ZyAIR B-500 Wireless Access Point User’s Guide

 

 

Table 6-3 Wireless: Static WEP

 

 

 

 

 

LABEL

DESCRIPTION

 

 

 

 

 

 

Security

Select Static WEP from the drop-down list.

 

 

 

 

 

 

WEP

Select 64-bit WEP or 128-bit WEP to enable data encryption.

 

 

Encryption

 

 

 

Authentication

Select Auto, Open System or Shared Key from the drop-down list box.

 

 

Method

If WEP encryption is activated, the default setting is Auto.

 

 

 

 

 

 

ASCII

Select this option to enter ASCII characters as the WEP keys.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hex

Select this option to enter hexadecimal characters as the WEP keys.

 

 

 

The preceding “0x” is entered automatically.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Key 1 to

The WEP keys are used to encrypt data. Both the ZyAIR and the wireless stations must

 

 

Key 4

use the same WEP key for data transmission.

 

 

If you chose 64-bit WEP, then enter any 5 ASCII characters or 10 hexadecimal

 

 

 

 

 

 

characters ("0-9", "A-F").

 

 

 

If you chose 128-bit WEP, then enter 13 ASCII characters or 26 hexadecimal characters

 

 

 

("0-9", "A-F").

 

 

 

You must configure all four keys, but only one key can be used at any one time. The

 

 

 

default key is key 1.

 

 

Apply

Click Apply to save your changes back to the ZyAIR.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Reset

Click Reset to begin configuring this screen afresh.

 

 

 

 

 

6.5Introduction to WPA

Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA) is a subset of the IEEE 802.11i security specification draft. Key differences between WPA and WEP are user authentication and improved data encryption.

6.5.1 User Authentication

WPA applies IEEE 802.1x and Extensible Authentication Protocol (EAP) to authenticate wireless clients using an external RADIUS database. You can’t use the ZyAIR’s Local User Database for WPA authentication purposes since the Local User Database uses EAP-MD5 which cannot be used to generate keys. See later in this chapter and the appendices for more information on IEEE 802.1x, RADIUS and EAP.

Therefore, if you don’t have an external RADIUS server you should use WPA-PSK (WPA -Pre-Shared Key) that only requires a single (identical) password entered into each access point, wireless gateway and wireless client. As long as the passwords match, a client will be granted access to a WLAN.

Wireless Security

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