Hi,

I've been trying to find how to connect my empeg wirlessly to my wireless router. I've tried a few searches for the word 'wireless' as recommended on riocar.org but it brings back an overwhelming number of results and I either haven't found what I'm looking for or, more likely, haven't understood. Someone will no doubt find a thread straight away that has the relevant info but here goes.

I've recently upgraded my sad old dial-up to cable broadband with NTL. I've hooked my PC and my gf's up to it using a Belkin wireless router. What I now want to do is be able to leave my empeg connected up to the amp in the lounge but still be able to access it from my PC in the study. I'm not sure what I need to do this. Would it be an access point or a bridge? After that, how do I get the router to recognise it? Configure it by connecting it to the router first, do that somehow from the empeg or will it just plug into the ethernet on the empeg and work (how likely is that?)

Answers need to be in fairly simple terms as I'm not much of an afficionado on anything like this.

Cheers,

Try searching for
802.11 perhaps?

Thanks, that yielded some better results. Or, maybe after reading the posts so often I am finally starting to understand some of the terminology/discussions.

What I think I'll do is go get a Belkin AP later today and see if I can get it all talking.

The cheapest way to do this would be to run an ethernet cable to the empeg. Since it's not going to be moving, there's no inherent reason that it needs to be attached wirelessly. Of course, there may be other reasons you don't want to run a cable. If so, something like this Wireless to Ethernet Adapter fits the bill. There are other similar products, and it's feasible that there could be compatibility issues, but any of them ought to work. I know some people on the BBS have reported compatibility with some of them, but I can't seem to find them at the moment.

Okay, so I didn't take the plunge and get the Belkin. I couldn't find a UK retailer of the wireless to ethernet adapter but looking at it it looks the same as the linksys wet11 bridge that I've seen mentioned elsewhere. For the same price as this I have found a AirStation Wireless Bridge by Buffalo technologies. Any recommendations?

The WLI-T1-S11G would seem to be their equivalent product? Is that what you were talking about? I'd like to say the fact that I've never heard of them before would make it less reliable than Linksys or Belkin, but I've never had much faith in their reliability, either.

Otherwise, an access point should work, but it just seems like overkill to me, even if it costs the same amount. In addition, there might be configuration problems in a multiple access point configuration that might not be solvable. The types of things I'm pointing you to ought to work, as you'd be using it exactly as it was intended.

Whlle on the topic of wireless, I've been eyeing a couple of options and I'm looking for any comments or suggestions.

I'd like to have an 802.11b AP in my car (mainly for the geek factor). I'd also like to use it connect to my home LAN (from the garage) for syncing with emplode. I don't yet have any wireless at home, so options on that front are still open.

I've been looking at Linksys's products and see a couple different paths, but can anyone suggest which of these would work?

1) WET11 plugged into the empeg, WAP11 in the house.
The WET11 appears to just be a client. Can two clients talk to eachother? If I had a laptop in the car with 802.11b card, could it talk to the empeg's WET11 while on the road?

2) WAP11 plugged into empeg, WAP11 in the house.
From what I've read, this sounds quite flexible. Maybe have to toggle the car one between client mode (talking to house) and AP mode (talking to laptop in the car) manually (script on the empeg).

3) BEFW11S4 in car, WAP11 at home.
The BEFW11S4 is cheaper than the WAP11 (scenario 2) and has a switch, but can be a client to another AP like the WAP11 can? If not, would I have to toggle the WAP11 at home and the BEFW11S4 in the car both into bridging mode to upload music? Would I then have to toggle both back to AP mode for a laptop to work?

I'm leaning toward option 2 plus a small switch. The switch would allow for a jack or two to feed laptops without 802.11b and a plug for a terminal server. I'm still holding out for the idea of a terminal server that could host serial ports for a GPS, OBD-II module and future expansion.

1. I'd go this route. While two clients can talk directly to each other without an AP, it's not well supported. However, if the empeg's wireless adapter could reach the AP, then so could the laptop, so you'd be good there.
2. I'm not sure what you're talking about in regards to toggling between client and AP modes. You mean on the empeg? You should be able to get a DHCP IP address regradless of where in your network you are, so you wouldn't need to toggle. The only difference between using a WAP11 in client mode and using a WET11 is that the WAP11 can support more devices than the single one that the WET11 can.
3. It doesn't look like the BEFW11S4 can be a client. Of course, you could set it up the other way around. There's no reason the WAP11 couldn't be the client of the BEFW11S4.

