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Page 91 / 404 Scroll up to view Page 86 - 90
Chapter 6 Wireless
VMG8324-B10A / VMG8324-B30A Series User’s Guide
91
Output Power
Set the output power of the Device. If there is a high density of APs in an area, decrease
the output power to reduce interference with other APs. Select one of the following:
20%
,
40%
,
60%
,
80%
or
100%
.
Beacon Interval
When a wirelessly networked device sends a beacon, it includes with it a beacon interval.
This specifies the time period before the device sends the beacon again.
The interval tells receiving devices on the network how long they can wait in low power
mode before waking up to handle the beacon. This value can be set from 50ms to 1000ms.
A high value helps save current consumption of the access point.
DTIM Interval
Delivery Traffic Indication Message (DTIM) is the time period after which broadcast and
multicast packets are transmitted to mobile clients in the Power Saving mode. A high DTIM
value can cause clients to lose connectivity with the network. This value can be set from 1
to 255.
802.11 Mode
Select
802.11b Only
to allow only IEEE 802.11b compliant WLAN devices to associate with
the Device.
Select
802.11g Only
to allow only IEEE 802.11g compliant WLAN devices to associate with
the Device.
Select
802.11n
Only
to allow only IEEE 802.11n compliant WLAN devices to associate with
the Device.
Select
802.11b/g Mixed
to allow either IEEE 802.11b or IEEE 802.11g compliant WLAN
devices to associate with the Device. The transmission rate of your Device might be
reduced.
Select
802.11b/g/n Mixed
to allow IEEE 802.11b, IEEE 802.11g or IEEE802.11n
compliant WLAN devices to associate with the Device. The transmission rate of your Device
might be reduced.
802.11
Protection
Enabling this feature can help prevent collisions in mixed-mode networks (networks with
both IEEE 802.11b and IEEE 802.11g traffic).
Select
Auto
to have the wireless devices transmit data after a RTS/CTS handshake. This
helps improve IEEE 802.11g performance.
Select
Off
to disable 802.11 protection. The transmission rate of your Device might be
reduced in a mixed-mode network.
This field displays
Off
and is not configurable when you set
802.11 Mode
to
802.11b
Only
.
Preamble
Select a preamble type from the drop-down list box. Choices are
Long
or
Short
. See
Section 6.10.7 on page 98
for more information.
This field is configurable only when you set 802.11 Mode to
802.11b
.
Apply
Click
Apply
to save your changes.
Cancel
Click
Cancel
to restore your previously saved settings.
Table 28
Network Setting > Wireless > Others (continued)
LABEL
DESCRIPTION
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Chapter 6 Wireless
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6.9
The Channel Status Screen
Use the
Channel Status
screen to scan wireless LAN channel noises and view the results. Click
Network Setting > Wireless > Channel Status
. The screen appears as shown. Click
Scan
to
scan the wireless LAN channels. You can view the results in the
Channel Scan Result
section.
Figure 47
Network Setting > Wireless > Channel Status
6.10
Technical Reference
This section discusses wireless LANs in depth. For more information, see
Appendix D on page 367
.
6.10.1
Wireless Network Overview
Wireless networks consist of wireless clients, access points and bridges.
•
A wireless client is a radio connected to a user’s computer.
•
An access point is a radio with a wired connection to a network, which can connect with
numerous wireless clients and let them access the network.
•
A bridge is a radio that relays communications between access points and wireless clients,
extending a network’s range.
Traditionally, a wireless network operates in one of two ways.
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Chapter 6 Wireless
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•
An “infrastructure” type of network has one or more access points and one or more wireless
clients. The wireless clients connect to the access points.
•
An “ad-hoc” type of network is one in which there is no access point. Wireless clients connect to
one another in order to exchange information.
The following figure provides an example of a wireless network.
Figure 48
Example of a Wireless Network
The wireless network is the part in the blue circle. In this wireless network, devices
A
and
B
use the
access point (
AP
) to interact with the other devices (such as the printer) or with the Internet. Your
Device is the AP.
Every wireless network must follow these basic guidelines.
•
Every device in the same wireless network must use the same SSID.
The SSID is the name of the wireless network. It stands for Service Set IDentifier.
•
If two wireless networks overlap, they should use a different channel.
Like radio stations or television channels, each wireless network uses a specific channel, or
frequency, to send and receive information.
•
Every device in the same wireless network must use security compatible with the AP.
Security stops unauthorized devices from using the wireless network. It can also protect the
information that is sent in the wireless network.
Radio Channels
In the radio spectrum, there are certain frequency bands allocated for unlicensed, civilian use. For
the purposes of wireless networking, these bands are divided into numerous channels. This allows a
Page 94 / 404
Chapter 6 Wireless
VMG8324-B10A / VMG8324-B30A Series User’s Guide
94
variety of networks to exist in the same place without interfering with one another. When you
create a network, you must select a channel to use.
