Stevai

Hey guys,
I couldn't really find a forum that specifically fit this, so I'm posting it here ...

Basically, I've got two PCs and an Xbox360. One PC is a Linux box (not going to be discussed here), the other is a WinXP machine. I stream MP3s off my Windows box via Windows Media Connect to my Xbox360. Benefit of this is that I don't have to keep multiple libraries of MP3s up to date.

My Xbox360 is in an odd place, and I'd prefer to not have to run the cat5 to get to it, so I picked up a wireless adapter for it w/ a wireless Linksys. I have everything running, did all the wireless security crap (all of which can be broken of course), so I'd like to try to do more.

I put my Windows machine back into my wired router, and hooked the router up to the wireless router creating two networks (192.168.77 for wireless and 192.168.99 for wired). Everything works great!

Now, in order for my Xbox360 to gain access to the Windows machine, I need to add a route...kind of defeats the purpose of two networks then

Any thoughts?

ejn74

you can set up the routers so that the wired one is the only one handing out IP's to your devices. Information on that can be found in other threads.

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Stevai

Yep, sorry I guess I didn't say I did that =).

Basically, I want to seperate my wireless network from my PCs (wired). However, I want a machine on my wireless network to be able to stream data off the PC on the wired network.

Obviously, I'd have to add a route from the wireless network to the wired, but this defeats the purpose of seperating the networks. Is there some other thing that could be done, or am I sol.

Admiral Michael

No route rule should be necessary. If you can connect via IP address just use the IP of the media PC to connect to instead of the name. (so \\192.168.1.100 rather then \\compname).

If the reason you want them separate is for security then creating a rule (if possible) would just join the two networks together and undo the security.

Just set the wireless router to the same scheme of the wired router, so if the wired router is 192.168.1.1 then set the wireless to 192.168.1.2, disable DHCP on the wifi router, and plug the network cable into a LAN port. Basically this makes the wifi router act as an access point instead.

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Stevai

Thanks for the reply Michael (rep to you ). Question though ... I guess this is the whole part of the dilemna ... by putting the WiFi router (and subsequently the WiFi clients connecting to it) onto the same network as the wired machines (what I really care about), that exposes my wired PCs to anyone whom might come into my network.

That is what I am trying to block ... anyone whom might stumble onto my network, being able to see/access my wired machines. I guess this is being paranoid though...

NathanA

Check to see if your router supports isolation.

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Stevai

It does support AP isolation.

Admiral Michael

Well if your wireless is secured with WPA then you shouldn't have much to worry about it. You have to generate ALOT of traffic for someone to be even have a shot of trying to get in. You can even use MAC filtering and only allow the devices you allow to connect.

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Stevai

Is that so?

Well, what I did do was:
1) Change admin password
2) Disable SSID broadcast
3) WPA encrypt it (wanted WPA2, but the xbox360 nic doesn't support it ... although it says it does ...)
4) MAC filter only to my xbox360 mac address
5) Change the SSID (of course)
6) I'm forgetting something, but...

I figured someone w/ a wifi sniffer can just capture some data and poof ... ok, cool ... I mean, my xbox360 (only thing so far that has the wifi) cant be sending much into the internet, and yes, it does stream MP3s, but hrmm ... I guess I'll make it a weekly chore of mine to change my SSID & WPA password and should be good eh?

Admiral Michael

Looks like you covered it all. I keep broadcast SSID enabled myself and I use 64bit WEP and MAC filtering (hopefully upgraded to WPA when I buy my new wireless access point soon).

Just out of curiousity, how long it your passphrase?

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Stevai

Thanks =)

My pass phrase is only 13 bytes because I am using a program I wrote that generates passwords ... it's not like the normal program that spits out random garbage, mine ... well, say you're on a business trip and forgot to bring along my program ... go download it, plug in yer password, and it'll generate the same password you asked it to when you were at home!

This is a note in my head, to make an option to have my pw program generate ?? amount of characters before I release it. Right now, it generates based on the length of the key you give it ...

Ack that's hard to read ... trying to hide what it does till I release it on Jan 1 =)

Admiral Michael

Here's an interesting read:

http://blogs.zdnet.com/Ou/?p=127

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Stevai

Interesting, interesting ... good read, thx!