your Nintendo Wii Console To The Internet (3)

8 Tips To Effectively Boost Your Wireless Router Signal

Leon — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 19:00:17 +0000

Look at it – staring you down so innocently, yet I know that your Linksys wireless router refuses to give you signal. Since you decided to place it in a corner to gather dust, using it only for its relay capabilities, it has decided to constantly bring up the feared “Limited Network Connection” bubble. Don’t you just hate those?

These routers have the power to transmit intangible signals; these signals, powerful as they may be, are prone to constant interference whether it be by physical objects, other signals floating around in the air, or even because you didn’t plug the wire in all the way.

Regardless of what the issue, there are some proven ways to try to remedy the situation of a weak Wifi signal. Some may simply be a little bit of common sense, other methods require purchasing additional parts.

Here are 8 tips on how to boost your wireless router signal.

Position it better

Unless you are living in a cave and you somehow miraculously have internet connectivity at the same time, you probably figured out that if your wireless router was in the corner of your kitchen under a pile of old newspapers and your computer was located on the second floor on the opposite side of the house — it is a great idea to place your router in an open position (preferably in the center of your house) where it isn’t obstructed by dense or metallic objects such as file cabinets or brick walls.

Other items that may interfere with your signal include (but are not limited to) microwave ovens, cordless phones, garage door openers, and even baby monitors. The bottom line is that the less objects in the signal’s way, the easier it is for it to relay information to your computer.

Change the WiFi Channel

Generally, Wifi routers transmit their signals on a radio frequency of 2.4 GHz. Many other household objects may operate on or around the same frequency, like cordless phones, for example. So, the channel becomes bogged down over time with lots of excess traffic that slows down your wireless connection. In the U.S., routers have a predefined set of 11 channels, and the default on a lot of them is channel 6. Changing the channel would reduce some interference. So how do you change the channel?

A great utility many people use is called NetStumbler, a wireless networking tool that just so happens to offer the option for you to change your wifi channel. Once opened, the program gives the choice of fooling around with all of your wireless utilities. Here is where you change your channel:

Which leads to:

Since the default for most people (at least in the United States) is 6, you may want to change your channel to something like say, channel 11. Take note that the changing of your wireless channel will NOT in any way increase your speed or bandwith. It will simply remedy your network connection if it keeps breaking off or getting lost.

Update firmware or drivers

Updates, whether related to the router firmware or your computer’s network adapter are done to fix bugs, smoothen out performance and reliability, and maybe even add new features. It is always a good idea to stay up to date with the latest releases by either of these parties.

Tim suggested using RadarSync to easily automatically update your computer’s drivers at once.

Buy your equipment from the same company

Compatibility can be a big problem, especially for two way transmissions. It may help to purchase your adapter and your router – everything, from the same company. Aside from that, some companies have embedded enhancements that improve speed or signal strength when everything is under the same brand.

Replace your antenna

Most routers come equipped with something called an omnidirectional antenna. This means that the antenna attached to the router broadcasts the signal equally within a certain circular radius. This is great if the router is positioned in the center of a hub where it needs to be able to reach ever corner of a room, but it can prove to be extremely wasteful if your router is in the corner (then again, why would it be there in the first place?). Since the signal is transmitted in a radius, if you place it in a corner, a lot of the transmitted signal is sent into the wall or outside into the open.

That is why you can manually detach your antenna and replace it with a high gain antenna. This focuses its energy to direct the signal in one general direction. Simple enough? You may have to check and see if your router has an external antenna jack/removable antenna.

Replace your wireless adapter

Since this is a two-way transmission, it may not have occured to you that it may not be the router that is the problem, but actually the wireless adapter attached to your computer. If your computer cannot send signals back to the router, the same problem ensues.

What is an adapter? It used to be the card that you inserted into your computer or laptop. These days, most of the adapters are in the form of USB devices. Consider switching to a USB adapter that houses an external antenna, like this one depicted below.

