EBOOK EXTRAS: v1.0 Downloads, Updates, Feedback TAKE CONTROL OF YOUR APPLE WI-FI NETWORK COVERS n 1 1 . 2 0 8 d n 802.
Table of Contents Read Me First ............................................................... 5 Updates and More .......................................................... 5 Basics ......................................................................... 6 Finding the Wi-Fi Menu ................................................... 7 What’s New in This Edition ............................................... 8 Introduction .................................................................
New Network, Single Base Station ................................... 49 Extend a Network via Ethernet or Wi-Fi ............................. 53 Replace an Existing Base Station ..................................... 56 Create Separately Named 2.4 and 5 GHz Networks ............. 61 Configure IPv6 Networking ............................................. 63 Pick the Right Place and the Right Channel ................ 65 Spectrum Trade-offs .....................................................
Add a Shared Printer in Windows ................................... 144 Troubleshoot an Unavailable Shared USB Printer ............... 145 Set Up a Shared USB Disk ........................................ 146 Prepare Your Drive ...................................................... 147 View and Manage Connected Volumes ............................. 148 Work with Time Machine .............................................. 150 Grant Access .............................................................
Read Me First Welcome to Take Control of Your Apple Wi-Fi Network, version 1.0, published in June 2014 by TidBITS Publishing Inc. This book was written by Glenn Fleishman and edited by Tonya Engst. Make your Apple wireless network fast, reliable, and secure. Learn to configure the 802.11n and 802.11ac AirPort Extreme and Time Capsule base stations as well as the 802.11n AirPort Express base station with AirPort Utility 6 for Mac and AirPort Utility for iOS.
and access any future updates. However, if you bought this ebook elsewhere, you can add it to your account manually; see Ebook Extras. Basics Here are a few rules of the road that will help you read this book: • Links: All blue text in this ebook is hot, meaning you can click (or tap) it, just like a link on the Web. If you click a link that takes you to a different part of the ebook, you can return quickly to where you were if your ebook reader offers a “back” feature.
• Mac OS X versions: I often mention features specific to a particular version of Mac OS X, which Apple usually refers to by their “big cat” and “California” names: ‣ Yosemite: 10.10 (public release planned for late 2014) ‣ Mavericks: 10.9 ‣ Mountain Lion: 10.8 ‣ Lion: 10.7 My focus in this book is 10.9 Mavericks, though you’ll find some information about the other Mac OS X versions listed above.
What’s New in This Edition This is a fresh book in some ways, but it has a hoary history that dates back about a dozen years, making it the fourth “edition” in a line of books about wireless Apple networks.
Introduction It’s never been easier in Apple’s 15-year history of offering wireless networking equipment to set up a Wi-Fi base station and start working. But if that’s so, why read a book on the topic? Even though set up is much, much easier than ever—especially with more powerful and sophisticated radio gear in the base stations—so many of the fine details of creating a network that does precisely what you want still require carefully plotted, step-by-step guidance.
AirPort Quick Start Use this Quick Start to get an idea of how you might jump into the book if you are at a particular stage in working with your network. Tip: Trying to solve a problem? Flip ahead a few pages to the Quick Troubleshooting Guide or see Light Reading to learn what the light on your base station is trying to tell you. Also, you may especially wish to consult Overcome Interference. Learn wireless basics: • Get a quick grounding in Learn Wireless Basics.
• Unpack your base station and start down the path of configuring it in Plug In Your Base Station and Get Started. • Share a printer or a hard drive. See Set Up a Shared Printer or Set Up a Shared USB Disk. • Set up Time Machine backups with an AirPort Extreme or Time Capsule in Work with Time Machine. Connect to your base station: • Find out how to connect Macs, iOS devices, and Windows systems to a base station in Connect Your Devices. • Access your network when you’re not physically on it.
Quick Troubleshooting Guide If you need quick help, here’s the starting point. I first look at handling a locked-up base station and then give tips for solving a variety of common problems. Note: Light Reading, a few pages ahead, helps you learn about a problem by decoding a base station’s LED status light.
Remove the power adapter’s plug from the wall socket or remove the end that plugs into the base station. Wait 10 seconds. Plug the base station back in, and see if it appears in AirPort Utility. Everything may be back to normal. Reset the Base Station If the above two options don’t work, then try a reset. This step may erase any custom settings you’ve made.
