Wireless Routers (Seeking advice)

[Chuin]

I have had Cable Internet installed about a week now and I want to get the rest of the house hooked into it. I have vaulted cellings, so I prefer to use a wireless method.

My question is. Are any of you using a Wireless Router that is working with SEQ and not blocking packets?

Are you happy with the Wireless model you have, or would you suggest another brand?

Thanks in advance...

Chuin

[fryfrog]

your best bet for wireless will probably be to get an ethernet -> wireless type "station" (or what ever its called). then, you plug the wireless station into a hub with your seq box, and then any traffic going over wireless should be easily and effortlessly sniffable by linux.

if you mean putting a wireless card in your linux box (and windows and...) i'm not sure how that would work out. you would need to make sure you get a wireless card that CAN go into promisc mode (i am not sure, but i think there are some that can't). i've also read that a wireless network is like a switched network, but i don't see how anything that is broadcast over airwaves would not be sniffable :)

[Dedpoet]

I am not using wireless, but I did want to post to make sure you understand how to use Seq in a wireless setup. For your seq machine to see the packets from your wireless clients, it will need to be between the Internet and your EQ client. Somewhere you are still going to need to have Seq on a hub with your wireless gateway so it can see packets. My assumption is that you are using one of those wireless broadband routers, so you would have to do something like this:



--------------------- Internet ---------------------
|
|
True Hub-------------------
/ |
/ |
| |
Wireless Router Seq machine w/ non-routable IP
|
|
|
Your Network


That should let your router grab the IP from your cable provider while allowing the non-routable seq machine to see the packets.

If you already knew this, I apologize, I just wanted to throw this in to make sure ;)

Edit: Damn, fryfrog beat me because I was drawing pictures. Woohoo! I'm a guardian wurm now! I was an undead froglok forever.

[Chuin]

Sorry Fry.... you showed me where I wasn't detailed enough...:)

Both the EQ PC and the Linux box's will be DIRECTLY attached to the Wireless Router... Only the other PC's in the home will need wireless access and none of them are running EQ, they just browse the Net.

I know that the surest way would be to come off of one port of the wireless router into a KNOWN hub and share that connection with SEQ, but I was hopeing to avoid that additional small purchase.

{EDIT} I drew a pretty picture too.... but it didnt format right...:(

[BlueAdept]

Originally posted by Chuin
Both the EQ PC and the Linux box's will be DIRECTLY attached to the Wireless Router... Only the other PC's in the home will need wireless access and none of them are running EQ, they just browse the Net.

I am almost positive that what you said will not work. With SEQ and the EQ on the router, SEQ wont be able to sniff the packets since it is a router. You will need to plug a hub into the router and put the EQ and the SEQ machines on it.

[high_jeeves]

Yep.. without having specific software to "sniff" the ether, and translate the packets to ethernet packets, and do so at a level that pcap can pick them up, you wont be able to run in this mode... You will need to have your SEQ box at a level "above" the wireless network.

--Jeeves

[Cryonic]

Or get lucky and use a wireless NIC that is capable of promiscuous mode and therefore able to sniff the packets coming through the air.

[fryfrog]

actually, i think he means more along the lines of this (and forgive the REALLY crude picture). i think the router device he is talking about would include both a 10/100 built in X port switch (4ish?) as well as a wireless access point. i think he also means that his eq/seq will be on the 10/100 switch and that wireless is JUST meant for OTHER computers to get access (non eq). in this case, you would just need to dangle a real hub off the 10/100 and plug the eq/seq computer into that.



internet -> router/wap -> hub -> seq/eq computers
\> just some other computers

[Numbnuts]

Yah Fryfrog got it right. As I have one of these a linksys wireless 4 port with router is a Switch.

You cannot use Show EQ on a switch
You cannot use Show EQ behind a router. The mask of the router prevent's showeq from locating the packets. (I asked this question earlier)

So here's what you have to do

Cable Modem
|
Wireless Router <><><><> Non EQ Machines
|
10Mb Hub ----------- Non EQ Machine One --------- Non EQ Machine Two
| (From The 10Mb Hub)
EQ Machine ------------ Seq Machine.

So that's the ONLY way for a Seq Machine to be used on a Wireless Router or any router for that matter. The EQ Machine and the Seq Machine must be wired together. Be it with a Hub or through a 2nd nic card.

[Rubin]

The easiest thing to do would be to add another nic to your Linux box and run your windows/eq pc off of it.

---------------linux box---------------
wap------->eth0 eth1------>windows pc

Basically you would be using your wireless connection for your backbone.

[Chuin]

I'm going to do exactly as Fry suggested and feed a HUB from the router and plug the SEQ and EQ box into the Hub...

Thank you guys for making it clear.....

[ilovelinux]

Im running an Apple Airport, with my hub attached. No problems with my set up at all.

[dsiroky]

I have a wireless setup with a twist, and wanted some advice on how to configure.

eq machine ---wireless--- linksys --- dslmodem
linux machine ---wireless

Both my EQ machine, and my laptop running showeq are wirelessly connected to a linksys 4 port wireless switch/router. There are no ethernet cables in the room where the EQ machine and linux machine exist, so wireless is a must.