1. I'd go this route. While two clients can talk directly to each other without an AP, it's not well supported. However, if the empeg's wireless adapter could reach the AP, then so could the laptop, so you'd be good there.

In the car while on the road, the laptop and WET11 would be in range of eachother, but not an AP in the house. Does "not well supported" mean that it's unlikely to work with cards from other vendors?

2. I'm not sure what you're talking about in regards to toggling between client and AP modes. You mean on the empeg? You should be able to get a DHCP IP address regradless of where in your network you are, so you wouldn't need to toggle. The only difference between using a WAP11 in client mode and using a WET11 is that the WAP11 can support more devices than the single one that the WET11 can.

With a WAP11 in client mode, it could talk to a WAP11 in AP mode in the house, but while on the road, what would it take for a laptop to then talk to the WAP11? Is it something that needs to be changed via the web interface to tell the WAP11 to be an AP no, and not a client?

3. It doesn't look like the BEFW11S4 can be a client. Of course, you could set it up the other way around. There's no reason the WAP11 couldn't be the client of the BEFW11S4.

Interesting idea. Since the BEFW11S4 is cheaper, put one in the house since the house wouldn't ever need to be a client.

The idea situation is to have all the following features:
- Walk around the house with a laptop
- Upload music to the car wirelessly
- connect to the empeg from a laptop while on the road (http, telnet, emplode, etc)

I was thinking that I'd need DHCP in the car, but if the empeg does link-local and 802.11b cards do as well, then it wouldn't really matter.

I didn't follow that you'd want to have the laptop and the empeg talking while in the car away from the house. Makes enough sense, though.

It's too bad that that's where all the configuration troubles will arise.

What I mean by not well supported is this: There are two main ways to create an 802.11b network. One is with an access point. It creates a network name and 802.11b clients see that and can attach to it. Then there's another mode called ad-hoc mode. Vendors now claim that it's just for demonstration purposes, and many vendors' drivers don't support it at all. Even when they do, it's apparently not tested as much as the AP mode.

In addition, you have to manually switch between ad-hoc mode and AP mode. I don't even know if the WET11 will work in ad-hoc mode at all. (Actually, I just checked the manual and it looks lile it will.)

I don't think that 802.11b will work in a cellular sort of mode where you can have multiple APs servicing the same network, either. Someone correct me here if I'm wrong.

As I see it, the most transparent way for you to do this is to have an AP in the car. Then you'd also need a way to connect that AP to your house. If you don't have any other wireless devices, you might be able to do this by having an AP set in client mode in the house, but I don't know how well that would deal with the AP constantly coming and going. In addition, that means that you couldn't have wireless devices in the house work transparently while the AP in the car is gone. I don't know if that's a concern.

If you want to have it all work transparently all the time, you're looking at spending a lot of money. At first thought, you'd have to get an AP for the car, an AP at home, and then some way to connect the two, which at a thought, might require another AP on each side.

On the other hand, I could be totally wrong about multiple APs not being a possibility. I don't really know for sure.

"while on the road" meaning your going to have enough range to for the empeg to connect to home wirelessly while your driving around? Hmm you must live somewhere very very flat or you have some kind of monster antenna in mind... I'm jealous though if you can pull that off.

The laptop and empeg would be on the road together... no more than a couple feet apart and unable to access the home network. That's why it looks like I need an AP for the car.

Thanks for all the info. Sounds like the most flexible option would be to put a WAP11 in the car and write some script on the empeg that can connect to the web interface of the WAP11 and set it to either AP (when on the road) or client (when at home). Now if I had a GPS, I could program in my house's lat & long so it could automatically switch

Multiple AP's is not a problem for 802.11b. In fact for many installations it's a recommended method - if there is a requirement for large numbers of clients, stacking AP's on different frequency ranges effectively increases the available bandwidth, and for resilience purposes having overlapped WLAN's (connected to separate wired backbones and power supplies) is definitely a good idea

But what about :

In addition, there might be configuration problems in a multiple access point configuration that might not be solvable

Is this an issue with using an AP client with empeg ? Can a 'fresh from the box' AP be plugged into empeg and work immediately ?

yes, i did at home and in the car!

config it DHCP and there you go.