Mac Wi-Fi Iconography The Wi-Fi menu—located on the system menu bar—reveals what kind of connection is in progress on your computer. Knowing what the icons mean can help you troubleshoot problems. This icon is always at the top of the Wi-Fi menu. Note: If you don’t see a Wi-Fi menu on the system menu bar, read Finding the Wi-Fi Menu, earlier. A gray fan indicates an active Wi-Fi network adapter that isn’t currently connected to a network. Read Connect Your Devices.
A fan containing a computer shows that the Mac has created an ad hoc network, a method of handling Wi-Fi communication among multiple computers without a base station—not even the “software” base station that’s created by Internet Sharing. See Ad Hoc Networking, in Appendix C. A fan containing an exclamation point indicates an error in setting up the network part of the Wi-Fi connection. Although the computer has connected wirelessly to the base station, it was unable to obtain a network address.
Light Reading The light on the front of any Apple Wi-Fi base station indicates what the base station is up to: handling data correctly, hitting an error, or in a special mode. The guide below helps you decipher the meaning: ● Off: There’s no power! Plug in the base station. If it is plugged in, check that the wall outlet is putting out power (you can plug a lamp into the outlet to test this).
Learn Wireless Basics Let’s quickly run through some basics to set the stage for what follows. Adapters and Access Points Wi-Fi networks need two connected parts: a wireless adapter and an access point. The wireless adapter is part of a computing device (such as a desktop computer, tablet, or smartphone), while the access point connects both to wireless adapters and to a broader network, such as the Internet via a broadband modem.
Wi-Fi menu in the menu bar and the Wi-Fi view in the Network system preference pane.) When a device’s wireless adapter connects—technically, associates— with a base station, the device can send data to and receive data from the base station. If the base station has encryption enabled, then the device must provide an encryption key before the base station allows the device access to any networks to which it connects.
Wi-Fi Gear from Apple A long history with Wi-Fi has led to three devices in Apple’s current lineup of base stations, each with a distinct set of features. Let’s look first at how Apple has chosen to work with 802.11n and 802.11ac, and then at Apple’s current AirPort Base Station Models and the options for Adapters in Macs and iOS Devices. At the end of this chapter, you should better understand the gear that you have, or be in a better position to shop for new equipment. 802.11n, 802.
Note: The adapters in a Mac can, in fact, connect to all the 23 legal channels in the United States. Some companies may deploy Wi-Fi networks using non-Apple base stations that allow the use of all 23 channels, as they’re more likely to be available inside buildings without hitting military and weather radar rules.
Meet AirPort Utility AirPort Utility is an app from Apple designed to help you configure your Apple base station, troubleshoot certain network problems, and apply any available firmware updates to an Apple base station. Before you set up your base station, skim the information here about viewing your network, and then follow the advice about keeping up to date. In this chapter, I talk about AirPort Utility 6 for Mac and AirPort Utility for iOS. AirPort Utility 6 for Mac runs in 10.7.5 Lion and later.
Figure 4: AirPort Utility offers a graphic depiction of your network and its interconnections. The topology represents Ethernet connections with solid lines and wireless connections with dotted lines (Figure 5).
Plug In Your Base Station and Get Started Let’s get unpacking! This chapter focuses on plugging in your base station and on launching AirPort Utility, the program that modifies a base station’s settings. (The next chapter, Set Up a Network, helps you determine which network type you want to use your base station with, and provides specific instructions for a streamlined setup.) Unpack and Power Up Unpack the base station to determine what you have and if you need any additional hardware: 1.
computer. (For now, your goal is to plug the base station in where you can set it up, though you may wish to skip ahead and read Pick the Right Place before you continue.) Now it’s time to power up. Plug your base station into an electrical outlet, and plug an Ethernet cable from your Mac into any of the three LAN ports on the Time Capsule or Extreme, or the single LAN Ethernet port on the Express.
Set Up a Network In this chapter, I look at scenarios: pairing the kind of network that you want with an explanation of how to use AirPort Utility for a basic configuration of that scenario. (At the end of this chapter, I talk about two special options, Create Separately Named 2.4 and 5 GHz Networks and Configure IPv6 Networking. Most people can skip these topics.) The next chapter helps you tweak your selection of channels and determine exactly where to place your base station.