Additionally my showeq machine is actually a windows laptop running connectix hosting redhat 9 as the guest OS. one of the challenges with this setup is that even though the laptop has 2 NICs in it, only one real NIC can be used in the guest os.

I was thinking the only way to get this setup to work, is to configure my EQ PC to use the linux laptop as its router, and to have the linux machine forward all the requests to the linksys router. Physically the machines would all be hooked up over wireless, but I was figuring with the linux machine playing the role of a router, the packets should be sniffable as they need to pass through the network stack to get routed.

Is my understanding correct? if so can someone point me at an faq/doc which covers the basics of configuring routing services on redhat in a way that permits routing to be set up between 2 networks using one physical nic which has multiple IP addresses each on different subnets assigned to it.

..David

[junk]

I have a Netgear MR814 (http://www.netgear.com/products/prod_details.asp?prodID=151&view=) wireless access point/4 port router that works just fine. My laptop has an ORiNOCO Silver (http://www.proxim.com/products/all/orinoco/client/pccard/) card. My Linux box (Redhat 8) is my internet gateway (has 2 NICs in it). I'll run ShowEQ through an X-Session on my laptop (running WinXP) connected to the Linux box. Have never had any problems (although, the fact that the Linux box is my gateway AND is the box ShowEQ is run on means it doesn't have to pick up the traffic through ANY router/switch/hub).

[McBain]

Orinoco gold + firmware downgrade=cheapest permisc wifi card to my knowledge. (a few google searches should yeild a howto on all of this, which version you need to downgrade to etc)

I have some vague recollection orinoco silvers can't get the downgrade, or can't drop into permisc once they do... tho it could have been we just found excellent deals on orinoco golds when we bought our cards about a year ago.


*fyi I don't beleive this works in winblows, while the card can get the downgrade, winblows can't actually drop it into permisc. The downgrade must happen on a winblows box tho.

[Dedpoet]

Interesting stuffs. My father knows a guy who is a network security consultant. He used promiscuous wireless cards in laptops in the parking lots of some mid-sized businesses, made a few phone calls to some CIO's, and booked himself solid with work for months.

"Hello, Mr. Anderson? This is Mr. Smith with ABC Sercurity Consulting. I just wanted you to know that I was able to easily obtain the logon passwords of your entire executive board in a matter of 15 minutes without ever entering your building. I'll be happy to help you fix that up for about $200/hour. I'll be by this afternoon with the paperwork."

:)

[Cryonic]

I hope he doesn't do that to some government offices. Some have taken to throwing the book at the person rather than trying to fix the problem (or more likely paying the person to fix it).

[fester]

The danger in using a promisc Wifi card is that there is a higher chance a packet will get lost. If ShowEQ loses a single packet that the PC did not lose, then the chance of ShowEQ breaking is extremely high. I would expect above 90 percent chance of this resulting in having to re-zone to reattach ShowEQ.

I would not like to trust the reliability of a Wifi network to the level of a ethernet hub/switch.

[Dedpoet]

I hope he doesn't do that to some government offices.

I would like to think that someone who does security consulting for a living would know better. If not, that's his own fault, I suppose.

[Chuin]

The government topic is interesting....

If you take a camera to someone’s window and catch them undressing in their bedroom, you have violated the law BECAUSE in their home they have a certain expectation of privacy.

If the same person you wanted to photo walked into their front yard and you took their picture, you broke NO laws. They gave away any rights of privacy when they ventured into an unprotected area. Unprotected I mean the lack of fences or plantings.

If you have a wireless laptop and are driving the streets looking for a signal and find one, I would not think there are any grounds for legal action. If any agency is stupid enough to transmit sensitive data over the airwaves without some form of encryption, then the law should be going after the agency for violation of public trust.

This would be of course my understanding and is NOT based on any legal knowledge or counseling.

[Cryonic]

The problem isn't in the individual capturing those packets, but in going to the place and saying, "Hey, you have some security problems. Pay me $XXX/hour and I'll fix them for you"

[Surak]

Ok, this is probably a variation of what has been posted above, but what the heck, comments are appreciated ...

I've considered wireless too, and wonder if the following setup would work:

Internet Cable Modem
|
|
Wireless Cable Router/Switch ----- non EQ computer (wired)
:
:
:
Wireless Access Point or Bridge
|
|
|
Hub (non-switch)
| . . . . . . . . . . . . |
| . . . . . . . . . . . . |
Eq Computer . . SEQ computer


(the periods in the hub branch are there just for formatting)

The only difference between this and my existing working setup is presently I use a wired Linksys router with a D-Link Hub plugged into the router by a 30 foot cable to the next room over. Basicly the wifey is tired of that cable going down the hall and we can't wire the walls for the network.

Thanks

[Dedpoet]

That will work fine. As long as the Seq box is on the hub with the EQ box, or is acting as your network gateway, it can see the packets. Since you have them on the same hub, it's irrelevant how the packets get out to the rest of the world. I am assuming that the bridge you're using uses straight TCP/IP on the side the hub will be plugged into.

[uRit1u2CBBA=]

I have my setup exactly as you have it diagrammed, and it works great.