on networks N300R, User Manual

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N300 WiFi Router (N300R) User Manual
Safeguarding Your Network 2-9
May 2012
• Security Options . The selection of wireless security options can significantly affect your
network performance. The time it takes to establish a wireless connection can vary depending
on both your security settings and router placement.
WEP connections can take slightly longer to establish. Also, WEP, WPA-PSK, and WPA2-
PSK encryption can consume more battery power on a notebook computer, and can cause
significant performance degradation with a slow computer. Instructions for configuring the
security options can be found in
“Choosing Appropriate Wireless Security” on page 2-1 .
3. Click Apply to save your settings.
Configuring WEP Wireless Security
WEP Shared Key authentication and WEP data encryption can be defeated by a determined
eavesdropper using publicly available tools.
WEP offers the following options:
• Automatic . With the Automatic option, the router will try both Open System and Shared Key
authentication. Normally this setting is suitable. If it fails, select Open System or Shared Key .
You can also refer to your wireless adapter’s documentation to see what method to use.
• Open System . With Open System authentication and 64 or 128 bit WEP data encryption, the
N300R router does perform data encryption but does not perform any authentication. Anyone
can join the network. This setting provides very little practical wireless security.
• Shared Key . With Shared Key authentication, a wireless device must know the WEP key to
join the network. Select the encryption strength (64 or 128 bit data encryption). Manually
enter the key values, or enter a word or group of printable characters in the
Passphrase field.
Manually entered keys are not case-sensitive, but passphrase characters are case-sensitive.
To configure WEP data encryption:
1. Select Wireless Settings under Setup in the main menu.
2. In the Security Options section, select WEP . The WEP options display.
Note: If you use a wireless computer to configure WEP settings, you will be disconnected
when you click Apply . You must then either configure your wireless adapter to
match the WiFi router WEP settings or access the WiFi router from a wired
computer to make any further changes. Not all wireless adapter configuration
utilities support passphrase key generation.