New Network, Single Base Station In the simplest setup, where you have a single base station and are connecting it directly to a broadband modem (Figure 15), you can breeze through setup. Figure 15: A simple network connects a base station via a broadband modem to the Internet. To configure a new base station to create a new Wi-Fi network: 1. On the Mac or in iOS, select the base station as described in Connect to a New Base Station, previous chapter.
Pick the Right Place and the Right Channel This chapter helps you tune your network for optimum performance. It starts by helping you understand more about the portion of the radio frequency spectrum that your base station uses and how to determine the right channel to use in each frequency band. After that it explains how to Pick Compatibility and Set a Channel.
802.11ac, which functions only in the 5 GHz band, can employ quadruple-wide channels that use 80 MHz of spectrum. This extra width allows a more efficient radio encoding to boost data rates higher. Other Uses of the 2.4 and 5 GHz Bands The 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz bands weren’t empty before Wi-Fi networking came along. 2.4 GHz is known as a “junk band” because it’s full of approved uses that can conflict at times. Industrial sealers, for instance, use heating processes that emit 2.4 GHz radiation.
Advanced Networking Did the simplified setups explained in Set Up a Network not cover everything you needed to get up and running? In this chapter, I spell out the details for connecting a base station to a WAN and for further configuring addressing on your LAN. Advanced options are needed for networks that use static or fixed addresses, and for anything the slightest bit unusual.
Start with an Ethernet cable and plug it into the WAN port on your AirPort device. Connect the other end of the cable to the LAN port of your broadband modem, or to an Ethernet switch for a larger network. LAN vs. WAN Connecting a broadband modem to a LAN port will not connect it to the Internet. The WAN port (Figure 43, left) has a circle of gray dots above it; the LAN port (Figure 43, right) sports a dotted line with an arrow on either end. Figure 43: Left: the WAN port. Right: the LAN port.
Connect Your Devices Once you’ve set up your Wi-Fi network and connected it to the Internet, you’ll want to configure your devices to connect to the network properly, whether you’re working in your own home or helping customers with a public hotspot. Making a connection is quite simple, but configuring how a device connects may take a little thought. You might have a device connect automatically to unknown networks, or need to connect to a network that doesn’t advertise its name.
Figure 50: Mac OS X alerts you to a new network. Your Mac will automatically join any network that it’s been told to remember: it will connect when you wake it up or turn it on, when you turn Wi-Fi off and back on, when a network is turned on nearby, or even when a Wi-Fi network disappears and reappears while you’re actively using the computer. Note: The techniques described here are nearly identical to those used in Leopard and Snow Leopard.
AirPort Express Extras The AirPort Express, for its modest size and price, includes several features found in neither a Time Capsule nor an AirPort Extreme, mostly around music. The Express also hides a nifty connection option for extending a network. Stream Audio with AirPlay AirPlay is a method of streaming media from a computer or iOS device to an external output device, such as an AirPlay-compatible speaker or an Apple TV, or—most interestingly for our purposes—an AirPort Express.
Note: The second- and third-generation Apple TV can receive AirPlay mirroring from AirPlay-compatible iOS devices and from most moderns Macs. Read Take Control of Apple TV for more information. Set Up AirPlay To set up AirPlay, open AirPort Utility and edit your AirPort Express’s configuration. Click or tap the AirPlay button to see the AirPlay view (the Mac version is shown in Figure 64). Figure 64: You can set a few AirPlay options.
Connect Multiple Base Stations Wi-Fi was once described as reaching “only” about 150 feet, which is a rough estimate of the radius of older 802.11b and g devices; with 802.11n and ac, the distance is sometimes cited as longer, or just as “farther,” because it’s impossible to characterize with any precision how Wi-Fi signals will pass through any arbitrary house, office, café, airport, or store. Also, range measured as a linear dimension misstates the problem of volume, the three-dimensional space to fill.
• Add base stations wirelessly via Wireless Distribution System (WDS). This method avoids new wires, but can have severe speed limitations in comparison to Ethernet. I write “mix and match” because you can use any combination of Ethernet and WDS to build a network. Let’s start with the simpler case, which is to Add Access Points via Ethernet. After that, there’s a sidebar about Extending with HomePlug, in case you want to use your home’s electrical system in place of Ethernet.