Pretty much - you'll typically need to ensure the SSID matches the network SSID. Some will also need a correct frequency range set, others will do that themselves.

Defaults, while pretty insecure, will often get you working with no brain exercise required (as long as you don't mix kit from different vendors)

You've convinced me - im gonna get a Netgear Wireless Access Point ME102UK for my empeg, to (hopefully) talk to my Netgear FM114 router / firewall thingy.

I will report back with the results - may be a month or two though cause im waiting for my mlord docking station before I go ahead with this.

I'm convinced too. Initially, I ordered the linksys wet11 from dabs, the only place that seemed to be doing them any more (that I could find). They were taking too long to get any in and then further discussions on this topic made me think that I'd get away with my original idea of getting the Belkin AP so I've cancelled my original order and getting this instead. Gone for a wireless CF to use on my iPaq as well. Should be coming this Monday so I'll be able to report success (or not) next week. If that works, I'll be getting my TiVo wirelessed up too

Okay, another update. I got the Belkin AP and after a few abortive attempts found that it will not wirelessly connect to the wireless Belkin router. Therefore, I am sending it back and am trying to order a Linksys Wet11 again. I've found some more etailers that do them but all have a 2 week wait for some reason. Are these hard to find cos of popularity or are they being phased out?

On a positive note, my wireless CF (which was easy to set up) now allows my iPaq to connect from virtually anywhere in the house

you'll typically need to ensure the SSID matches the network SSID. Some will also need a correct frequency range set, others will do that themselves

Steve - did you try this ?

Yep, tried that. It all defaults to a SSID of WLAN anyway. Channel is 11. I've heard back from Belkin, though, and the official word is that the router and the AP won't communicate wirelessly because the AP does not have a bridging option. A friend is gonna try it and see if he wants it first so that'll save me having to send it back.

Would you mind ordering from a US-based etailer?

Best Buy says in stock for $130.

Amazon says ships in 24 hours for $95.

CDW says ships same day for $117.

Where are you seeing a 2 week wait?

Get the cheapest AP you can get, if you don't want to have some extra-options like 256 bit WEP and so on. I tested many APs for writing my book and all are good enough to work with the empeg. If you want to use more than one AP to connect to clients, think about the throughput. More than 3 APs will drop the throuput down and you should try channel 1,6,13 not 1,2,3. Give them space. If you want to connect an AP to an AP, which seems logically for the empeg an the homestatione, there are only a few APs who can act as a client, so be careful.
I set up a site dedicated to the wireless empeg-connection. Not much at the moment but might be growing. http://empeg.rowi.net.

regards,
Rolf

256-bit WEP is not an "option" -- it's a requirement.

Except for those who don't mind others "sharing" their connection without permission. Remember the existing "128-bit security" takes only about 90 minutes to crack, just by listening in..

Cheers

Be careful not to trust even 256-bit WEP! You can catch packets even from 256bit. WEP is WEP, if you want security more than "a bit secure is better than nothing", use ssh-tunneling instead (don't know if the empeg is powerful enough to serve an ssh-daemon).
If I got it right, we are talking about an hobby-project for sending and receiving playlists and music, not sharing secret documents. So the security even with 128 bit is given for this purpose, or are they so secret? :-)
If the PC serves other things which are secret, forget it. WLAN is as secure as the Internet is: It isn't.

What's about bluetooth? Yesterday I had a meeting with an developer of TDK systems. They have an bluetooth-module including at-style commands. This would be great for the empeg. But let me test it. I will show it then at http://empeg.rowi.net when it's done. It would be fine to hear some opinions from the empeg-cracks, I'm not one the empeg-hardware-geeks.

Rolf

The topic of this thread is "Home Wireless Connections". A bit broader than just empegs swapping files.

And I wouldn't risk losing my 3mbps broadband link by allowing some punk to abuse my connection over 802.11b.. reverting to dial-up would destroy my self-employment.

