All devices on the ad hoc network must:

Be 802.11 compatible

Have ad hoc as the communication mode

Have the same network name (SSID)

Be on the same subnet and same channel

Have the same 802.11 security settings

Infrastructure (recommended): On an infrastructure network, the printer is set to infrastructure communication mode, and communicates with other devices on the network, whether the devices are wired or wireless, through a WAP. WAPs commonly act as routers or gateways on small networks.

Security settings

NOTE For the available settings for the printer, see the network configuration page under Understanding the configuration page.

For more information on wireless security, visit

www.weca.net/opensection/pdf/whitepaper_wi-fi_security4-29-03.pdf.

Network authentication: The printer's factory default setting is 'Open', which does not require security for authorization or encryption. The other possible values are 'OpenThenShared', 'Shared', and 'WPA-PSK' (Wi-Fi®Protected Access Pre-Shared Key).

WPA increases the level of over-the-air data protection and access control on existing and future Wi-Fi networks. It addresses all known weaknesses of WEP, the original native security mechanism in the 802.11 standard.

WPA2 is the second generation of WPA security; providing enterprise and consumer Wi-Fi users with a high level of assurance that only authorized users can access their wireless networks.

Data encryption:

Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP) provides security by encrypting data sent over radio waves from one wireless device to another wireless device. Devices on a WEP-enabled network use WEP keys to encode data. If your network uses WEP, you must know the WEP key(s) it uses.

WPA uses the Temporal Key Integrity Protocol (TKIP) for encryption and employs 802.1X authentication with one of the standard Extensible Authentication Protocol (EAP) types available today.

WPA2 provides a new, encryption scheme, the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES). AES is defined in counter cipher-block chaining mode (CCM) and supports the Independent Basic Service Set (IBSS) to enable security between client workstations operating in ad hoc mode.

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Chapter 6 Configuring and managing the printer

ENWW