This is usually only applicable to desktop computers. If you purchased a laptop that has a built-in adapter, it probably isn’t your adapter because they are usually very high quality installations.

Add an additional Wireless Access Point (WAP) or Repeater

If all else fails, you may need to purchase a repeater or a secondary Wireless Access Point. The consensus among these two options is rather mixed. Constructing a secondary WAP requires the ability to feed an ethernet cable from your primary router to the new access point. There are also cost considerations to be aware of, as WAPs cost more than regular wireless routers. Even so, WAPs have certain flexibilities that normal routers do not have. They can be configured as gateways, bridges, clients or repeaters. But that’s another story. The bottom line is that the WAP is an extension of the original hub in order to extend the distance of the signal. The repeater works the same way.

Here is a tutorial on how to set up the WAP courtesy of Techskillsvideos:

Try weird things

Apparently aluminum foil amplifies reception and transmission. It may or may not work, YMMV.

A little bit of background: You may have seen 802.11b or 802.11g written somewhere on your router – these are merely wireless LAN standards that the particular router adheres to. The main difference between these is that 802.11b has a maximum data transfer rate of 11 Mbps, whereas 802.11g has a much higher 54 Mbps rate.

With that being said, there is no way to improve data transmission or bandwith outside of hardware applications and upgrades. The tips mentioned above are meant to help you solve the problem of an interfered or weak signal. These may or may not work for you, but there is a strong correlation between troubleshooting and success rate.

Have you any other tips to help strengthen a weak signal? Has changing channels made a big difference for you? Tried attaching aluminum foil to your router’s antenna? How did that turn out for you? Share your experiences in the comments!

Latest Article “10 More Cool Things You Can Do With YouTube Videos”

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/
Related posts

How To Set Up Your Own Secured Wi-Fi Hotspot (16)

How To Secure Your D-Link Wireless Router (13)

How To Turn An Old Router Into A Wireless Bridge (40)

How To Troubleshoot Weak Wireless Connections (15)

How To Share The Internet Connection Between Mac and PC (16)

How To Set Up Your Own Secured Wi-Fi Hotspot

Tim Watson — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 13:00:01 +0000

Wireless networking can be an intimidating thing. I remember setting up my own, as if it was yesterday, and it wasn’t entirely fun. If you’ve got yourself a laptop or two, and you’ve just bought your wireless equipment yesterday, I’m here today to show you how to set up wi-fi hotspot, and how to keep freeloaders from leeching off of it (almost; I’ll explain later).

The basics of this process are pretty much the same for any router. Only the specifics will differ, so I can’t say this enough: Read your documentation, for your router, your broadband modem, and any other equipment you’ll be using.

Purchasing Your Router

For maximum compatibility, you’re going to want a router that supports the three top wireless-networking standards: 802.11a, 802.11b, and 802.11g. You’ll notice in the store, some routers which are 802.11n, but that standard has yet to be fully adopted. That doesn’t mean that you can’t skip straight up to 802.11n, but please make sure that the device in question is also compatible with the other three wireless standards. It will save you a lot of headaches later.

Next, we are actually going to explain how to setup a wifi hotspot.

Physical Setup

Connecting your router to your existing home network should be a simple process. If you think of the path between your PC and the Internet, you will be inserting the router into this chain.

“Internet -> Broadband Modem -> PC”

becomes

“Internet -> Broadband Modem –> Router –> PC.”

Basically, your first steps will be to unplug your PC’s networking cable from your broadband modem, then plug each of them into your router. Please note, that there should be a port marked specifically for the broadband modem. This may be marked “Internet” or “Broadband” or something similar. Once everything’s plugged-in and powered-up, you may have some software to run which sets the router up. In my experience, running the software isn’t necessary, but may make initial setup easier. Please check your documentation, and don’t skip any steps.

