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_Note:_ In true WikiWikiWeb [1] style, this is a work in progress.
Please place your comments and suggestions in the appropriate section
at the bottom and I will address them as I work through the piece. If
you feel up to it, you are most welcome to edit the piece directly
too, but please be careful not to cramp my style too much.
Thanks,
Tyson [2]
-------------------------
* Installing Wireless Networking on Windows XP [3]
* Step 1: Secure your operating environment [4]
* Remove unnecessary software [5]
* Apply relevant software patches [6]
* Learn about firewalling [7]
* Step 2 [8]
* Well, it isn\'t rocket science ... [9]
* Comments/Suggestions [10]
INSTALLING WIRELESS NETWORKING ON WINDOWS XP
With built-in support for WLAN out of the box, Windows XP is a good
candidate for the wireless newbies OS of choice. Some things should
not be ignored though - the risk of wireless intrusion, violation of
your ISP's usage policy...
Hopefully this will guide you through setting up Windows XP with
wireless in a robust and secure manner.
-------------------------
STEP 1: SECURE YOUR OPERATING ENVIRONMENT
Since your computer will become visible to any Wireless sniffing
computer within range, the first thing you will need to do is limit
oppotunities of unwanted interference.
REMOVE UNNECESSARY SOFTWARE
I find it suprising how much software is available to the average
punter to make their computing life a little bit more rosey.
Unfortunately, there is a lot of useless software around as well. Do a
clean up and remove all of those "limited trials", "freeware",
"shareware" and other stuff you don't use. Not only will you limit the
amount of potential security holes into your system, but you'll
benefit from improved performance as well!
* Start->Settings->Control Panel
* Add/Remove Programs
* Remove any unwanted items - be ruthless!
APPLY RELEVANT SOFTWARE PATCHES
Apply all of the latest security fixes from Windows Update [11]. XP
has a nice feature to do this automatically for you, you may wish to
use this. A word of caution though - faulty patches have made it onto
the update site before, they can always make it there again.
LEARN ABOUT FIREWALLING
It may sound rather daunting, but in the end you will thank yourself.
XP has some basic built-in firewalling...
STEP 2
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WELL, IT ISN\'T ROCKET SCIENCE ...
Okay, some real-world experience. Windows XP appears to be geared
towards natively supporting wireless applications. I installed a WL210
card and a USB-driven Netgear MR 102 AP see wireless.bur.st [12] and
both were picked up and installed automagically without having to
press a key. This probably explains the bloated size of the XP OS
install (about 700Mb+) if all the drivers are already present for any
hardware combination you might try. The WL210 card scanned for any
available wireless LANs floating around the ether (in this case, just
my AP) and connected. The OS also was automagically able to bridge the
WL210 with a Netgear NIC. One catch was that I still needed to install
the AP's management software to tweak the firmware settings. I can
take pictures, but as I said, wireless under XP is far from rocket
science. Just plug it in and fire it up. I have the win32 port of
Apache running on the XP box, but haven't had time to see how it
performs.
- Barry Park
-------------------------
COMMENTS/SUGGESTIONS
* Needs to be more XP specific
* Pictures would be good
* On the firewall side, I'd recommend you ditch the XP version and
opt for either the free ZoneAlarm [13] or hunt around for an older
version of Sygate Personal Firewall (Sygate commercialised it late
last year but there's still plenty of the free versions around, google
is your friend). Zone Alarm is good for the relative newcomer to
firewalls, Sygate is for the control freaks. Both have good logging
capabilities. I have not tried another freebie, Tiny Personal Firewall
[14]
* I'd like to keep it do-able "out of the box"
* I'd rather not incite any religous wars - "ZoneAlarm" vs. "Sygate
Personal Firewall" vs. "Other random firewall"
Links:
------
[1] http://melbournewireless.org.au/?Home
[2] http://melbournewireless.org.au/?TysonClugg
[3]
http://melbournewireless.org.au/#installing_wireless_networking_on_windows_xp
[4]
http://melbournewireless.org.au/#step_1__secure_your_operating_environment
[5] http://melbournewireless.org.au/#remove_unnecessary_software
[6] http://melbournewireless.org.au/#apply_relevant_software_patches
[7] http://melbournewireless.org.au/#learn_about_firewalling
[8] http://melbournewireless.org.au/#step_2
[9]
http://melbournewireless.org.au/#wellit_isn_t_rocket_science__
[10] http://melbournewireless.org.au/#comments_suggestions
[11] http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com
[12] http://wireless.bur.st/
[13] http://www.zonelabs.com
[14] http://www.tinysoftware.com
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