WiFi on the 100 Series

From NMTWiki

To setup Wireless (or WiFi) on the NMT a proper dongle should be used. It does not matter if it is located at the front or back (for A-110) USB slots.

This should be very simple, but given the many different security options and entering the information correctly it can be difficult.

Four important points:

• the SSID of the network must not be hidden by the router, it must be discoverable.

• the SSID should not contain any spaces or unusual characters, must be numbers or alphabetical characters.

• Double check the security your router is set to and make sure you then select the appropriate one in the NMT setup.

• Your password must not have spaces or special characters. If you want to use strong password with special characters, see Proper Wireless Security below.

Contents 1 Procedure 2 Troubleshooting 3 WiFi Speed 4 Working Dongles 5 Enhanced Wireless Security

Procedure

1) Plug in the WiFi dongle, front or back it does not matter.

2) Press Setup and choose the Network option menu.

3) Choose Wireless Auto IP if the router is set to give addresses by DHCP. If not, choose Wireless Manual IP and enter all of the internal static IP details by pressing configure IP.

4) On your router, turn ON Network Discovery to broadcast your SSID. Make sure your SSID has no spaces or unusual characters.

 ! " # $ % & ' ( ) * + , / : ; <= > ? @ [ ] \ ^ ` { } | ~ 

5) Scan for your SSID, when picked up, select it and press Save, go to the next section.

6) Enter your security type, make sure you get it right as there are many to choose from - check your router's actual setting as most have 3 or 4 security types that the user can choose from, you need an exact WiFi security type match selected in Setup.

7) If using a security mode which uses a password, enter it making sure it has no spaces or unusual characters. Note that password that has no spaces or unusual characters is unsafe. If you are serious about your security, see Proper Wireless Security below.

8) If all goes well, it should say WiFi Connected and you should be able to test it (eg. look for a firmware update over the net).

Troubleshooting

Make sure you have the latest firmware, does not fix everything but some hang-ups can be avoided.

Turn off all security on the router (including filters for MAC addresses).

Select either Wireless Auto IP if using DHCP or Wireless Manual IP if using static internal IP and click on save.

On SSID selection screen click on scan and make sure that the SSID is detected and you are selecting the correct one (and not your neighbours!).

Leave Security to None, leave Key blank and click on Save.

Skip this step if using DHCP otherwise choose configure IP button and complete in the IP details.

If all goes well and status says scanning and then WiFi Connected, you can then try to set up security on the router (WPA is probably best: remember to choose eg. "WPA TKIP" - equivalent to WPA PSK or pre-shared key) for Security at the SSID selection screen - get there by clicking on Wireless config).

If you encounter disconnections and are sure you do have signal strength then move to a static manual ip AND double check the DNS addresses. A forum member has posted a script and guide to reconnect if disconnections are a problem.

WiFi Speed

There are no guarantees that you will be able to stream any files using a USB dongle. USB as a form factor effectively halves WiFi speed.

If enabling WiFi with a dongle, even with the latest router with 802.11n specs, do not expect to be able to stream anything. in reality you will be able to stream SD xvid and if lucky low bitrate 720p TV rips. FTP content via WiFi to an internal HDD works fine.

A good alternative to the Dongle is using a "bridge", where either a wireless access point or second router are added and use the ethernet socket instead of USB as described in this Guide.

Working Dongles

Most WiFi "dongles" (as USB WiFi sticks are called) are NOT valid for your NMT. The NMT has drivers only for one specific Atheros chipset and even dongles with that chipset may not work due to VendorID issues.

Below are two lists, one for dongles that work straight away simply by plugging them into a USB port. The other for USB dongles that users have thourgh adding drivers or changing config files got to work with the NMT.

As more people test new dongles please add them to the relevant list:-

Works straight away

Official WN-100

TP-LINK TL-WN821N v1 or v2 from firmware 090115. Release Notes Section 4

Unbranded with external SMA antennas

Works with further user changes

RALINK 2570 Chipset based (e.g. Conceptronics C54RU, Ovislink Evo-W54USB) How To:Ralink 2570

RALINK 73 Chipset based (e.g. D-Link DWL-G122) How To:Ralink 73

Enhanced Wireless Security

Your WPA/WPA2/PSK password is the key to your wireless security. Unfortunately, current NMT user interface doesn't allow you to enter a strong password. If your password is short or easy to guess, you could as well leave your network open. If you know this already, your hme PSK is probably 64-byte long with random characters, if you don't though, it's high time to generate safe and nontrivial password here:

https://www.grc.com/passwords.htm

Here's the random password I got from the site:

.h;w#rum5F]w[Bl;z48/.>pPZk$2p]x~ndMjlWmOSM0M3(d^GHmkk?pz#7}5SQx

You can't enter this string in NMT network settings, but you can (and should) change your trivial password to something strong, like this above.

To do it, you need telnet or ssh connection to NMT. How to enable telnet is not part of this guide, but the Community Software Installer has it as a installable package. To make things easier you can connect NMT to your router with ethernet, but it is possible to do everything using only wireless. In such case you have to:

1. Have NMT connected via WIFI to your router (with old, unsafe PSK)
2. Change PSK on NMT, as described below
3. Change PSK on your router
4. Power off/power on NMT

Now, to use safe PSK on your NMT you need to enter some commands from shell:

pflash set wlan_securitykey ".h;w#rum5F]w[Bl;z48/.>pPZk$2p]x~ndMjlWmOSM0M3(d^GHmkk?pz#7}5SQx"

This writes your PSK to non-volatile memory of NMT, storing it permanently. But to be 100% sure all characters are properly escaped, do:

pflash get wlan_securitykey

You will see:

.h;w#rum5F]w[Bl;z48/.>pPZkp]x~ndMjlWmOSM0M3(d^GHmkk?pz#7}5SQx

Comparing it byte by byte you will notice, that something went wrong:

from pflash get:

.h;w#rum5F]w[Bl;z48/.>pPZkp]x~ndMjlWmOSM0M3(d^GHmkk?pz#7}5SQx 

our generated PSK:

.h;w#rum5F]w[Bl;z48/.>pPZk$2p]x~ndMjlWmOSM0M3(d^GHmkk?pz#7}5SQx

As you see, some characters (i.e. $) need to be escaped, so in case of above PSK you have to enter:

pflash set wlan_securitykey ".h;w#rum5F]w[Bl;z48/.>pPZk\$2p]x~ndMjlWmOSM0M3(d^GHmkk?pz#7}5SQx"

Compare it again. If both passwords are equal, you can reboot your NMT and it will connect to your network with this non-trivial PSK (of course if you did remember to update the PSK also on the router!)

If with PSK change you also want to change your SSID, use this command:

pflash set wlan_ssid YOUR_NEW_SSID

And check with:

pflash get wlan_ssid

To see other configuration settings stored in flash, issue:

cat /dev/mtd1