Wi-Fi networks rely on allowing trusted devices and users on your network and each device remaining on that network. If you want to give guests access to your Wi-Fi network, you must share or disable security measures. Not ideal. How do you securely share your wireless network?
Tip 01: Secure WiFi
MAC filtering and encryption are the two most important measures to secure a Wi-Fi network. The first ensures that only known devices (whose hardware address, the so-called MAC address, is included in a special whitelist of the router) can connect to the network and the encryption ensures that only devices that know the correct code. , can also read the information shared over the network.
Together, MAC filtering and encryption ensure that devices that are not listed in the MAC filter or do not know the key cannot use the Wi-Fi connection. If you have visitors over and you want them to be able to use your Wi-Fi network, you either have to remove the security, or you have to share the encryption code with them and include their devices in the list of trusted devices. Disabling the security is really inadvisable, while sharing the code is not wise because they can continue to use it after they leave.
Tip 02: Guest access
The easiest way to give guests access to the internet is with a separate guest Wi-Fi connection, which still runs on the same router as your own wireless network. Some routers offer this option. Check the manual or the website of the manufacturer of your router to see if it offers guest access. If yes, please login to the router, go to the option Guest access or Guest network (or similar wording) and enable it.
Choose an SSID (name of a wireless network) that when you name it is clearly intelligible and does not contain a difficult string of numbers and letters. For example '4Gusten' (for guests) or 'BijOnsThuis'. Do the same with the password: don't make this too easy, but make sure it's easy to pronounce and then there's no doubt how you write it or your guests will quickly make typos.
Tip 03: Connecting
As soon as you get the question from your guests whether they can connect to your WiFi network, from now on you give them the special guest name of the network and the corresponding password. This password is not the password of the encryption, but it is necessary to actually be able to access the internet after connecting. The guest network has a so-called 'walled garden': as soon as a connection has been made to the network, a browser must be opened and the password must be entered there.
After that, the visitor has access to the Wi-Fi network and the internet. Their connection is also really limited to internet access, from the guest network it is not possible to connect further to your own home network.
Test the security
Before you actually share the guest network with guests, it is important to test its security. You want to be sure that the users of the guest network can do nothing but access the internet. Therefore, use your own notebook to connect to the guest network.
Then open the web page and enter the password. Now you are connected to the guest network. Then open via Start the Command Prompt and enter the command ipconfig /all from. The notebook should now have a different IP address in a different IP range than the computers that are also connected to this router, but in the real home network (wired or wireless). For example, your own devices have IP range 192.168.1.x and devices on the guest network have the range 192.168.3.x. Try pinging a computer or NAS on the home network. You should always get the error message 'Timeout at assignment'. Finally, you can use the command tracert (followed by an IP address on the home network). That shouldn't work either, timeout again.
Tip 04: It shouldn't be like this
If your own router does not support a guest network, you can create a guest network with a second router. This is a bit more difficult, especially since you now have to make sure that the home network is not accessible to the users of the guest network! This is essential and requires the routers to be paired properly. You can also do it wrong and then the entire home network is accessible to all users of the guest network, and you don't want that.
To start, make a sketch of the current network. Note the Internet connection, modem, router, wireless access point, and IP addresses used. Modem, router and wireless access point can be one and the same device, but they don't have to be. Now think about how you will place the second router and which of the routers you will use for the guest network. It is essential that the home network is configured on its own router and that the guest network router NOT connected to a LAN port of that home network router.
