Supercharging Your Linksys Wireless Access Point 168
kwishot writes "Xam over at www.wi2600.org has documented a relatively simple way to 'turn up the juice' on your Linksys WAP11 Wireless Access Point." Caveats: the outlined method requires a Windows box, recent firmware, and (some) bravery, but no going inside the box or special hardware.
SNMP? (Score:5, Interesting)
Wireless Phone interference (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Wireless Phone interference (Score:5, Interesting)
A better hack might be to change the channel on your access point to something on the other end of the spectrum since you phone may not be taking up the entire band (unless it's a DSS phone). Or you might try moving your phone's base station and access point to opposite ends of the house.
PS: Whoever modded this as a troll: what were you thinking?
Other 802.11b improvements (Score:4, Interesting)
Adding WaveLAN Extender - This article [macintouch.com] discusses adding various antennae to base stations to improve their range.
Extending TheAirPort's Range - This article [macintouch.com] discusses some more radical procedures, including some neat stuff with Directional Antennae which allow 802.11b to work as far away as a 57 Kilometers. They also discuss various antennae to add to laptops in order to improve their range.
Fun with Wap11 (Score:4, Interesting)
First, I never did upgrade the firmware to 1.4g5 or 1.4g7, I am running 1.4H3. I guess I should upgrade, but that would require me to actually get the AP next to my PC for the USB connection. The upgrade seems to work OK without the latest rev as long as you can connect via snmp. I think I must have the 1.0 hardware since I got this thing Jan 2001.
Second, I think you can also turn off the SSID on your WAP using these utilities. I have not tried this but perhaps it could help if you are paranoid...
Finally, The main reason I worked on trying to fugure this out is because my wireless network was running very slow. I finally figured out the reason was the wpc11 linksys pcmcia card that I have. If you have one of these cards make sure to DISABLE the PowerSaveMode in your network configuration (in Windows). Your network will now run significantly faster (500K/sec instead of 50K/Sec in my case). Also when exploring in windows use mapped drives instead of unc names. This seems to also help.
Hope that helps, BRian
Re:This is an elementary SNMP set (Score:1, Interesting)
suggestion?
if you want to set this via the CLI from a unix just run
snmpset 192.168.1.250 private enterprises.410.1.1.8.8.0 s "some14charstring"
the "some14charstring" is the important part
-sv
Re:bad engineering practice (Score:3, Interesting)
MIB hackery (Score:5, Interesting)
enterprises.atmel.atmelmib.atmelSys.TestModeSettin gsGRP.TestModeRadioConfiguration.0 = Hex: CA CA CA CA CA CA C9 C9 C9 C9 C9 C9 C9 C9
Although not in the same configuration as the article describes, this may be due to the fact that I've never upgraded the firmware on the access point I snmpwalk'd this from. Perhaps I should get busy on that....
Any of you people out there with an upgraded firmware, you should try snmpset under Linux or your UNIX of choice and see what kind of results you get... extra points for verifying the change with the Windows stuff in the article.
Numerically, snmptranslate says that the correct field is .1.3.6.1.4.1.410.1.1.8.8.0, assuming I'm using it right (I called it with the commandline snmptranslate -m +ATMEL-MIB -IR enterprises.atmel.atmelmib.atmelSys.TestModeSettin gsGRP.TestModeRadioConfiguration.0.)
Re:Cable is out. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:This is an elementary SNMP set (Score:1, Interesting)
lower power levels=better security, oerhaps? (Score:1, Interesting)
Just think...the AP that was suddenly accessible from the road is barely accessible from the front lawn. Maybe you use your AP within a pretty close range etc...lower power levels would be just fine.
The linksys also allows you very fine-grained control over supported data rates etc; experiment with, say, turning off everything except 11mbps and tweaking the power level down one notch up from where you start to see packet loss etc. Tada, maybe now your network that was visible from the street is only visible from the yard or front door. Granted, some antenna-kiddie(ooo, I coined a new term!) is still going to find the AP when he points a directional your way, but oh well...at least it'll maybe discourage the average moron who recides to go driving with his laptop.
Not to mention, if you're nervous about scrambled brain, having the AP at a lower power level might make you feel better, although the card is what is closest to you...
Re:Better range increase.. (Score:1, Interesting)
In fact, the best performing internal antenna I have witnessed so far is found in the Cisco-brand Aironet card.
Hack an external antenna connector onto a D-Link DWL-650 and you will perform better than any of these cards easily. A omnidirectional whip antenna or discone antenna are almost trivial to build, and a pringles can beam with fantastic gain might take you an hour to build.
Do NOT use BNC connectors (like many websites suggest) unless you want close to 1dB of loss at every joint. Use N-Type connectors. Do NOT use RG-58/U cable because it has 31dB loss per 100 ft. Make a tiny pigtail with an N-Type connector, solder it onto your card. Make your feedline as short as possible, and ideally order LMR-240 cable (manufactured by Times Wireless) which has pretty good characteristics at 2.4Ghz for a flexible cable.