Router Setup

OK. So, referring back to this diagram again, we are now going to set up the
router, and we're going to connect it to the internet and we're going to turn the
WiFi off. For the purposes of this initial configuration, we're also going to
connect a wired client directly to our router. And as you recall, this is not how
our final network is going to be, but we're just going to do it here briefly so
that we can configure this router.

OK folks, so what we have right here is we have our router, and we have it
connected to an outlet strip for its electricity. And, on the back of it what we
have here is we have the WAN port connected directly to the internet, and we have
the LAN port connected directly to my PC.

Now, on the back of this thing, we have some device specific information, and one
of the pieces of information is the default IP address for this router. That is
[Link], so we're going to use that to login to this device.

Now, if you have a router that was provided to you by your ISP, and for one reason
or another you don't know the IP address, I'm going to show you a way that you can
find it by issuing a command on your PC. Now, if you got your router from an ISP,
then your router may be a cable modem and this internet connection might be a
coaxial cable, or if it's a DSL device, it may be a phone line. Those are a couple
of other examples of how this can be set up. But in this example, we have an
Ethernet cable that is connecting us to the internet through my IP.

So, now what I'm going to do is login to this thing and I'm going to show you how
to configure it. So we know by looking at the bottom of our [Link] router that the
default IP address for it is [Link]. If you have a different router that
you're using, you can find what the IP address is often by looking at the back of
it, but if you can't for some reason, you can often find it by doing a simple
command in windows.

So, what I'm going to do here is go to the search field down in the lower left hand
corner here, and I'm going to type in “cmd” and that's just going to give us a
command prompt. And, in the command prompt what you can do is you can type in
“ipconfig”. And, what you'll see here is that there are a few numbers, but the one
that is generally the router on a home network is the default gateway. And here you
can see that it's [Link]

Now, we knew that already. But, if it isn't written on your router or you're having
trouble finding it for some reason, then this simple command can tell you what the
IP address is of your router on your network.

Now, what we're going to do is we're going to log into that router for the first
time. So, I'm just going to go to a web browser here, and up in the browser's
address field I'm going to type in that address. And, right away up in the address
field here, you'll notice that this is not a secure connection. And, specifically
what's happening here is that the traffic is not being encrypted, and that is
really not good. And, I will show you how easy it is to pick this password out of
your network in a later video. Right now, we're just gonna set up this router.
Because it's the first time that we've logged into it, it's going to ask you for a
new password, so type in something that you're gonna remember. I'm just gonna type
in something simple. I actually want to be able to show it to you in a later video
when we pull this password right out of our network traffic because it isn't being
encrypted.
And, it's telling me that it's not a very good password -- this yellow right here.
And, as an aside, it's actually pretty hilarious that this device is giving us
feedback about the strength of our password while it is passing it through our
network in plain text. But, oh well. We are going to move on here and deal with
that later. For the moment, I'm just gonna submit that password and there we go:
the unit is up and running.

Now, what we're going to do is we're going to turn the wireless off. In fact, the
only thing we're doing with this router right now is turning the wireless off.
Everything else about it is already how we want it by default, and pretty much
every home router is going to be. And, we want to turn the 2.4 gigahertz WiFi off.
And, and we also want to turn the 5 gigahertz WiFi off. Every WiFi router I have
ever encountered has had the functions available to turn the wireless antennas off,
and that is what I have just done here.

So now these antennas are off and you should not be able to find them if you do a
search of your local wireless signals. So I actually did this test. As I was
toggling these wireless switches to the off position, I was also doing a wireless
site survey on my phone and recording it. And, as you can see, as I was toggling
the switches for the two wireless signals to the off position, those signals were
also disappearing from the site survey.

So, it's good to do that test to make sure that the router is actually updating.
So, we've turned off the wireless antennas and we don't need to be logged into this
thing anymore, so we can log out and it's gonna take us back to the page where we
can type in our password and pass it over our network unencrypted. I was honestly a
little surprised to see that these devices default to that, but it's not as
uncommon as you might think, even in brand new devices. So, I'm gonna show you what
to do about that, but for now we're just gonna move on with setting up this
network.

Ok, so referring back to our diagram one more time, we now have our network
configured like this: we have our router, it is connected to the internet; we have
the wireless turned off; and, we have a wired client connected to it. So, what I'm
gonna do now is just disconnect the PC.

So, going back to our [Link] unit here, I am just going to disconnect the plug
that goes to the PC. And, that is actually going to bring us back to this state,
and that is actually the first part of our network: the router with the wireless
turned off connected to the internet.

So, that is it. We are done setting up our router. The next step is to set up our
switch, but we're going to do that in the next video. So I will see you there.