On 12/26/2012 4:59 PM, Jim Thompson wrote:
On Wed, 26 Dec 2012 19:34:56 -0500, "Martin Riddle"
wrote:


"Jim wrote
in message ...
In the annual run-up to Christmas, Thompson-style... scheduled to
accommodate grandchildren in college, meeting the fiancee of the
oldest granddaughter, out-of-state grandchildren, and prosecutors who
had "murder duty" on the 25th, we'll celebrate Christmas this year on
Saturday, the 29th.

The first arrival, 11 years old, from Palm Springs, asked, "Opa, Do
you have WiFi? I need my WiFi!" ;-)

Presently I have a Linksys 8-port router, since I wired the house with
CAT-5 as it was being built, 19 years ago, never thinking wireless.

I have a few spare ports on the Linksys.

What should I get as WiFi, considering the following...

House is essentially 65' x 65', so I need good range. But I can
easily locate transponder 8-10' off the floor.

How do I set it up so grandchildren can access the web, but not
intrude on any of my PC's? Already had the wife's PC's E-mail fouled
up by the 5-year-old :-(

...Jim Thompson
--

You can do that easily with another (wireless) Router between your
Linksys and your cable modem.
Provided your linksys has a decent firewall, it should work.
It would look like this:

cable Modem---------Wireless Router---------- 8port linksys
Router--------- Lan
|
|
Wireless clients

You may have to recycle the cable modem power to update the bridging to
use the new MAC address of the router.
Also, configure the Wireless Router to a different IP address of your
lan. Something like 192.168.150.1

Cheers



Yep, you certainly do need to update the MAC address.

Wouldn't it be easier just to plug the wireless into an unused Linksys
port?

...Jim Thompson

I missed the part about how you're connecting to the internet.
I assume there's a NAT router somewhere in the system.
Here's what I do.
My DSL modem has built-in wireless. I try to keep the bad guys out
with passwords and MAC address filtering. But it creates a real PITA
when I want to do something quick and dirty. I have a wired switch
plugged into the modem too.

So, I have a second wireless router with it's WAN port plugged into the
switch.
I like the Linksys WRT54G. There are a zillion in the wild. And every time
anybody buys cable or a smartphone, one goes surplus. I pick 'em up at
garage sales for a buck. And there's firmware available to give them
much more capability.
Your time crunch may prevent that, so virtually any modern wireless
router should do.

I set the Linksys wireless router as a DHCP server on a different subnet.
Wireless devices connect. The router doesn't know what to do with
the packets, so they get sent out the WAN port.
Your existing wired router doesn't know what do do with the packets,
so they get sent out to the internet.

Depending on how many firewalls you have and where they're located,
some reconfiguration may be required.

The two subnets probably can't see each other on the screen, so you
have to take some deliberate action to make one interact with the other.
So, there is a security risk. You're relatively safe from accidental
damage, but not malicious intent.
You can patch some of that with firewalls.
Or you can enable MAC filtering on the added router if you have fixed
clients.

If you're a hundred feet from the nearest neighbor and there's not
a windowless black van parked in front of the house, you're probably
reasonably safe for short term use.
I just run mine wide open for convenience and shut it down
as soon as I get the job done.

AS always, if you have anyone in the house and/or anywhere near
your computer, make sure all your backups are current.

I don't know if it's true story or urban legend, but it goes like this...

Kid is surfing on dad's computer. OOOOH, music by my favorite band.
Kid starts clicking and is led through the process that uses a torrent
to download illegal music.
Life is good.
Kid goes off to college never realizing that there's a shared folder
with the music and a torrent server running on dad's computer.

A year later, dad gets a registered letter from some RIAA lawyer
accusing him of running an illegal download server and offers
to settle for $4000 per song times the 22 songs being served.
Last I saw, dad was given a pass when he gave up the daughter.
The case was still in the courts, so I don't know the resolution.

Don't know if it's true or false, but it's easy to imagine
something equally disasterous happening.