Linksys Guest Network

[Gibert Chisholm]

TheGuest networks offered by most routers are a nice security feature. By keeping visitors away from the main network (both wired and wireless), they allow for the safe sharing of Internet access without divulging the private Wi-Fi password.

Up till now, the Guest networks I had run across, in consumer routers, all worked basically the same, although some routers offer far more control over them than others. Guest networks are defined just like the private Wi-Fi network(s) but with their own name (SSID), encryption (WEP, WPA or WPA2) and password.

Hoffman reports that these routers do not offer WEP, WPA or WPA2 encryption on their Guest network. And, although the Guest network is password protected, the password is requested on captive portal web page using HTTP, rather than HTTPS, insuring that it travels over the air in easily-captured plain text.

Typically, a dual band router (one with radios for both the 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands) will offer two guest networks, one on each frequency band. Higher end routers, offer multiple guest networks on each band. Below is a screen shot from an Asus router that offers three guest networks on each band. When combined with the two private wireless networks it offers, this Asus router can create up to eight independent Wi-Fi networks.

Last summer, a hotel where I stayed used a captive portal to inform hotel guests of their policies before letting them out to the Internet. One day, in the lobby, some guests were having WiFi problems. I told them to run a web browser and go to any website. Problem solved. Not only were the hotel guests un-informed, so too was the person at the front desk. Bad documentation is the rule in IT rather than the exception.

As a Defensive Computing guy, I tend to avoid open, unencrypted wireless networks. But testing the Linksys EA6200 illustrated how the security warnings about open networks are being de-emphasized. Ease of use has come to trump security.

Along the way, however, I found another problem with the captive portal. Most of the systems I tested failed to generate the password request above, even when using a browser to visit a website. The problem, it turns out, was because the router was off-line. There is no reason for this.

Any connection from a WiFi device to a router is just that, a connection between the device and the router. With normal WiFi networks, it matters not if the other side of the router (the WAN side) is connected to the Internet. If the WiFi network is open, or using WEP, WPA Personal or WPA2 personal, the router can handle things on its own. Only WPA2 Enterprise may need an Internet connection to validate users to the router.

Only Android 4.4.4 worked as I expected. That is, after joining the Guest network and going to any website, I was prompted for the Guest network password and after providing it, could get to the intended website.

Guest networks can be a really great feature, one that is certainly worth investigating, if your router offers it. They let you entertain visitors without divulging the private WiFi password, keep guest users away from shared resources on the LAN (normally but not always), and, as we saw last time, they can also help defend against the NetUSB router flaw.

Michael Horowitz wrote his first computer program in 1973 and has been a computer nerd ever since. He spent 20 years working in an IBM mainframe environment as both an application developer and a DB2 DBA. He then spent a few years working in the Research and Development group of a large Wall Street firm. He has also done technical writing and teaching. He is an independent consultant who has long been focused on Defensive Computing. His personal site is michaelhorowitz.com. This is a weblog of Michael Horowitz. The opinions expressed here are those of Michael Horowitz and may not represent those of Computerworld.

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The Guest Access feature of the Linksys Smart WiFi routers allows guests to use your internet connection without granting access to your files and other devices connected to your main network. This means that though your friends can still visit different websites, they will not be able to access printers or any shared files on your home computers.

This article will guide you on how to configure the Guest Access feature using the Linksys app.

Steps and images may vary depending on the operating system of your mobile device, the version of your Linksys app, or the model of your router.

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