Notes on WIreless Router (Linksys BEFW11P1)

from "Ian B. Jacobs" <[email protected]>, Thu, 14 Mar 2002 08:31:40 -0500

Replies:

Parents:

None.

Hello all,

I offered myself a geek treat and installed a Linksys
BEFW11P1 [1] EtherFast � Wireless AP + Cable/DSL Router w/PrintServer.

Installation was easy and the system was working fine
until I did the firmware upgrade. I lost wireless connectivity
after upgrading, and after a few calls to customer service,
I was finally told I had to do a "hard reset":

- Hold reset button about 15 seconds
- While holding in, unplug the device and leave unplugged for
about 15 seconds.
- Plug it back in still holding the reset button until the
red "diag" light goes out.

After I did this, I got wireless connectivity back.

After a few days of use, I haven't had any serious outages.
I don't know whether I can check some logs somewhere that
would indicate prolonged outages.

There's a Web interface for configuring the device, and I
don't yet understand all the options, but the interface is
straightforward. There are options for virtual servers, dmz,
detailed access control, and more than I understand today.

There is a parallel port on the device. I was
able to set up a printer from a Windows machine, but unable
to set one up on a Linux box. The specs refer to a "print
server", but in the Windows setup, I think you just refer
to a physical port. I found some evidence [2] with google
that it's do-able, but I don't know how.

I haven't tested the range yet, but I'm sure it's ample for
my New York apartment.

What else should I report on? How do I put it through
rigorous fogo tests?

- Ian

[1] http://www.linksys.com/Products/product.asp?grid=22&prid=171
[2] http://www.linuxprinting.org/pipermail/general-list/2001q4/001099
--
Ian Jacobs ([email protected]) http://www.w3.org/People/Jacobs
Tel: +1 718 260-9447

Re: Notes on WIreless Router (Linksys BEFW11P1)

from Gerald Oskoboiny <[email protected]>, Thu, 14 Mar 2002 12:43:09 -0500

Replies:

Parents:

On Thu, Mar 14, 2002 at 08:31:40AM -0500, Ian B. Jacobs wrote:
> Hello all,
>
> I offered myself a geek treat and installed a Linksys
> BEFW11P1 [1] EtherFast ? Wireless AP + Cable/DSL Router w/PrintServer.

I'll probably buy something like that when my current wireless
router (6+ year old Compaq Armada laptop) kicks the bucket.
I'm curious how much it was? Pricewatch lists it starting at
$182 USD.

> There's a Web interface for configuring the device, and I
> don't yet understand all the options, but the interface is
> straightforward. There are options for virtual servers, dmz,
> detailed access control, and more than I understand today.

I wonder if you have full control over the firewall features
(which ports are open, etc); I guess you must.

> I haven't tested the range yet, but I'm sure it's ample for
> my New York apartment.

I'm sure your neighbors will be grateful for their new connectivity :)

Can you tell it to send you email whenever a new machine connects?
I just wrote a little script [2] to do that on my laptop.
(run from cron a la: "15 * * * * /usr/local/sbin/dhcpmon" )

[2] http://impressive.net/people/gerald/2002/03/dhcpmon

sample output:

root@ralph-wiggum:/root# rm -rf /tmp/_dhcpmon/
root@ralph-wiggum:/root# dhcpmon
New hw addr given a dhcp lease: 00:04:de:ad:be:ef;
New hw addr given a dhcp lease: 00:e0:de:ad:be:ef;
root@ralph-wiggum:/root# l /tmp/_dhcpmon/
total 0
-rw-rw-r-- 1 root root 0 Mar 14 12:38 00-04-de-ad-be-ef-
-rw-rw-r-- 1 root root 0 Mar 14 12:38 00-e0-de-ad-be-ef-
root@ralph-wiggum:/root# dhcpmon
root@ralph-wiggum:/root#

(may remind some of you of diskmon)

> [1] http://www.linksys.com/Products/product.asp?grid=22&prid=171

--
Gerald Oskoboiny <[email protected]>
http://impressive.net/people/gerald/

Re: Notes on WIreless Router (Linksys BEFW11P1)

from "Ian B. Jacobs" <[email protected]>, Thu, 14 Mar 2002 12:51:59 -0500

Replies:

None.

