Sneak a wireless router into school

wingzeroismine

Hey, a friend of mine wants to put a wireless router into our senior lounge, so anyone with a wireless networked laptop or someone with a network cable could connect to the school network and get to the internet (the part that isn't blocked by our school). What I want to know, will plugging a wireless router into the network jack that is there work? And while I'm thinking, is there any actual difference between a wireless access point, and a wireless router? If so is it an access point that is needed?

JackTheStripper

Yes, but I bet that network jack goes through the router which has filters.

wingzeroismine

Yes, a router would work? And yes.. the network has filters to prevent students from getting to some websites. But that's overlookable... just want to get whatever access we can, and access to the network drives would be nice, but I can figure out how to map to those.

Duff

I think the router would work, assuming you disable the router features such as DHCP etc. so they don't conflict with the school network routers.

~Duff

wingzeroismine

Yeah, I was thinking I'd have to disable all router related features... reducing it to an access point... If a router can do more then an AP, why are the routers so much cheaper?

SurfinShell23

So they can rip off people who think they just want AP's. Supply and demand.

I use my Belkin wireless router as an AP. There's an option in the config. Just write down the ip or hard reset to change stuff.

wingzeroismine

I see... well depending on what router he buys (he's aiming to be as cheap as he can be.) I'll have to see how easy it is to configure or how crappy it will be.

Anonymous

Wingzero is your school already wireless enabled?

SurfinShell23

Well my Belkin is about the cheapest available and it has the option in the config to do all of it on its own.

wingzeroismine

bob2600 wrote:

Wingzero is your school already wireless enabled?

no... if it were then we wouldn't be trying to add a router for wireless access....

Mr. Clean

you'll mayb need crossover cables to add the wireless router?

BOD

Mr. C wrote:

you'll mayb need crossover cables to add the wireless router?

Some auto detect, mine does that i think

wingzeroismine

I don't think it would need a crossover cable.. it's coming from a standard network jack (one a Cat5e cable would plug into) and going into the router (which would be like a network card....) so a regular network cable will do fine, and routers tend to come with them anyways.

SurfinShell23

Actually Clean is right. In the older days you'd need a crossover, I'd think. Or maybe not. But most are Autosensing ports now, like my Dlink router and switch hook together via a regular cat5 on any port because they autosense.

BOD

Yeh, if its two things like a hub or switch generally need a crossover, my netgear hub and 3-com router connect to each other through a normal cable but my router has autosensing

wingzeroismine

Ok... regardless of which cable it needs/can use/wants, I have both, that is of no importance. I think he is going to go out and buy some brand x piece of crap though. All I want to do now is make sure it can fry and be returned for something better after I find out it's truely a piece of crap.