MAC address filtering and password protection

Sorry for the huge post!!

So we've decided to wifi the new house and with 4+ laptops in the family, plus all our friends' machines, security is becoming a big issue. I am no networking expert so I turn to the forum hoping for some tips!

Our internet provider is Fastweb. You wouldn't have heard of them because they're Italian. The service they provide is Fibre Optics, therefore they also provide their own modem, which they call hag (i am not sure if that's an actual networking term or the name of the unit). Anyway, this hag has a wan port, to which I will be connecting a US Robotics USR805464 Wireless router and printer server. You could argue its not the latest-and-greatest but it benefits from also being a printer server, which is great since the hp all in one is also a fax, meaning I can place the printer in the living room next to the phone socket and let everyone in the house use it wirelessly too.

The internet connection as we have it is always on. There are no passwords, no online login pages. So as soon as you establish a wireless connection, you're online.

The problem is the humans in the house.

Like I said, there are 4 people in the house most of the time all of which have wireless laptops. This means MAC address filtering for these 4 (or more) laptops makes the most sense, since it would be annoying to have to type a password every time I turn on my laptop to access the internet.
However if I just use MAC address filtering, I would also have to add the MAC addresses of all of my friends if we decide to have a LAN bash, or a colleague needs to download something to work with which is time consuming. It would be much better if these "guests" could connect to the SSID displayed on their laptops and type in a password for authentication.

In essence, how do I configure MAC address filtering for my "home" users and password protection for my "guest" users? (is that WEP or WPA by any chance?)

Also, does securing my wireless network prevent access to the wireless printer or does that have to be secured separately?

I'll also take suggestions on the Router, if someone can suggest me a better one that has the printer server option (I haven't seen many with this feature).

All the laptops run either windows XP or Vista.

 

hhmmmm

if you use mac filtering for the 4 home computers, that works. But it will also block any other "diff" Mac addresses. So even if you set up WPA2 security and set up a passphrase, it won't work- if you still have the Mac filter turned on.

I personnally would use WPA2 with a good passphrase. You don' have to enter the pass/phras each time. Once you have connected, you can have it remember that Network/Password. You can give it out to your friends to use while there.

Your wifi printer is probably "G", so no problem, as long as the firmware can be updated to use WPA2- same goes for those PC's that connect to the router.

 

so theres no way of setting it up so that it has a MAC address allow list and if you're not on that list, use WPA2? I suppose this would be down to the router..

Also, some of the laptops at home are quite old, they'll never support WPA2, I'd have to use WEP...

The Printer is wired and the router is the printer server, so no problems with what wifi its running..

 

well, I'm no expert, but if you have Mac filtering ON, it will allow those computers listed to access the router/network. Or not allow those listed- not what you want. You can use WEP, it's just old and not hacker proof. Yes, this is on the router, but you can usually access the "setup" from your laptop. So when you have friends over, go into your laptop and change the configuration and use WEP, shut down MAC filtering.

lol, I think thats all correct- at least for my D-Link router.

 

ok, thanks!!

any recommendations on a better router with printer server? I haven't heard very good things about this USR...

 

A simple fix, go ahead and youw wep (1 step above open). Then when your friends are over, change the ssid and make it open. Then every one connects. With XP you can make a sec file that can be imported for each user. So if you provide the key, use MAC filtering when your friends are not over and turn off when they are. So at least 1 type af security is active at all times. WEP does not play well with Vista. You would be better off moving to WPA.