Parents:

ij
gerald

Gerald Oskoboiny wrote:

> On Thu, Mar 14, 2002 at 08:31:40AM -0500, Ian B. Jacobs wrote:
>
>>Hello all,
>>
>>I offered myself a geek treat and installed a Linksys
>>BEFW11P1 [1] EtherFast ? Wireless AP + Cable/DSL Router w/PrintServer.
>>
>>There's a Web interface for configuring the device, and I
>>don't yet understand all the options, but the interface is
>>straightforward. There are options for virtual servers, dmz,
>>detailed access control, and more than I understand today.
>>
>
> I wonder if you have full control over the firewall features
> (which ports are open, etc); I guess you must.
>

Somewhat. On the "Advanced/Filters" page, you can specify on
which ports packets should be blocked. However, it looks like you
can only do this for 10 different ports (for TCP; and 10
for UDP). I haven't read the doc to know whether you can do this for
more than 10 ports.

You can also do this for "applications", which seems odd to me,
except that perhaps for these applications, there are default ports
(e.g., dns, email, ftp).

_ Ian

--
Ian Jacobs ([email protected]) http://www.w3.org/People/Jacobs
Tel: +1 718 260-9447

Re: Notes on WIreless Router (Linksys BEFW11P1)

from Ted Guild <[email protected]>, 14 Mar 2002 18:14:21 -0500

Replies:

None.

Parents:

ij
gerald

Gerald Oskoboiny <[email protected]> writes:

> On Thu, Mar 14, 2002 at 08:31:40AM -0500, Ian B. Jacobs wrote:
> > Hello all,
> >
> > I offered myself a geek treat and installed a Linksys
> > BEFW11P1 [1] EtherFast ? Wireless AP + Cable/DSL Router w/PrintServer.

Mmm geek treats.

> I'll probably buy something like that when my current wireless
> router (6+ year old Compaq Armada laptop) kicks the bucket.
> I'm curious how much it was? Pricewatch lists it starting at
> $182 USD.

Some of these devices you can flash [3] with Linux and can then use a
modest authentication scheme called NoCatAuth [4]. Why bother you
might ask? Well there's bound to be some feature lacking that you'd
like and would have more flexibility with a BSD or Linux solution.
Like Gerald's notification example.

Why would you want accounts (or have your node become part of an org
that maintains nodes), well you may not mind letting people get free
wireless from your 'hood but you may want them to identify themselves
for sake of accountability so they aren't launching spam from you or
up to mischief.

Sputnik [5] (from LinuxCare folks) made a bootable cd image with
dhcpd, noCatAuth, web ui, etc. for turning an old intel box/lapper
into an access point (not the peer to peer ad hoc networking) provided
you have a prism2 (and some others but not Lucent) based chipset
wireless card. Many cheapo linksys, dlink and such cards use these
chipsets.

[]
> I wonder if you have full control over the firewall features
> (which ports are open, etc); I guess you must.

Doubt it. Port forwarding would be cool so you can run services on a
machine behind it for example.

> I'm sure your neighbors will be grateful for their new connectivity :)
>
> Can you tell it to send you email whenever a new machine connects?
> I just wrote a little script [2] to do that on my laptop.
> (run from cron a la: "15 * * * * /usr/local/sbin/dhcpmon" )
>
> [2] http://impressive.net/people/gerald/2002/03/dhcpmon
[]
> (may remind some of you of diskmon)

Why yes mon.

