Configuring Your Linksys™ Router

Configuring your router for DHCP

To access your router, the first thing your must do is type the address 192.168.1.1 into your browser address bar. You will be greeted with a login prompt. If you have not changed your password, you will login with the username "admin" and the password "admin". This will land you on the setup page on the router itself. If Bellsouth finds out that you are using the Linksys™ wireless router, they will walk you through changing your connection type from "Automatic DHCP" to "PPPoE" which stands for "point to point protocol over ethernet". This is not, however, necessary. When you get your DSL or cable modem and configure it while it is connected directly to your computer, all you have to do is disconnect your computer and follow the installation instructions from Linksys™ or whomever manufactured your router, and it will automatically be assigned an address through the modem. Normally, the modem is assigned an IP address and sets up an Internet link. By changing your connection on your router to PPPoE, the Internet connection is provided directly to your router, which speeds things up a bit.

You will want to assign a hostname to your router and a domain name. This can be found in the first section of the setup screen under optional settings. Whatever you use for the domain is what you will be using as the "Workgroup" name when you configure your network on your computers.

You will note further down the setup screen is a section titled "Network Setup". This is where you would change your configuration to DCHP, which is usually the default. You will note that you can specify the starting IP address by typing it into the text box to the right of 192.168.1 which is the portion of the IP address designating the network in this case. I usually start mine at 100. You can start it anywhere between 2 and 254 which is the highest you can go here. Just remember, if you start at 254 and there are two of you that need to get on the network, the second person trying to connect will not be able to.

Just below the starting IP address is "Maximum Number of DHCP Users:". This is where you type in the maximum number of users that will be permitted to use your network. This is an added measure in limiting the user on your network. If your network is setup in your travel trailer or RV, you don't want everybody and there brother jumping onto your network. Actually, we will be limiting that under Securing Your Router below. You can pretty much put whatever here you want. I usually just put 50 here in case I have a notebook party at my house, which has not happened yet. If you put a low number here, don't forget to include your print server and network storage device.

Once you have made your changes, click on the "Save Settings" button at the bottom of the page. If you want to investigate the other links on the router to see what is there, you do not have to worry about changing anything. The changes will not take effect until you click on this button.

To check the status of your network, click on the tab on the far right of the screen labeled "Status". This creen will show the IP address of your router, both for the internal and external connections. It will show you the DNS servers, the hostname of your router and the domain on which it resides.

Clicking the menu item titled "Local Network" will show you the status of everything on your internal network. On this screen there is a button labeled "DHCP Clients". You will note that there is one DHCP client on this network even though there are three computers and a print server currently up and running. This means that the other two computers and the print server are configured with a static IP address. We will cover that later.

Configuring your router for static IP addresses

Configuring your router for staic IP addresses is very simple. On the first screen that you logged into to setup the server, you will simply select the "Disable" radio button instead of "Enable". You would only do this if you want all of your hosts on your network to have a static IP address. Another way to have static IP addresses for some of the clients on your network, would be to have the DHCP server enabled on the router, but only have it use address 192.168.1.100 through 192.168.1.120. Then you can start assigning addresses for staic IPs at 192.168.1.121. This way you will not get interferrence when you boot up a host with a staic IP and find out that the DHCP server has already assigned that address to someone else.

The primary reason for havig a static IP address on any of your hosts would be to run a server on them. For example, the computers on your network are going to look for 192.168.1.1 for the gateway to other networks. If that address changed, they would not be able to find anything else. I am running a web server, dns server, and a samba server from my Linux desktop computer to communicate with the Windows computers on the network. This requires that my desktop have a static IP address, but the other computers do not need one. Your print server will also need a static IP address. When you setup your other computers to print to a network printer, they will be looking to the same address everytime you try to print. This address cannot change or you will not be able to find the printer.

Securing your router

Securing your router is very important for several reasons. You do not want everyone in the RV park to be logging onto the Internet through your router. This could slow down your progress dramatically. If one of these people logging in through your network was running a spam mail server, then you could get shutdown by the ISP for not adhereing to the terms of service. You would also not want to give anyone you do not want to have access to your shared drive, access to your shared drive.

The way to do this on the Linksys™ wireless router, is to click on the "Wireless" tab. You will note when going to this screen that the "Basic Wireless Settings" menu item is hightlighted. Click on the "Wireless Security" menu item to navigate to that screen.

The first item on the screen is to select the "Security Mode" of "WPA Personal" on the dropdown menu. You could use WEP, but it is not as secure as WPA encryption. This will not only require a share key (or password), it will encrypt the data being sent to and from the router. You can leave the "WPA Algorithms" set to TKIP.

Choosing a key is very important. It should be somehting that is totally random. When I choose mine, I simply typed in a bunch of letters like vdwpovjpadghohsf and write down the result to input on the computers that will be accessing this router. You do not have to worry about remembering this pass phrase, as once it is set up on your client hosts, you will never have to type it in again untl you buy a new computer. All you have to do at that point is go back to 192.168.1.1, type in the username "admin" followed by whatever new password you chose. You did choose a new password, right? (If for some reason your ever forget your new password, you can reset the router by pressing the indented reset button on the back of the router. This action will reset it to the factory defaults of admin admin.) You can then navigate to the "Wireless Security" screen and retrieve your passphrase. Of course, you will have to do this from your old computer or one of the other computers on the network.

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