Setting Up the Network

Configuring Your Network

Now, we get to the fun part! Up to this point, we've run the wires (and/or configured your wireless connections) and hooked the underlying network together to your switch, router and/or WAP. We have link lights (or the equivalent) on every wired and wireless device. (Right?) Even with all that, we so far have only provided a stable medium - for the wired network anyway - upon which the network can communicate. We (may) still need to configure each device on the network in order for them to listen to each other.

A wireless network has an additional step that a wired network does not. To connect to devices on a wired network, only the proper cable is required. A wireless network uses radio wave rather than a cable as the transmission medium. The wireless transceivers used in both the WAP and Wireless Ethernet Adapters must be configured before the standard configuration can be done. That's the topic of this and the next several sections.If you are trying to configure wireless network equipment - especially if the equipment is not from the same manufacturer - you may need to skip ahead to the section on the configuration of the wireless equipment.