Digital Setup & Security

Once everything is hooked together, please test your Internet connection by opening a Web browser and going to any site. I usually try Google, MakeUseOf, or my microblog (cheap plug), but what you use is up to you. After confirming that everything’s running smoothly, it’s time to secure the router from outside intruders.

To access your router’s on-board software, you must connect to its internal Web server. The address to use, which is always network-internal, varies; In my example, it’s http://192.168.2.1. Here’s how to find yours on Windows XP: From your Start Menu, click the Run command, and then enter “cmd” to launch a command line. Next, type “ipconfig /all” and hit Enter to show details of your network connection. Your “default gateway” is your router’s address. Open a Web browser and go to that address to access your router’s settings. You’ll be required to enter a Username and Password but that’s all in your router’s documentation. If not then you can lookup the default passwords and username for your router on sites like CIRT and Router Passwords.

While you’re still in the command line, please write down your “physical address,” also known as the MAC address, as shown below. You’ll need this later.

Time to configure your wireless settings. First, you’re going to want to change the name of your wireless network, or the SSID, into something unique. For compatibility, it’s best to go with automatic channel selection as well as a mixed wireless mode which supports multiple standards.

Your screen won’t look exactly the same as here, and some of the terminology used may be different, but that’s what the documentation and help files are for.

Now, to the security settings. You’re going to want the WPA2 encryption, as WEP is easily cracked. As for the encryption key, you can either generate one from a typed phrase, or if you’re really dedicated, specify 64 digits of hexadecimal code. Either way, I suggest visiting GRC’s secure and random password generator to get a good code.

Something I can’t stress enough is that no encryption or security method is fool-proof. Just like anyone with a lock pick and enough time can get into your house, A cracker with enough time on their hands can still break into your network, if they want to really bad. What I’m advising you of here is how to keep most of the freeloaders and snoops off your network, and to encrypt your information from end-to-end.

One more collection of settings to tinker with, the MAC address filtering. This is often the most tedious part, especially if you have multiple devices. This is also optional, but recommended, as a “fence” around your network. Each network device, whether a NIC card or a Nintendo Wii, has a MAC (Media Access Control) address (Consult your device’s documentation for instructions on how to find it), and under this setting, you can restrict access to your network such that only certain MACs can have permission.

Again, this isn’t fool-proof. MAC addresses can be plucked out of the wireless signal and then spoofed, but this will help to keep most of the creeps off your network.

Other MakeUseOf posts that show how to setup and secure wireless network:

How To Secure Your Wireless Network Connection

The Easy Guide To Computer Networks [PDF]

We’d love to have any additional insight you may have on setting wi-fi hotspot and keeping your wireless networks secure. Please leave comments with your favorite tips and tricks!
Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/
Related posts

How To Secure Your D-Link Wireless Router (13)

8 Tips To Effectively Boost Your Wireless Router Signal (70)

How To Turn An Old Router Into A Wireless Bridge (40)

How To Troubleshoot Weak Wireless Connections (15)

How To Share The Internet Connection Between Mac and PC (16)

How To Turn An Old Router Into A Wireless Bridge

Jorge Sierra — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 21:01:24 +0000

You may some day encounter a situation in which you will require a wireless internet connection for a desktop computer. Perhaps you have decided to move your office from one room to another in your home. However, the new room does not have the cable or telephone connection you need to bring that computer online.

Before you go out and buy a wireless network card or attempt to run wire through your attic, you might be able to save yourself time and money if you have an old wireless router lying around. You may be able to upgrade your old router with a different firmware that will allow it to act as a wireless bridge. That is, turn your old router into wireless bridge. A wireless bridge allows you to connect one network to another over the airwaves, rather than having to run wire from one room to another.

The free firmware that makes this possible is called DD-WRT. Before reading further, check the DD-WRT supported device list to see if your router is supported. If it is supported, be sure to check out the notes for running DD-WRT on the supported device page. You’ll need to refer to the recommended installation method later.

