I used this router when Draft N had been out for about a year. Its the router in the top left of the image above. I tried another popular brand first, but it did not live up to the performance that I got out of this router. It's still rated highly by most of the computer magazines and is a great deal for the money. I just saw it online at Best Buy for $89. A great buy for security and performance.
Getting Started
I hate to assume anything, so lets start off by getting into your router. The first thing to realize about your new router is that the router itself is not just some piece of hardware. Its actually a small embedded computer itself usually running some ROM based version of Linux or similar OS. It has its own web server running inside of it that you interface to for setting the particular parameters of the router.
Before jumping into the configuration specifics, let me suggest that you DO NOT use the Setup CD that comes with your router. I believe that they just confuse things more. Hang on to it though as it typically contains a PDF copy of the complete manual on it. If you want to get into some of the more advanced configuration areas, you will want it!
To get started with the configuration process, you must know the IP address of the router. Typically, out of the box, most all home routers have one of the following IP Addresses 192.168.1.1 (Linksys) or 192.168.0.1 (DLink / Netgear). To get started with your DLink Router, open your web browser and type 192.168.0.1 in the address bar. You'll see the page below. It defaults to the username Admin as you can see and has NO password to get in. You got it, just click Log In and off you go. Don't worry though, I will show you where to assign one later.
Main Setup Screen
Made it into the router? Great! This is where you end up right off the bat after successfully logging in. For the remainder of the sections that I am going to cover, I am going to show you a screen shot and then tell you a little about the important settngs in it. There are some screens that I am not going to cover being that they deal with other configurations and functions of the router itself. The goal here is to get you up and going securely!
For navigation of the router setup screens, note the Main Menu links outlined in RED below as they correspond to the applicable section of the BLUE area.
At this point, we are going to get started. Select the Manual Inernet Connection Setup button and off we go to the configuration of our Internet Setup.
- The part of this screen you'll adjust here normally is the section allowing you to clone your PC's MAC Address. Why do you need this you ask? Some ISP's register the MAC address of your NIC in addition to that of the cable modem. Knology, Gforce, and Charter are the first ISP's that come to mind. When you insert the router in the picture, it's IP address isnt' what's registered with the ISP.
- If you need the Mac Clone feature, press the "Clone Your Pc's MAC Address" and save your settings. .
Basic Network Settings
Click Network Settings on the left side menu and you will see the screen below.
- The main thing here is to be a starting point for your router. Most of the settings here are self explanatory.
- For the router IP, you could set this value to be something other than 192.168.0.1. Everyone knows this is a standard out of the box address for a DLink router. If you do decide to change it, keep in mind that you must stick to a Class C address. An easy change would be to simply change the 3rd value in the IP. After changing the IP address and saving your settings, the router will need to be rebooted.
- The next thing to change is the number of DHCP users. The router defaults to an unnecessary high number out of the box, so why leave it there if you only have 4 users? Change this to the number of machines you expect to be on your network.
- Of course, after you finish changing anything on the setup screens, press the Save Settings button at the bottom of the screen.
Basic Wireless Settings
This section is going to be one of the most important ones! Pay attention here so you make sure to get your router secured. Click Wireless Settings on the left side menu and then Manual Wireless Network Setup...
- The first thing you want to do is modify the wireless network name. This is also referred to as the SSID. Make this something unique. The key thing here is to set it to something other than the out of the box name.
- Set your 802.11 mode for what you have in the house. If all you will be using is 802.11N, go ahead and set it that way. As you can see above, I have mixed N and G mode for mine.
- Next disable the SSID Broadcast by selecting Invisible for the Visibility Status. No need to announce your presence to everyone! You know the SSID and authentication information you will need to input for connecting to your network. This step isn't what secures your network, but it does help. Save your settings.
- For the Wireless Security Mode, set it to WPA-Personal. WEP is definitely not secure.
- For the WPA section, I'd suggest setting to WPA2 Only with an AES cipher. The stronger encryption WPA2 uses in addition to a good strong password is very secure. Even with humoungous Rainbow Tables (40+ GB), I doubt it could be compromised. Again, it depends on your passphrase though. WPA2 of course depends on your network adapter being able to support it. If you don't see it as a selection for your NIC configuration, look on the vendor's website for a flash/driver update. If one is not available, I would seriously consider getting a wireless adapter that supports WPA2.
- The Pre-Shared Key is the other IMPORTANT part to your wireless security. A lot of people figure they will just use one of their kids names with a number on it...no one will ever figure it out right? WRONG...there are programs out there whose sole purpose in life is to crack passwords and you'd be VERY surprised at how efficient they are. Use what ever you want, up to 64 characters. Use a mixture of stuff containing upper and lower case text, numerics, and special characters as well. Make it RANDOM, DIFFICULT and LONG! Give something like this a try: 7uN8s#!STetRUs?eF9guvuq^3uqaWr
Wireless Network Access
- This screen is also known as the MAC Filtering screen. You have the option here of specifying the MAC addresses of NICs that are allowed to connect to your Wireless Network.
- You can manually type them in, or if you have allowed unfiltered connections to the router already and they are connected via the internal DHCP server in the router, you can use the on each entry line of the dialog to automatically fill them in for you (assuming you've let them connect already). This is the easiest way of course.
- Keep one more thing in mind here...if you configure the router from one of your protected MAC addresses and have it in the MAC filter list, that protected list is the only one you can get into the router from again without resetting it to factory defaults and starting over.
- When you are done, remember to save your settings!
Firewall Options - Security
- First make sure that you enable SPI (Stateful Packet Inspection). Click the link if you want to read more about it as it is way to deep of a topic to cover here. This basically is what protects you from the outside world.
- Next, for the NAT Endpoint Filtering, take the defaults as seen above.
- Enable Anti-Spoof Checking. This basically blocks traffic from non logical paths such as forged IPs and interfaces / directions that don't make logical sense.
- PPTP and IPSec both relate to VPN traffic. If you access a VPN at work, you will want to enable these as well to successfully connect. RTSP relates to Real Time Streaming Protocol. This one is optional. SIP relates typically to VOIP in the home environment. Unless your VOIP adapter is behind your firewall, you can leave this one off as well.
Administration
- Get to this page by selecting Tools | Admin on your router menu.
- Router password? Need I say more? Change this to something unique that only you know! Remember to make it strong sing a mixture of random MiXEd cAsE characters that aren't in a dictionary.
- There really isnt' a need to worry about assigning a standard user and password. You don't want anyone but you looking at your settings right?
Addional Advanced Network Settings
- Right of the get go here, DISABLE UPnP. Universap Plug n Play has good intentions, but can be used for not so good things...like reconfiguring your UPnP devices without authentication. Read this to get the idea of why you turn it off.
- Next, disable the WAN Ping response. No need to respond to folks just "checking" to see if you are out there.
- I have Multicast streaming disabled being that I don't hit sites a lot that need it. If you watch a lot of online videos, movies and such, you will probably want to leave it enabled.
Router Status
- This page is more of a "nice to know" kind of thing. Nothing for security settings here, but it is very useful when you are troubleshooting connectivity to your ISP.
- The DHCP Release button does just as it implies, it releases the information related to the router's connection to the ISP.
- The DHCP Renew button does just as it implies, it sends a DHCP request to the ISP to renew your IP address and lease information for the WAN side of your router.
I hope this information will be useful for you and your new network at home. There are a good many more areas you can look and explore inside of your router. These will get you going securely though.
Contact Me
Please feel free to drop me an email via the email link here. Take Care and God Bless!
Last updated on
January 9, 2011 2:14 PM