Know Your Network, Lesson 2: Getting to Know Your Router’s Admin Page
Most routers come with some kind of administrative website that you access by entering their IP address in your favorite web browser and entering your username and password, which you changed from admin / admin or admin / password , right? If you’re lucky, you have a “smarter” router that’s a little easier to configure through the app, but most people (and their older, non-Wi-Fi equipment) are probably stuck on the website.
Unless the manufacturer has “light mode” built into the system, the router admin page can seem overwhelming at first glance, especially if you are not used to much of the terminology you find. Our goal today is to help you configure the most important features of your router and explain all the other details you should be aware of.
You may not need to use all the sections on your router’s admin page, but knowing what they are and where to find them will help you create the best home network you can get.
Naming your router
While this may sound trivial, there are actually a few things you need to know about router naming. To begin with, the name of your router and wireless network is different . Naming your wireless network actually names the Service Set Identifier (SSID) that the router broadcasts – what you select on your computer when you want to connect to your Wi-Fi network and go online. If you get the option to change it, the router name or the hostname is how it identifies itself to other devices on the network. SSID? Super important. Router name? Does not matter.
Basic Wi-Fi configuration and security
There are several steps you need to follow when setting up your router, and they are all very simple. First, there are a few basic setup decisions you need to make. You will usually find these settings under the Wireless tab on your router’s admin page or something similar – look for the words wireless and setup and / or settings in some combination.
Once you get there, the first thing you need to do is select an SSID. Choose any name you want; this is your wireless network. You will either be prompted to use a single SSID that will cover all of your wireless networks and your router will decide whether the devices will connect to 2.4GHz or 5GHz, or you can set separate names for each wireless network you are on. working. each group. We prefer the latter because it’s good to know what you’re connecting to, but many people choose the former for added convenience.
Give each network a strong password and in the case of this TP-Link router, that’s all you need to do for Wi-Fi to work. However, your router may have a few more options to choose from (or “advanced” mode) that might look something like this:
You don’t need to worry about configuring your router’s broadcast mode if, for whatever reason, you don’t see the highest connection type your router can theoretically support (like 802.11ac or 802.11ax). If not, make sure it allows connections from those devices.
As far as “security” is concerned, you’ll want to use WPA2, ideally WPA2-PSK with AES encryption (if you’re asked to be specific). This will allow you to install the latest and strongest security system to protect your Wi-Fi network from potential intruders, although the chances of someone getting there and trying to break into your wireless network is very low.
The Channel option is getting interesting. You can probably configure your router automatically to choose the best wireless channels to use on the 2.4 and 5 GHz bands, but you can also do a simple scan yourself and see if it makes the most sense. We’ve talked about this before and it’s easy to do. Similarly, you will probably want to have your router itself determined by the width of its channel, but if you see that it uses a 40 MHz wide channels at a frequency of 2.4 GHz – and around you there are other competing wireless networks, as well as your neighbors – you might want a nice person and manually set a friendlier value to 20 MHz. You don’t want to be the person who upsets everyone else, let alone your own devices.
Finally, if you are asked to spoil the transmission power, resist the urge to change anything.
This is it?
If you just want to get your wireless network up and running, you’re done. You are now familiar with the basics:
- Name your SSID
- Set passwords
- Correct encryption selected for your network
- Set up Wi-Fi channels (or have the router do it for you)
However, as you will see, there are many more settings you can play with on your router. Let’s touch on a few more that might be interesting to look at (or learn about).
Guest networks
While most people give out their WiFi password to friends, neighbors, and guests, you should n’t . If your router supports guest networks, you can set them up – similar to how you set up your original Wi-Fi network – which you can then use to isolate these people from devices on your real wireless network, including each other.
If you’re tired of offering free Wi-Fi, changing your password (or turning off the guest network entirely) is easy. And when you do, none of your existing devices will be harmed – only your guests. This is a great feature worth exploring if you feel like you’re using wireless connectivity.
USB sharing
Even semi-finished routers need to have USB ports that allow you to connect a device – such as a portable hard drive or printer – that can then be shared with other systems on your network. However, this is probably a feature that most people won’t bother with. Your printer can probably already connect to your network as it is; if not, you are probably using a single computer for all printing (or connect the printer via USB to whatever device you need to print from).
However, it’s worth looking into this feature if your router supports it, as it can be a convenient (and fast) way to share a compatible USB device with everyone on your network. This won’t be my top priority when setting up a new router, but it’s good to know that you can do it if you like.