Requirements

- Broadband internet connection.
- Two wireless routers:

One connected to your broadband internet connection to serve as the access point.

One connected to other machine(s) that need to connect to web. This one will need to support DD-WRT.

Initial Setup

1. Make sure your main internet router is working properly. Verify the wireless connection is working properly by connecting a laptop or some other device.

2. Set up the remote computer at the remote location.

3. Connect the remote computer to the router you will be installing DD-WRT onto. Just plug it into one of the ports on the hub (i.e. not the internet port or uplink port).

4. Open your browser and connect to the router’s web configuration page.

If you’re not sure what the address is, you may need to refer to the router’s manual. If the router is running DHCP, it is likely to be the address of the computer’s gateway. In Windows XP, go to the Control Panel and then Network Connections. There Double-click on your LAN connection and go to the Support tab. The default gateway will be listed there. You can also check it on CIRT.net along with other details such default username and password for the router.

Download DD-WRT

Now, you need to download the DD-WRT.

1. Go to the DD-WRT download page and Navigate to the stable directory.

2. Navigate to the latest version (you can sort by date descending).

3. Navigate to the Consumer directory.

4. Navigate to the proper directory for your router’s manufacturer and then the model/version of the router. You should be able to find the model and version number printed somewhere on the router.

6. Download the .bin file of your choice.

The notes for running DD-WRT on the supported device list may mandate you use a specific version. If not, I recommend you select either the mini or the standard. If you want to know the differences between the different versions, check out the File Versions section of the What is DD-WRT? page of the DD-WRT wiki.

Install DD-WRT

If you downloaded DD-WRT from your main internet connection, you may need to copy it to a USB drive to install it on the remote router from the remote computer. The remaining instructions are to be run from the remote computer connected to the remote router where DD-WRT is to be installed.

Install DD-WRT according to the installation instructions on the wiki. Use the installation method recommended for your device in the notes on the supported device page (if applicable).

Warning: It is possible to brick your router when you install the new firmware (i.e. render it useless). Please take caution in reading the installation instructions carefully. I recommend you install DD-WRT on an old router that you are currently not using, so that if something does go awry there is no major loss.

Configuring DD-WRT as a Client Bridge

1. Once you have DD-WRT installed, open your browser to http://192.168.1.1 and log into the router. In older versions of DD-WRT, the default username is root and the default password is admin. Be sure to change the default password to secure your router.

2. Next, click on the Wireless tab at the top.

3. Set the Wireless Mode to Client Bridge. Then click Apply.

4. Set the SSID to that of your main wireless router that is connected to the Internet. In my case, my main wireless router SSID is sierra. Then click Apply.

5. Click on the Wireless Security tab in the second row of tabs, and configure the router to match the security settings as your main router. In my case, my main wireless router has WPA security mode with TKIP shared key, so I set up DD-WRT to match it.

6. Click Apply.

7. Click the Setup (very first tab in the upper left) to configure the LAN settings.

8. Assign the router a Local IP Address on the same subnet as your main router, but give it a different address. That means that all the numbers for the address will be the same as the main router except for the numbers in the fourth box. For example, the address of my main router is 192.168.1.1 so I gave my DD-WRT router an IP of 192.168.1.2.

9. Set the Subnet Mask to 255.255.255.0.
10. Set the Gateway and Local DNS to the address of the main router.

11. Click Apply.

Your DD-WRT router should now allow you to connect your remote computer to your main internet router through the airwaves! If you ever need to reconfigure the DD-WRT router, just be sure to remember the new IP address that you assigned in step number 8. You could always use a nice label maker and slap it right onto the router.
Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/
Related posts

How To Troubleshoot Weak Wireless Connections (15)

How To Set Up Your Own Secured Wi-Fi Hotspot (16)

How To Secure Your D-Link Wireless Router (13)

8 Tips To Effectively Boost Your Wireless Router Signal (70)

Technology Explained: How Does Wireless Internet Work? (31)