SSH is definitely the way, but that means not using a home wireless router setup, since there's no way to force SSH use on connection.

And I think the empeg has way more than enough oomph for SSHD -- my home firewall/server is also strong-arm based, and it does a heck of a lot more simultaneously than just play music. No problem with CPU for ssh. Just the usual lack of RAM considerations there.

Cheers

Ok, but I see no difference in security between internet and WLAN. So I use WLAN even in my office but my access-point is behind a firewall, I can connect via ssh and tunnel anything I want, it's easy. I have to state that it's easy, because many people think that using a secure shell would be complicate. So if you want a secure local net and secure it with a firewall, why do other things in the WLAN? It's public, too.

So big and clear: WLAN, even with WEP 256bit is not secure!

It depends on you how much security is needed. And for all the security-freaks: Yes, nothing is _really_ secure, as we've seen it for openssl, but compare it with your door of your hose: Is it really secure or is it only so secure as you expect it to be?

best regards,
Rolf

P.S.: There is much to talk about secureity, but it won't change anything. But if the empeg could get an sshd, I would be very happy. I never worte an sshd, I am unable to do it myself, but maybe I can do other neat things for the empeg.
For all who might expect an sshd in the next days: Don't expect, do yourself ;-).

I use a VIA EPIA based PC as a 802.11b gateway. I'm using the HostAP driver with a Prism II card and to provide VPN support I've installed FreeS/WAN. It works quite nicely. All traffic over the WLAN is tunneled over the VPN link automatically.

- Trevor

If I understood it correctly, _both_ sides have to implement this. Sounds complicated for the empeg, even it runs with linux... Maybe the sshd is more easy to implement? Don't know.

regards,
Rolf

Yeah. Both sides would need to support IPSEC. FreeS/WAN is a kernel patch so should be simple enough to add into the Empeg kernel. I've got it working with W2K and WXP as well so it's not just limited to Linux. It's not trivial to set up however.

- Trevor

Am I right in thinking that you need to see lots of WEP encrypted packets to do this ? I had been assuming that 128bit WEP on a very lightly loaded WLAN is hard to crack because of the lack of packets to work with.

Is my assumption correct, or is my lightly used WLAN wide open ;-)

lightly-loaded WLAN is hard to crack

I'm not actually that bothered about someone cracking my WLAN -- they'll only get access to the outside of my firewall, and any sensitive traffic going over it is either HTTPS, IPSec or SSH.

Andy, you are right, it depends on the traffic to crack your WEP.

Rolf

Ah good. I can put off moving my PCI WLAN card from my Windows to Linux box and/or getting IPSEC working on my Windows laptop for a while then...

I'm really not looking forward to making the PCI WLAN card (in effect a PCMCIA card with an adapter) work in Linux, whenever I go near the PCMCIA stuff it gets nasty. I'm hoping I can combine the task with rebuilding my Linux box and letting Redhat see if it can find it during the install...

So long as one doesn't mind having their broadband service disconnected (or worse..) due to abuse from roving spammers, porners, crackers, etc.. sure, just leave it wide open. It's not so much one's own data that's at risk, but rather one's connection and reputation.

Cheers

If you never change the WEP key, then they just have to listen in for 15 minutes of active traffic each day for a week..

Reading the paper on the attack it would seem you need about 4,000,000 packets (assuming you have selected a truely random key, which I have) to mount an attack. My WLAN is very, very lightly used. I average less than a packet a second, even my five minute averages rarely peak at more than 5 packets a second. So even collecting at my peak times it would take over 200 hours to collect 4,000,000 packets.

Is my math correct ?

When you click on a single simple web link, it could easily result in over a hundred packets being passed back and forth.. But yeah, it might take a few collections over several days for yours.

Cheers

For my setup, I'm not overly concerned about security... the only wireless client I plan to have is the empeg. That lets me put the AP on it's own interface to my firewall. I can then filter packets to allow only the traffic I want.

That would only leave my empeg exposed... anyone port a hacked sshd to the empeg to allow only authenticated logins?

