Tag: router
Breathing new life into Ruckus SmartZone 100 controllers (now EOL’d)
by firestorm_v1 on May.02, 2024, under Hardware, Investigative Dissassembly, Networking
Just like with most things, IT equipment has to evolve over time and wireless connectivity is one of those things. The company I work for decided to replace their aging Ruckus controllers and access points with Meraki access points (The decision was way above my paygrade) so that left a treasure trove of hardware behind that was destined for the waste bin. In this article, I’ll talk about the HA pair of the SmartZone100 controllers from Ruckus, their hardware capabilities, and what I plan on doing with my pair.
(continue reading…)Cruising with WiFi – Is that a travel router in your pocket?
by firestorm_v1 on Jan.10, 2019, under Embedded devices, Hardware, Networking
Carnival Vista
Internet access on cruise ships is now a common occurrence and more commonly, I get frequent questions on how to “game” the system and get Internet access without paying for it. The short of it is, you’re going to have to purchase at least one account to get anything online. The long of it lies in the rest of this article and it’ll be up to you to decide if it’s worth the effort. Quick spoiler alert: For me it wasn’t, and I ended up buying another access to get myself and my wife online at the same time. While it was a punch in the pocketbook, it was a lot cheaper to pay money to resolve than the costs incurred in other areas (time, frustration, etc.).
Networking on the Go – Creating a trusted wireless network in a sea of untrusted wireless
by firestorm_v1 on Aug.18, 2018, under Hardware, Networking, Security
In this article, I’ll be going over my setup for being able to join my camper’s wireless network to a host wireless network (RV park wifi, state park wifi, etc..) with the purpose of maintaining security and convenience between switching wireless networks. Even though you’re on-the-go, you shouldn’t sacrifice security for convenience of park wifi, and at the same time, changing the wireless configuration on a slew of devices is inconvenient at best and maddening at worst. First I’ll cover why you want to consider this method versus other methods, then I’ll itemize a product list, then finally we’ll jump right into configuration. When we’re done, you’ll have your trusted wireless network all set up and ready for your devices.
Giving a PIX firewall a new lease on life
by firestorm_v1 on Jan.24, 2014, under Embedded devices, Hardware, Networking
Buying networking equipment off of Ebay can be one of the most rewarding and frustrating challenges you may ever face. Of course, being able to identify and fix issues with newly purchased hardware may mean the difference between having purchased a $500 firewall for $11 and some parts versus buying another piece of crap for $11 that will live out its life in the back of the parts closet. In this article, I’ll cover how to replace the power supply to a Cisco PIX 506E firewall with a standard computer power supply.
Networking: Bringing IPv6 into your network using pfSense
by firestorm_v1 on Dec.01, 2011, under How-To's, Networking, Software
The Internet as we know it is undergoing a significant change. With the last IPv4 addresses being allocated out, the Internet has officially run out of address space. IPv6 is the next-generation IP addressing system that aims to resolve this issue however the changes proposed are drastically different than the current IP schema currently in place and for most is quite a daunting task to switch. In this post, we will cover some basic IPv6 information and some fundamental differences between v4 and v6 (aside from tons of IPs), and finally we will build out a pfSense firewall with IPv6 using pfSense and a free IPv6 tunnel provided by Hurricane Electric. Read more to get started on the cutting-edge of Internet infrastructure. (continue reading…)
Networking: Installing and configuring pfSense Embedded
by firestorm_v1 on Nov.11, 2011, under Embedded devices, How-To's, Networking, Security, Software
After publishing the last post on networking and the security series, I felt it was necessary to go ahead and publish a piece on building a custom router. I have been a fan of pfSense for the past four years and swear by it. It has the ease of use of a commercial GUI-driven router and unrivaled flexibility limited only by the hardware it is installed on. In this howto article, we will cover installing pfSense on an embedded platform and initial configuration for getting your router up and running.
Networking: Duplicating Drops in structured wiring
by firestorm_v1 on Jul.29, 2011, under Hardware, How-To's, Networking
Structured wiring in businesses and the enterprise are as expected as the sun shining and a regular paycheck, however in the home a structured wiring solution can be an unexpected gift from the Gods of Ethernet. While structured wiring in an apartment complex is usually done central to a utility closet or shelf, sometimes the central point isn’t always convenient for your router or you find yourself needing to run multiple networks. In this tutorial, I will show you how to turn one structured wiring drop into two drops for carrying two different network segments, something that can be of benefit should you ever need it. (continue reading…)
Add an SD card slot to a WRT54G v2
by firestorm_v1 on Sep.09, 2009, under Embedded devices, Hardware, How-To's, Linux
In this post, we’ll cover step-by-step how to add a SD cardslot to your Linksys WRT54G running DD-WRT and how to configure it in the DD-WRT UI. Granted, this has been done a lot already, however there is a significant lack of information on how to do it on the older V2’s. Read more for the complete step-by-step guide. (continue reading…)
