Cabletron Systems 3Com manual Performing Pings, Extended Roaming, Using MD5, Authentication

Performing Pings 77

10Select Special Functions from the Main Menu.

11Select Use TFTP to Update All Access Points and press Enter, which generates the following prompt: “Are you sure (Y/N)?”

12Type y. The Telnet session ends at this point. The AP resets when the file transfer and flash programming complete.

13Telnet to the AP using its IP address.

14Type the case-sensitive password at the password prompt, which generates the Main Menu.

15Verify the accuracy of the version number in the System Summary window.

16Press Ctrl+D to end the Telnet session.

Performing Pings	A network node sends a ping packet to a wireless client or AP and waits for a
	response. Use pings to evaluate signal strength between two stations. The other
	station can exist on any AP interface. (This ping operates at the MAC level and not
	at the Internet Control Message Protocol [ICMP] level.
	No pings returned or fewer pings returned than sent can indicate a
	communication problem between the AP and the non-network station.
	To ping a station, follow the procedure below.

1Select Show Wireless Clients from the Main Menu.

2Select Regular from the Show Wireless Clients window. The Wireless Clients window generates.

3Press Tab to highlight the MAC address of the station to ping.

4Press the [F1] key to select Ping [F1] This generates the Packet Ping Setup window.

5Enter the number of Pings (1 to 539), the Packet Length in bytes (1 to 539), and the Packet Data content in hex (0x00 to 0xFF).

6Select Start [CR] to begin pinging.

The AP dynamically displays ping packets transmitted and received.

Extended Roaming	You can achieve authentication by using the MD5 algorithm with a shared key
Using MD5	configured into the AP and its wireless client. MD5 is a message-digest algorithm
Authentication	that takes an arbitrarily long message and computes a fixed-length (16 bytes) digest
	version of the original message. You can think of the message-digest as a unique
	fingerprint of the original message computed using a mathematical formula or
	algorithm. The message-digest is the authentication checksum of a message from
	a mobile wireless client to an AP during the Home Agent registration process. The
	MD5 algorithm prevents a wireless client from impersonating an authenticated
	wireless client.