Since the available unlicensed spectrum varies from one country to another, the number of
available channels also varies.
6.10.2
Additional Wireless Terms
The following table describes some wireless network terms and acronyms used in the Device’s Web
Configurator.
6.10.3
Wireless Security Overview
By their nature, radio communications are simple to intercept. For wireless data networks, this
means that anyone within range of a wireless network without security can not only read the data
passing over the airwaves, but also join the network. Once an unauthorized person has access to
the network, he or she can steal information or introduce malware (malicious software) intended to
compromise the network. For these reasons, a variety of security systems have been developed to
ensure that only authorized people can use a wireless data network, or understand the data carried
on it.
These security standards do two things. First, they authenticate. This means that only people
presenting the right credentials (often a username and password, or a “key” phrase) can access the
network. Second, they encrypt. This means that the information sent over the air is encoded. Only
people with the code key can understand the information, and only people who have been
authenticated are given the code key.
These security standards vary in effectiveness. Some can be broken, such as the old Wired
Equivalent Protocol (WEP). Using WEP is better than using no security at all, but it will not keep a
determined attacker out. Other security standards are secure in themselves but can be broken if a
user does not use them properly. For example, the WPA-PSK security standard is very secure if you
use a long key which is difficult for an attacker’s software to guess - for example, a twenty-letter
long string of apparently random numbers and letters - but it is not very secure if you use a short
key which is very easy to guess - for example, a three-letter word from the dictionary.
Table 29
Additional Wireless Terms
TERM
DESCRIPTION
RTS/CTS Threshold
In a wireless network which covers a large area, wireless devices are sometimes not
aware of each other’s presence. This may cause them to send information to the AP
at the same time and result in information colliding and not getting through.
By setting this value lower than the default value, the wireless devices must
sometimes get permission to send information to the Device. The lower the value, the
more often the devices must get permission.
If this value is greater than the fragmentation threshold value (see below), then
wireless devices never have to get permission to send information to the Device.
Preamble
A preamble affects the timing in your wireless network. There are two preamble
modes: long and short. If a device uses a different preamble mode than the Device
does, it cannot communicate with the Device.
Authentication
The process of verifying whether a wireless device is allowed to use the wireless
network.
Fragmentation
Threshold
A small fragmentation threshold is recommended for busy networks, while a larger
threshold provides faster performance if the network is not very busy.
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Because of the damage that can be done by a malicious attacker, it’s not just people who have
sensitive information on their network who should use security. Everybody who uses any wireless
network should ensure that effective security is in place.
A good way to come up with effective security keys, passwords and so on is to use obscure
information that you personally will easily remember, and to enter it in a way that appears random
and does not include real words. For example, if your mother owns a 1970 Dodge Challenger and
her favorite movie is Vanishing Point (which you know was made in 1971) you could use
“70dodchal71vanpoi” as your security key.
The following sections introduce different types of wireless security you can set up in the wireless
network.
6.10.3.1
SSID
Normally, the Device acts like a beacon and regularly broadcasts the SSID in the area. You can hide
the SSID instead, in which case the Device does not broadcast the SSID. In addition, you should
change the default SSID to something that is difficult to guess.
This type of security is fairly weak, however, because there are ways for unauthorized wireless
devices to get the SSID. In addition, unauthorized wireless devices can still see the information that
is sent in the wireless network.
6.10.3.2
MAC Address Filter
Every device that can use a wireless network has a unique identification number, called a MAC
address.
1
A MAC address is usually written using twelve hexadecimal characters
2
; for example,
00A0C5000002 or 00:A0:C5:00:00:02. To get the MAC address for each device in the wireless
network, see the device’s User’s Guide or other documentation.
You can use the MAC address filter to tell the Device which devices are allowed or not allowed to
use the wireless network. If a device is allowed to use the wireless network, it still has to have the
correct information (SSID, channel, and security). If a device is not allowed to use the wireless
network, it does not matter if it has the correct information.
This type of security does not protect the information that is sent in the wireless network.
Furthermore, there are ways for unauthorized wireless devices to get the MAC address of an
authorized device. Then, they can use that MAC address to use the wireless network.
6.10.3.3
User Authentication
Authentication is the process of verifying whether a wireless device is allowed to use the wireless
network. You can make every user log in to the wireless network before using it. However, every
device in the wireless network has to support IEEE 802.1x to do this.
For wireless networks, you can store the user names and passwords for each user in a RADIUS
server. This is a server used in businesses more than in homes. If you do not have a RADIUS server,
you cannot set up user names and passwords for your users.
Unauthorized wireless devices can still see the information that is sent in the wireless network,
even if they cannot use the wireless network. Furthermore, there are ways for unauthorized
1.
Some wireless devices, such as scanners, can detect wireless networks but cannot use wireless networks. These kinds
of wireless devices might not have MAC addresses.
2.
Hexadecimal characters are 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, A, B, C, D, E, and F.

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