Hi

quick question...

i have a notebook and want to get a wireless nic and a access point to connect into my 100mbps switch.

if i enable enycription how does the nic connect to the access point? i.e i've heard something about WAP passwords?

do i need software on the notebook to access the access point?

sorry i havent a clue just a concern before i buy

cheers

G

The WAP will have a web interface for administration, where you can change settings such as wep keys, allow/deny connections, maybe some port forwarding or a DMZ (depending on brand/type).

You then use the wavelan card configuration and init scripts to set the values needed for the laptop to connect to the WAP. If you've only one wireless connection and no plans for more, you can use a bridge instead of a WAP, which essentially does the same thing but using tcp/ip rules from the LAN instead of a dhcp service like the wap does, and is likely a good bit cheaper.

so if i want more than one wireless connection i'd have to use dhcp? thats no good because i already use a windows 2000 server for that :s

Prolly not. It's offered as an option on most WAP'a, but you can specify the IP rules and range by hand of you like.

can you? so you dont have to use dhcp???? if thats right it might be ok...

I have an old WAP11 from Linksys that I'll use as an example.
There are two ways to administer it, One with Windows based software, the other by pointing your webbrowser to it's IP address. (In my case I've changed it to 192.168.2.1)
Some of the available options are:
WEP encryption
MAC address verification
DHCP server administration and setup.
Port forwarding and blocking

If I go into the DHCP server admin, I see the following options:
DHCP enable
DHCP IP range
I don't use the dhcp services on mine, but didn't want to shut them off completley. I enabled it, and set the range to 192.168.3.1-5 (this requires other setup on your network we wont cover here, but is a good example). I also want to have info written to a logfile, so the IP 192.168.2.255 is nothign but an HTML page that holds the error log from the device. So the way it sets, any machine that has a static IP that isn't 192.168.3.1 thru 192.168.3.5 can connecft to this station by using the SSID.

Friend has a protable device (HP Jornada I think) with a wifi card. He can pick a hardware setting for my house that sets up his wifi card as so:
SSID = '[x128x]ladybelle' (the [x128x] is a quick symbol that means wep is on, and ladybelle is my coonhound's name)
IP address 192.168.3.101(subnet and gateway etc are also defined, but not important here.)
WEP_Enable = true
Default_KEY_broadcast = 0
Key = xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx
He is using WinCe so all this is in an ini file somewhere, let him fight with that winCE shit
The point is he is connecting without using dhcp.

I'll poke around a bit, but the situation you describe is going to need either pre-configured network set-ups on the wifi enabled devices (like the one I describe above) or a seperate subnet with a second dhcp server (which is prolly the default setup on the wap). either way is fairly simple to setup.