> > [1] http://www.linksys.com/Products/product.asp?grid=22&prid=171

3. http://opensource.instant802.com/
4. http://www.nocat.net
5. http://www.sputnik.org

--
Ted Guild <[email protected]>
http://www.guilds.net

Re: Notes on WIreless Router (Linksys BEFW11P1)

from Gerald Oskoboiny <[email protected]>, Fri, 9 Aug 2002 02:23:09 -0400

Replies:

Parents:

ij
gerald

On Thu, Mar 14, 2002 at 12:43:09PM -0500, Gerald Oskoboiny wrote:
> On Thu, Mar 14, 2002 at 08:31:40AM -0500, Ian B. Jacobs wrote:
> > Hello all,
> >
> > I offered myself a geek treat and installed a Linksys
> > BEFW11P1 [1] EtherFast ? Wireless AP + Cable/DSL Router w/PrintServer.
>
> I'll probably buy something like that when my current wireless
> router (6+ year old Compaq Armada laptop) kicks the bucket.

My old laptop-based base station died a few weeks ago, so I
bought a Linksys BEFW11S4 Wireless 4-Port Cable/DSL Router [2]
(basically the same as yours without the print server, I think)
for $250 CAD +tax (~$185 USD) from a local retail store (future shop)
(actually, it was $275 - $25 mailin rebate) [3]

I finally got around to plugging it in tonight, and was expecting
to have to do some messing around with config options and maybe a
firmware upgrade, but it just worked. I tweaked a couple minor
things to make it fit better with my existing network, and wired
and wireless access both work fine. (so far)

It has firmware version 1.40.2, Nov 28 2001

[2] http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00005ARK3/geraldoskoboiny
[3] http://www.futureshop.ca/catalog/proddetail.asp?logon=&langid=EN&dept=0&WLBS=fs%2Dweb4&biasid=B288A438143C45E3B729BB8ED1C13E27&sku_id=0665000FS10006707&catid=&newdeptid=1

--
Gerald Oskoboiny <[email protected]>
http://impressive.net/people/gerald/

Re: Notes on WIreless Router (Linksys BEFW11P1)

from "Ian B. Jacobs" <[email protected]>, Fri, 09 Aug 2002 09:23:18 -0400

Replies:

Parents:

Gerald Oskoboiny wrote:
> On Thu, Mar 14, 2002 at 12:43:09PM -0500, Gerald Oskoboiny wrote:
>
>>On Thu, Mar 14, 2002 at 08:31:40AM -0500, Ian B. Jacobs wrote:
>>
>>>Hello all,
>>>
>>>I offered myself a geek treat and installed a Linksys
>>>BEFW11P1 [1] EtherFast ? Wireless AP + Cable/DSL Router w/PrintServer.
>>
>>I'll probably buy something like that when my current wireless
>>router (6+ year old Compaq Armada laptop) kicks the bucket.
>
>
> My old laptop-based base station died a few weeks ago, so I
> bought a Linksys BEFW11S4 Wireless 4-Port Cable/DSL Router [2]
> (basically the same as yours without the print server, I think)
> for $250 CAD +tax (~$185 USD) from a local retail store (future shop)
> (actually, it was $275 - $25 mailin rebate) [3]
>
> I finally got around to plugging it in tonight, and was expecting
> to have to do some messing around with config options and maybe a
> firmware upgrade, but it just worked. I tweaked a couple minor
> things to make it fit better with my existing network, and wired
> and wireless access both work fine. (so far)

Good! Let me know if you have periodic connectivity outages.
I seem to, and I haven't been able to figure out whether it's
from Time Warner, the router, or Linux (I suspect the router...).

> It has firmware version 1.40.2, Nov 28 2001

I have 1.1 Release 04. My experience with firmware upgrades
for this thing has been very unhappy. And the folks at Linksys
tech support I've spoken to aren't very knowledgeable.