Reach Your Network Remotely When you share an Internet connection among one or more computers on a local network using private addresses, you give up having an easy way to connect from the outside world to a service, like a Web server or fileserver, that’s located on one of those local computers.
with port mapping without requiring any special configuration on a computer or a base station. This option works only when the software you’re using is aware of NAT-PMP and can talk to the base station using this protocol, and when you have a publicly reachable IP address assigned to your base station. You can find out more in Punch Through with NAT-PMP.
Set Up a Shared Printer With a base station set up to handle local computers and hooked into the Internet, your next step may be to attach a printer to the base station so that it can be shared among all the local computers. In this chapter, I explain how to set up a base station for an attached printer using either a USB or a wireless connection, and how Add a Shared Printer in Mac OS X and Add a Shared Printer in Windows.
To make the connection: 1. Select a base station in AirPort Utility for Mac. 2. Choose Base Station > Add WPS Printer. 3. In the Add WPS Printer dialog (Figure 79), select PIN if your printer has a PIN or First Attempt if it will accept any available network. Click Continue. Figure 79: The Add WPS Printer dialog lets you pick how to connect a WPS printer to the network. 4. Depending on what you selected, you will see: ‣ PIN: Enter the PIN provided, and click Continue.
Set Up a Shared USB Disk The AirPort Extreme and the Time Capsule both add an interesting option to a network: they can share disks across a network without those disks being attached to a computer. Both models can accept one or more external drives plugged in via USB or via a USB hub; the Time Capsule also includes a non-removable internal drive.
Prepare Your Drive The Time Capsule’s internal drive comes preformatted, so it should be ready to go, but it can be erased to its pristine state through AirPort Utility (see Erase, ahead). You must format attachable disks before you connect them to the base station, using either the Mac HFS+ format, or the FAT16 or FAT32 (MS-DOS) formats. Each partition on a disk becomes a separately available shared volume.
Share Files with AirDrop Have you ever wanted to swap a file between a couple of your own computers without setting up file sharing and mounting a volume? Or pass a file to a friend or colleague without joining a common Wi-Fi network, setting up ad-hoc networking, or emailing it? AirDrop is a solution to that common problem. Added in 10.7 Lion, the feature lets you find and share files with other users near you.
base station network and use ad hoc networking at the same time. And, finally, you still have to establish a file-sharing connection on top of the ad hoc network. AirDrop eliminates all that. Click a button in the Finder, and an AirDrop window opens showing all available peers in the vicinity. Drop a file (or files) into the AirDrop window, and it’s done. The process is equally simple on the receiving end.
Secure Your Network If you use a wired network in your home, someone would have to break into your house, plug into your Ethernet switch, and then crouch there in the dark to capture data passing over your network. Wireless networks have no such protection: anyone with an antenna sensitive enough to pick up your radio signals can eavesdrop on traffic passing over your network. This could be a neighbor, someone in a parked car, or a nearby business.
for a computer on the network—which forces that computer to reconnect—the cracker can grab the network’s name. So you cannot rely on closing your network for any real security. Although I discourage bothering with a closed network, here’s how to set one up: 1. In AirPort Utility (Mac or iOS), select and edit your base station, and then: ‣ On a Mac: Click the Wireless button and then the Wireless Options button; then select the Create Hidden Network checkbox.
Overcome Interference A frustrating part of Wi-Fi networking is that you can’t control your “air space.” All too often, neighboring Wi-Fi networks and other emitters cause reception problems in areas that otherwise would have good reception. If your network’s performance varies by time of day or even by the minute, the ideas in this chapter may help you identify the problem. Do Some Basic Testing What you test for varies by band.
For 5 GHz: • Check whether you have 5.8 GHz cordless phones. • See whether a wireless ISP might be broadcasting over 5 GHz in your area. Most wISPs are using the 5.8 GHz section of the 5 GHz band. (If that’s the case note the second bullet item in the solutions for cordless phones, below.) Try a Solution Here are ideas for solving some of the problems noted just previously. If cordless phones are the culprit: • Buy new cordless phones that use a band that doesn’t interfere with your Wi-Fi network.
