I've set up my base stations with 128 bit WEP security but the D-Link router shows considerable activity on the WLAN light even when I know no one in the family is connected. Is this just network "overhead" or is someone accessing the network from outside?

Are there any tools for sniffing your network to detect who is connected? It may be innocuous and I haven't noticed any cars parked nearby with half naked drivers, but I'd like to know what's going on.

As an aside, it seems that there are many ways to set up a home network using an Airport Express and many are suboptimal. WDS sounds like a great way to extend your network except that it cuts throughput by significant amounts (proportional to the number of Expresses on the network). This is possibly one reason why the Express only works with 802.11g wireless basestations.

I'm not sure about that model of router, but for my Netgear in the web configuration (@ 192.168.0.1) there's a tab on the side that tells me all the connected computers and their IPs.

I'd suspect your router would have something similar if it has a web based config.

jwoodget - For seeing whom is on your network check out NMapFE. It does way more then you want, but for finding out everyone who is on the network (even if they have a firewall or are in stealth mode) simply tell NMapFE to do the following:

For scan type choose Stealth FIN.
For host just enter 192.168.1.* (or if your router uses the 192.168.0.x scheme enter 192.168.0.*)

Then press scan. It will then tell you what computers are connected to your network, and will also bring back a list of ports open.

If you want to you can also identify the OS each node is operating by selecting OS detection, however it takes longer for the process to occur.

Lastly you can ignore any occurances at x.x.x.255 and x.x.x.0 as they are addresses that are not used except for broadcasts.

Almost any router I can think of has a DHCP table listing what computers (usually by their name, MAC address or both) are connected and to what IP address.

A lot of routers can use MAC address registration to limit who can access your network, also.

you might want to read through this similar topic, it has some info that you may find useful. [img]smile.gif[/img]

- Ptrix

Topic: Secure Wireless on a "across the street" level

Thanks all. I guess I should make a list of all the MAC addresses of our machines. I'll also check out NMapFE Chealion. Can never have too much information.... and anything that is not running OS X on our home network is not ours [img]smile.gif[/img]