Belkin Dual-Band Wireless A+G Networking

Reviews: Networking

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Richard Poelling
Kurtis
Belkin
Mar. 27, 2005

Specifications

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Setting Security

Even though the security on both radios is disabled by default, Belkin has spelled out what types of security you should be using. For general secure wireless, go with WPA; for backward-compatibility of older products, 128-bit WEP should be used. The Belkin Router supports the following security configurations: "Disabled (open)," "WPA-PSK (no server)," "128bit WEP," "64bit WEP," "WPA (with RADIUS Server)" and finally "802.1X." Unless you have some backend servers, you won't need to worry about the last two. You will want to use WPA unless you have older network cards which don't support it. If that is the case, 128-bit WEP will be the next best choice. For my purposes, I have chosen to use WPA-PSK. You can either use TKIP or AES encryption and then you just need to choose a pre-shared key. There is a check box below that allows you to choose whether you wish to obscure your key or not. Entering in a key and applying the changes will encrypt the traffic for that radio. Now just do the same thing on the other radio. I personally chose to setup both networks with the same key just for ease of use, but you can set up each one with a different key if you want.

Additional Features

Firewall

Now that I have the Internet working and I have enabled security on both wireless channels, it is time to take a look at the other features this router has. This will bring us to the Firewall menu. Here is a simple choice, either on or off; the default is enabled and I would recommend that you keep it enabled.

Virtual Servers

Next down the line we have the virtual servers tab. This functionality isn't anything new, but I particularly liked the default settings that were present. In the "Add" drop down menu were a huge list of online games and general services that could possibly be used though this router. Many of the games looked rather old, but if the ports are the same, it doesn't matter in the end. Choosing a game from the drop down list, a simple click of the add button will populate all the necessary fields with the required ports for online play. This feature can save lots of time, especially for games that require multiple ports and protocols as well as port ranges. This will obviously make the life of any online gamer so much easier when they want to host a game server.

Client IP Filters

This tab allows you to restrict access to certain protocols by time of day. This could be used to restrict Internet access for children or to just play a nasty joke on other members of the household. The choice is yours.

MAC Address Filtering

MAC address filtering allows you to either accept or deny access based on the MAC address of the network device. Enabling this automatically adds the local machine MAC to the list. This is just another way to restrict access to your network, although it is possible to spoof MAC addresses.

DMZ

The DMZ is the Demilitarized Zone. Any machine placed on the DMZ will be directly exposed to the Internet. Unless there is absolutely no other way to get something to work, putting a machine on the DMZ should be the LAST resort. According to Dshield, the average survival time of an unpatched PC on the Internet is approximately 20 minutes. It's safe to say that unless you know what you are doing you should never mess with this tab.

WAN Ping Blocking

This feature is On by default. It drops ICMP ping requests, which makes it harder for your router to be detected by the outside world. Unless you need to change this, there is no need to mess with this setting either.

Security Log

This menu item allows you to see who has been knocking on the door to your router. Although, you will probably not see anything in this log file unless you disable the Block ICMP ping functionality. As soon as I did that, not only did the IP address show up as alive, but it recorded my port scan attempts. This type of information can be useful if the same address keeps showing up. As you can see from the log, the computer responsible for the attack was mine: 10.100.40.100. The destination IP is that of the WAN side of the router with the included port number I was scanning.

Utilities

Moving down, we come to the router utilities. Of particular interest here is the first item entitled "Use as Access Point." For those not familiar with the difference between an access point and a router, the AP acts as part of an existing network without using the NAT or Network Address Translation features normally found on a router. Rather than having the internet coming into the router and then passing traffic to an internal network, the access point just bridges the wireless traffic directly into the LAN. A static IP is used to join the existing network. In AP mode, the DHCP server is disabled, so you will need to have an existing DHCP server already running. I will be using the router in AP mode for my testing later on. Once in AP mode, the menus that are no longer used will disappear. This makes management much easier.

Parental Control

Under the parental control tab, you will find information on setting up the subscription-based service. This service is included as an introductory six month free trial. It essentially uses a database of websites that is kept by Belkin. When a request is made for a web page, that request is sent to Belkin for either a yes or a no. I am not going to review this service since that is beyond the scope of this review, but be aware that it is there and can be used.

Utilities... Continued

The rest of the items located under the utilities are pretty self-explanatory. These are all basic router functions such as restarting it, restoring to factory default (which can also be accomplished by holding the external reset button), backing up and restoring settings, firmware updates and finally, the system settings that contain the router password and time zone settings.

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Page 3 of 6

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Page 1: Introduction & First Looks
Page 2: Network Setup
Page 3: Network Setup Cont'd...
Page 4: Adapter Setup
Page 5: Testing
Page 6: Quick Note on Tech Support & Conclusion

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1 User Comment

1 - Posted by Guest on July 15, 2005 - 5:38 pm

Thankyou for a through review. The only question I have is will a 2.4 ghz phone interfere or will the router automatically adapt the right band. Thanks Tim

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