Cloud access
It’s complicated. Some routers have cloud connectivity, which you can use to access your router’s settings from anywhere with an internet connection. You can even access your network devices if you need to pull a file from your home desktop to your computer at work (for example).
Most people – even those with mesh routers, which you usually configure with an app that lets you access their settings from anywhere – probably don’t have to fiddle with their router a lot after they’ve set it up. It is best not to expose your router and home network to the cloud – this is an additional security risk that is unnecessary. (You can even lock your account out with some crazy password and any two-factor authentication options offered by a particular router manufacturer, but most people are probably not that concerned about security.)
Your best bet is to use a simpler service like Google Chrome Remote Desktop to remotely access your systems or transfer files back and forth. (Remote Desktop doesn’t have file transfer built in, so you’ll have to upload the files you want to access to the cloud service.) However, this is the safer option as it is tied to your Google account and PIN. … blocked than open the router in the cloud.
Advanced settings
If you don’t see a bunch of settings that seem mysterious and vague on your router’s admin page, chances are that it has some sort of Advanced tab or mode that you can enable to see everything you can do and configure. … While most normal people probably don’t need to mess around with their router’s advanced settings (there are so many), there is a lot worth knowing about.
DNS
Somewhere in your router’s settings, you’ll probably see an option to let the router get its DNS addresses automatically – from your ISP – or use what you manually enter. This option is great. Your ISP’s DNS is probably slower (and potentially less secure / more spyware) than what you might be using. Switch to a third-party DNS provider focused on performance and privacy; this is one of the first steps we take when setting up a new router.
DHCP server
Your router should also have a list of all devices connected to it, and this list will include their IP addresses and probably their MAC addresses – a unique identifier that might look something like this: “22-33-44-55-66 – 47. ”If you ever need to track a device on your network, be sure to visit this section on your router’s admin page.
Likewise, disabling your router’s DHCP server (and disabling its firewalls) is how you turn your router into a dumber access point. It is assumed that your router does not yet have an “access point” mode that you can easily switch. Once you’ve done this, however, you can expand your network by connecting that dumb router AP to another router – probably something newer and better.
NAT
NAT stands for Network Address Translation . You probably know that you have local IP addresses that are different from IP addresses on the Internet. On your local network, they usually look like 192.168.xx or 10.0.xx, but in fact they can be anything, because they are local. NAT is what translates external IP addresses into your local network so that you can interact with people as far away as the wide Internet allows.
Port forwarding comes with this because, by default, no one from the outside can access your local machines. However, you can use port forwarding to open specific ports for specific machines on the network. For example, if you are trying to get the maximum speed for your BitTorrent, you might have to redirect ports to your boot device (probably your computer) and then tell your BitTorrent client which ports it should use to establish connections.
QoS
QoS stands for quality of service. It is designed to help you set limits on how much bandwidth (overhead, not downstream) devices on your network are consuming. In other words, QoS allows you to set rules and restrict users and services when they monopolize the bandwidth that other devices or services need.
This sounds great on paper, but in practice it may not help you much. Check your router setup to see if your priority devices are actually speeding up; if not, feel free to turn it off again.
IPv6
If your router allows you to enable IPv6 – most modern routers should do it – you should. It’s easy to use if your ISP supports it. You probably won’t see any speed bumps , but you will help maintain your network in the future. After all, we cannot all live in the IPv4 world forever.
Firmware Updates
Finally, you will want to know where you are going to update your router’s firmware. For most non-cloud routers, this is probably a manual process: you download the firmware from the manufacturer’s website, upload it to the router, and wait for it to install. If you’re lucky, your router can directly check the firmware with the manufacturer and let you know if there is anything new to download. Better yet, a router that can automatically update itself so you don’t have to worry about the process at all.
Why is it important? Upgraded firmware can provide you with new features, fix bugs, and fix obvious security holes that attackers could use to compromise your network. This is such an important task that you should even set a calendar reminder every three months or so if your router cannot update itself. It takes almost no time for this, and a little more time if you need to spend a few minutes installing a new firmware, but you don’t want to lose sight of it.
That’s it for your router’s admin page – at least the basic settings you need to be aware of. We will now take a look at the performance of your wireless router. As always, if you’re late with your lessons, you can find anything you missed in the Ultimate Know Your Net Guide .
This story was originally published in 2011 and was updated in February 2020 with more recent information.