Okay, so I have another update. The Linksys Wet11 arrived fairly quickly and was quite easy to setup. It works from the lounge to the study. But, oh joy of joys - 1 1/2 hours ago I picked up my docking stations from the Post Office courtesy of Mr Lord (I paid for it Tuesday and it was supposed to be delivered yesterday - Friday - at my home in the UK but no-one was in - a very professional service so many thanks to Mark). I am sitting at my PC now with music streaming to a browser from the empeg sitting near the TV in the lounge whilst my gf is listening to a playlist through the amp.

But, there are certain parts of the lounge, namely where I normally sit, where the CF card for my iPaq won't pick up the router. I was hoping it would wirelessly connect to the bridge but this isn't the case. I'm tempted to order the Netgear AP to see if this will do everything I need. Any comments?

And, in case anyone is interested and to stop any confusion here is my current set-up:

Linksys Wireless Wet11 Bridge in the lounge.
Empeg in docking station connected to the bridge.
Belkin wireless DSL/cable router connected to cable in the study
2 PCs hard-wired to the router.
Wireless CF ethernet card - Buffalo Airstation - for use in iPaq.

The bridge talks to the router allowing me to connect to the empeg in the lounge from my PC in the study.
Router connected to internet allowing me to share with 2 PCs.
iPaq goes via router to log onto messenger browse etc from (almost) anywhere in the house or to synch with outlook on my PC.

When I get the airnet card for my TiVo I shall be doing a fairly noddy diagram on my web pages to help anyone else who tries this kind of thing.

And for the curious, Steve purchased a pair of Docks at the same time, and asked for "air mail" delivery -- since two docks together are too heavy for airmail, they got sent Express Post, which takes 3-5 days to almost any major country on the planet. But very very expensive (around US$50).

Cheers

You've convinced me - im gonna get a Netgear Wireless Access Point ME102UK for my empeg, to (hopefully) talk to my Netgear FM114 router / firewall thingy.

I will report back with the results - may be a month or two though cause im waiting for my mlord docking station before I go ahead with this.


Update time ....

Didnt go the Netgear AP route in the end - ordered a Linksys WET11 on the recommendation of my supplier (www.nickknows.com)

Works like a charm - in conjunction with an mlord dock

How do you guys get the WET11 to work with the Empeg? The link light won't light on mine when I connect it and consequently, I can't get the Empeg to appear on the network. Are you connecting directly to the WET11 or using something in between? What version of firmware does your WET11 have? Thanks.

Stu

Hi.

Did you setup the WET11 correctly? Especially the WEP setting needs to be correct, otherwise it won't get a link to the AP. This means that the bit width needs to be the same on AP and WET11, and of course the key itself needs to be correct.
Try connecting a PC to the WET11 instead of the empeg and check the settings with that. You could also try to remove WEP security from your AP.
And don't forget to set the right SSID. On some devices, you also need to set the right channel. Also: Did you set up any MAC address filtering on the AP?

cu,
sven

Thanks Sven. I'm pretty sure all those things have been done. It works fine with every device BUT the Empeg. Small correction, the link light is on on the Empeg, but the LAN light does not light on the WET11. It lights when connected to everything else. The crossover switch doesn't help.

Stu

Small correction, the link light is on on the Empeg, but the LAN light does not light on the WET11.

Wait a sec. Do I get this right, and the wireless connection works OK (in this case you should be able to locate the WET11 with the PC management software from the rest of your LAN), but the wired connection to the empeg doesn't work?
Try inserting a hub or switch between the two to rule out incompatibilities between the two devices (though this shouldn't be the case since others are obviously able to connect empeg an WET11), Also try exchanging the cable. I once had a similar problem and finally realized that I didn't only change devices during testing, but also the -defective- cable, so that it seemed as if one device failed reproducably, which it really wasn't, I always used the same defective cable on that device and working cables with everything else.

Also: how do you power the WET11 and the empeg, how do you power the other devices? Could it be a problem with too low/high voltage or some sort of electric interference?

Ciao,
Sven.

May also be worth checking you dont have a conflict in IP addresses between WET11 and empeg

I just connected my WET11 to my PC, fired up the setup software, configured it to use DHCP, then connected my PC back to the router and the WET11 to the empeg. Picked it up straight away. I should state that the empeg is DHCP as well.