Appendix A: Configuration Files You can export the current state of your base station configuration to a file that can be imported later, to the same base station or to a different one. This is useful when you want to create a model configuration with the same network name, password, and other details, and then use it to configure many base stations. To export a configuration: 1. In AirPort Utility for Mac, select the base station and click Edit. 2.
access to local computers; DHCP reservations for assigning addresses to local computers; and miscellaneous other settings. Figure 96: Select settings to import. 4. Select the options you want to import, and click OK. 5. Click Update to apply the imported profile’s settings. Once the file is imported, the settings replace your current base station settings.
Appendix B: Setting up a Software Base Station You can use a Mac equipped with a Wi-Fi adapter card not just as a client on a Wi-Fi network, but also as a base station. In this appendix, I explain how to set up a software base station in 10.5 Leopard and later, as well as how to use Ad Hoc Networking, which has some elements in common with software base stations.
Frequency 10.7 Lion was the first release of Mac OS X that allows you to select either a 2.4 GHz or 5 GHz channel for use with a software base station. You can pick any 2.4 GHz channel, as well as 5 GHz channels 36, 40, 44, and 48. (These channels vary by country.) Apple is offering only 4 of the 8 channels available in its dedicated base stations, which are just 8 of the 23 legal channels in the United States.
Appendix C: Channels Explained The ins and outs of channels used in each band have wound up in this appendix, as you may need to know the details only when something goes wrong—or you may be among the more technically inclined readers who want to know more about the technical minutiae of Wi-Fi. In this appendix, you can learn about why the 2.4 and 5 GHz channels are organized the way they are, and what happened to 15 missing 5 GHz channels. Channels in 2.
See Pick Compatibility and Set a Channel, earlier, to learn how to set your base station’s channel in AirPort Utility. 2.4 GHz Channels In the United States, 802.11 standards can use any of 11 numbered, staggered channels in the 2.4 GHz band (Figure 103). Because these channels are staggered and overlap, only channels 1, 6, and 11 in the United States can be used in networks that overlap their coverage area, assuming you want the least interference. (In some countries, the 2.
Appendix D: What and Where Is a MAC Address? The MAC, or Media Access Control, address is a unique, factoryassigned address for every Ethernet and Wi-Fi adapter. A MAC address consists of six two-digit hexadecimal numbers separated by colons, such as 0C:F2:33:01:02:FC. (Hexadecimal, or hex, is the base 16 number system, with values running from 0 to 9, and then from A to F for 10 to 15.
Figure 104: View the base station’s MAC addresses by hovering over the name. Or in AirPort Utility for iOS, select the base station icon and then tap Hardware Info. Devices connected to a base station via Wi-Fi: In AirPort Utility for Mac, select the base station and hover over a connected device’s name in the Wireless Clients list (Figure 105). The Name shows either the value entered in the Network preference pane in Mac OS X or a Bonjour name.
About This Book Thank you for purchasing this Take Control book. We hope you find it both useful and enjoyable to read. We welcome your comments. Ebook Extras You can access extras related to this ebook on the Web. Once you’re on the ebook’s Take Control Extras page, you can: • Download any available new version of the ebook for free, or buy a subsequent edition at a discount. • Download various formats, including PDF, EPUB, and Mobipocket. (Learn about reading on mobile devices on our Device Advice page.
About the Author Glenn Fleishman is owner and editor of The Magazine, a fortnightly subscriber-supported, ad-free electronic periodical for curious people with a technical bent. He hosts a podcast about fundamental changes in the economy of making art and making things, The New Disruptors. Glenn also writes for the Economist’s Babbage blog, and he is a regular contributor to the publication’s print edition.
About the Publisher Publishers Adam and Tonya Engst have been creating Apple-related content since they started the online newsletter TidBITS in 1990. In TidBITS, you can find the latest Apple news, plus read reviews, opinions, and more. Adam and Tonya are known in the Apple world as writers, editors, and speakers. They are also parents to Tristan, who has reached the age where he can read, understand, and find mistakes in the Take Control series.
Copyright and Fine Print Take Control of Your Apple Wi-Fi Network ISBN: 978-1-61542-438-2 Copyright © 2014, Glenn Fleishman. All rights reserved. TidBITS Publishing Inc. 50 Hickory Road Ithaca, NY 14850 USA Take Control electronic books help readers regain a measure of control in an oftentimes out-of-control universe. Take Control ebooks also streamline the publication process so that information about quickly changing technical topics can be published while it’s still relevant and accurate.
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