Don't miss the hidden page for changing the MAC address:
http://192.168.1.1/mac.html

- Ian

>
> [2] http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00005ARK3/geraldoskoboiny
> [3] http://www.futureshop.ca/catalog/proddetail.asp?logon=&langid=EN&dept=0&WLBS=fs%2Dweb4&biasid=B288A438143C45E3B729BB8ED1C13E27&sku_id=0665000FS10006707&catid=&newdeptid=1
>

--
Ian Jacobs ([email protected]) http://www.w3.org/People/Jacobs
Tel: +1 718 260-9447

Re: Notes on WIreless Router (Linksys BEFW11P1)

from Ted Guild <[email protected]>, 13 Aug 2002 11:03:05 -0400

Replies:

None.

Parents:

"Ian B. Jacobs" <[email protected]> writes:

> Gerald Oskoboiny wrote:
> > On Thu, Mar 14, 2002 at 12:43:09PM -0500, Gerald Oskoboiny wrote:
> >
> >>On Thu, Mar 14, 2002 at 08:31:40AM -0500, Ian B. Jacobs wrote:
> >>
> >>>Hello all,
> >>>
> >>>I offered myself a geek treat and installed a Linksys
> >>>BEFW11P1 [1] EtherFast ? Wireless AP + Cable/DSL Router w/PrintServer.
> >>
> >>I'll probably buy something like that when my current wireless
> >>router (6+ year old Compaq Armada laptop) kicks the bucket.
> > My old laptop-based base station died a few weeks ago, so I
> > bought a Linksys BEFW11S4 Wireless 4-Port Cable/DSL Router [2]
> > (basically the same as yours without the print server, I think)
> > for $250 CAD +tax (~$185 USD) from a local retail store (future shop)
> > (actually, it was $275 - $25 mailin rebate) [3]
> > I finally got around to plugging it in tonight, and was expecting
> > to have to do some messing around with config options and maybe a
> > firmware upgrade, but it just worked. I tweaked a couple minor
> > things to make it fit better with my existing network, and wired
> > and wireless access both work fine. (so far)

Pretty sure that's the Linksys model I got my sister and set up for
her. Don't forget to change the default password as apparently you
can get at the web ui with the public IP. I set my sister's to only
allow wireless by MAC address since she was paranoid after seeing [1].

1. http://www.doonesbury.ucomics.com/strip/dailydose/index.cfm?uc_full_date=20020721&uc_comic=db&uc_daction=X

--
Ted Guild <[email protected]>
http://www.guilds.net

Re: Notes on WIreless Router (Linksys BEFW11P1)

from "Ian B. Jacobs" <[email protected]>, Fri, 22 Mar 2002 19:03:16 -0500

Replies:

None.

Parents:

Ian B. Jacobs wrote:

> Hello all,
>
> I offered myself a geek treat and installed a Linksys
> BEFW11P1 [1] EtherFast � Wireless AP + Cable/DSL Router w/PrintServer.

I have been playing with this router quite a bit over the
past couple of days since I wanted to set up an icecast
server (with lots of help from Ted Guild!). I have not had
much luck getting an informed answer from the Linksys people
about whether it's possible to forward port p on the router
to port q on some machine in the local network.

Some forms of port forwarding are possible:

* "Virtual Hosts" (Under "Advanced"): For a port "p" that is
part of a set of 10 well-known ports (identified by service name,
not port number, as in "Web"), you can forward to port "p"
on another machine on the local network. In short:

- You can only forward 10 ports.
- You can't bind router:p to mymachine:q (only mymachine:p).

I called the tech support several times to find out whether
arbitrary portmapping were somehow possible; one person thought
so, but I never did get a useful answer.

* DMZ (Also under "Advanced"): For any port router:p, you can
forward it to mymachine:p where mymachine is in the local net.
I *think* this is what's happening. The manual says the DMZ
setting puts one machine "outside the firewall", but how
would someone have access to this machine if there isn't
some kind of address or port translation?

* Special Apps (Also under "Advanced"). I haven't figured out
what these are. It's supposed to allow
"two-way communications", but I haven't understood how.

- Ian

> [1] http://www.linksys.com/Products/product.asp?grid=22&prid=171

--
Ian Jacobs ([email protected]) http://www.w3.org/People/Jacobs
Tel: +1 718 260-9447