[SOLVED] WPS on wifi router

[triplemaya]

Bought a Tenda AC5 wireless router to serve half of the house. Connected to a new sky broadband router by rj45. Followed WPS instructions to get it to mirror the sky router but it does not work. So I am left with two wireless router signals and I have to switch between them.
When I used a homeplug repeater this did what I expected, and mirrored the sky ID. Only one signal as far as the laptop was concerned.
Am I right in thiking the Tenda should do the same? It says "Wireless Repeating" on the box.
So my question is, is this item faulty?

 

[kanewolf]

Bought a Tenda AC5 wireless router to serve half of the house. Connected to a new sky broadband router by rj45. Followed WPS instructions to get it to mirror the sky router but it does not work. So I am left with two wireless router signals and I have to switch between them.
When I used a homeplug repeater this did what I expected, and mirrored the sky ID. Only one signal as far as the laptop was concerned.
Am I right in thiking the Tenda should do the same? It says "Wireless Repeating" on the box.
So my question is, is this item faulty?

First WPS should be disabled on all network hardware. It is very insecure.
You want the AC5 configured as an access point since you have a wired connection back to your primary router.
The manual for the v3 AC5 router says that there is an "Operating Mode" of AP. That would be the proper configuration for a wired connection back to the primary router.
Then manually set the SSIDs and passwords to match the primary router. There is no guarantee that a device will choose the AC5 vs the primary router. That choice is made by the device and not the network hardware.

 

[triplemaya]

HI Kanewolf

Many thanks. Problem solved. I did not know to look for 'access point'.

I have been struggling with homeplugs for ages and this is a vastly superior solution - and much cheaper! The AC5 is only 19.95.

This: "Then manually set the SSIDs and passwords to match the primary router." was particularly helpful as I was not sure to do that.

Very grateful for your expert help.

 

[triplemaya]

ps I disabled the wps on my sky router, no problem. Does not seem to be any way to do this on the Tenda interface. Should I be concerned?

 

[kanewolf]

ps I disabled the wps on my sky router, no problem. Does not seem to be any way to do this on the Tenda interface. Should I be concerned?

It is a significant security hole. This may be why the Tenda is $20... I would recommend you get a better device. An Asus RT-AC68U on E-Bay is not a lot more expensive but is much better embedded software.

 

[triplemaya]

Thanks again kanewolf. I'm learning! Over here the Asus RT-AC68 is £100, but I will get something better than the Tenda.

 

[bill001g]

This is actually very strange that the tenda does not have the option to disable WPS. The WPS function is actually done in the wifi radio chip and all the main cpu/router os can do is request the wifi chip to turn if off and on. Tenda does not make the wifi chipset and use the same chipset as many other routers so the ability to turn off WPS exists but for whatever reason they choose to not give you a option to send the command to the wifi radio. Not sure why but these low end brands tend to cut features to make the support easier.

The vast majority of routers have the ability to disable WPS, I just wish this was the default but it seems all the lazy people in this world have more influence.

If you are looking at new routers tplink tends to be inexpensive but has good support and a router software with a lot of features.

 

[triplemaya]

Thanks. TP Link do one that looks ok.

But googling for significant security hole wps I found this:

"the only way to patch the security hole is to turn WPS off, but even then some routers still might be vulnerable as they may still response to PIN queries"

Article here:

https://www.ciscopress.com/articles/article.asp?p=1847302.

Would you consider that the Sky hub is therefore inherently vulnerable anyway? Because in that case there seems little point in going to lenghs to get rid of the WPS on the router.

 

[bill001g]

Watch the dates that is very old information that was patched. Even the main risk is much less, almost all routers have implemented a slow down method so you only get so many pin guessing per minute and then they reject all requests for a while. It now takes much longer....ie maybe a couple hours rather than a couple minutes to crack WPS

 

[triplemaya]

Thanks again Titan. For now I imagine I am a target of zero significance but this is all very good learning.

 

[bill001g]

real hackers are not really using WPS much there is little to steal from your average home user. It is more the "smart" kids whose parents are using something like parental controls to limit their internet access so they try to bypass it by using a neighbors internet connection. It is still best to always have WPS disabled just to avoid any risk, unfortunately some devices like smart lights can only be connected using WPS. Many times you can turn the WPS on connect the device and then turn the feature back off on the router. This mostly works but some device you need to re-pair using WPS every time they loose power. It is so unfortunate that features that compromise security for everyone are left in software to accommodate the stupid and lazy people.

 

[triplemaya]

Thanks again. No problematic teens living living within range of my wifi at the mo. But all this info is a very considerable help for future purchases.