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Setting up your wireless route
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Wi-Fi Protected Areas (WPA)
WPA is a new Wi-Fi standard that improves upon the security features of WEP. To use WPA
security, the drivers and software of your wireless equipment must be upgraded to support
it. These updates will be found on your wireless vendor’s Web site. There are three types of
WPA security: WPA-PSK (no server), WPA (with radius server), and WPA2.
WPA-PSK (no server) uses what is known as a pre-shared key as the network key. A
network key is a password that is between eight and 63 characters long. It can be a
combination of letters, numbers, or characters. Each client uses the same network key to
access the network. Typically, this is the mode that will be used in a home environment.
WPA (with radius server) is a system where a radius server distributes the network key to
the clients automatically. This is typically found in a business environment.
WPA2 requires Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) for encryption of data, which offers
much greater security than WPA. WPA uses both Temporal Key Integrity Protocol (TKIP) and
AES for encryption.
Most Wi-Fi products ship with security turned off. So once you have your network working,
you need to activate WEP or WPA and make sure all your wireless devices are sharing the
same network key.
IMPORTANT: You must now set all wireless network cards/adapters to match these settings.
Sharing the Same Network Keys
Most Wi-Fi products ship with security turned off. So once you have your network working,
you need to activate WEP or WPA and make sure your wireless networking devices are
sharing the same network key.
The Wireless G Desktop Card cannot access the network because it is using a different
network key than the network key that is configured on the wireless enhanced G router.
Using a Hexadecimal Key
A hexadecimal key is a combination of numbers and letters from A-F and 0-9. 64-bit keys are
five two-digit numbers. 128-bit keys are 13 two-digit numbers.
For instance:
AF 0F 4B C3 D4 = 64-bit key
C3 03 0F AF 0F 4B B2 C3 D4 4B C3 D4 E7 = 128-bit key
Note to Mac users: Original Apple® AirPort® products support 64-bit encryption only. Apple
AirPort 2 products can support 64-bit or 128-bit encryption. Please check your product to
see which version you are using. If you cannot configure your network with 128-bit
encryption, try 64-bit encryption.